Aussie DIY budget build

[spectral]

Spectral's garage build

Hey everyone, welcome to my build thread.

Current Photo:

Original First Post:




Firstly, a small bit of background information about me. I’m a nerd by trade, and about to knock on the door of 40. Unusually for my professional, I am blessed with a knack for mechanical ability and have always had a passion for working on machinery of all shapes and sizes.

I used to have the man-cave I always wanted. A high-bay 9mx7m workshop on a nice acreage property about 2 hours west of Brisbane, Australia. Beautiful spot, however my wife wanted to move back to Brisbane (capital of our state) to be close to family.

Here is the old garage - I built a Westfield Lotus 7 replica in it.. good times:

Unfortunately, moving to suburbia means a down-sizing of man-spaces, so reluctantly (for me), we found a house we like on a suburban block. It had a solid 6mx3mx2.4m single garage in the back corner. No power, no water. This was going to be a big adjustment!

So I went from the above, to this mess! :

One of the things that bugged me the most about it, was that it was impossible to get anything sizeable into the garage, with about 8m of rubbishy garden in front of it. No power meant running an extension cord from the house. Hardly ideal. Things had to change.

 

[spectral]

I’ve always loved working with my father. He is one of those guys that has built a house with his bare hands. His skill with timber is excellent and its one of my fondness memories of growing up and even to this day, working alongside him on a project. Father son bonding.
He is now 65 years old, and is starting to slow down a little bit. I believe in the next 5-10 years, that can only go in one direction, so I’ve been looking for that “final” project for us to work on together while we can. I will then treasure and enjoy it with him for as long as we can.

When I was looking to expand my garage from the single above, I had a option of replacing it with a 6x6m double steel standard “shed”, which I’m sure I could erect in 2 weekends work and be done for around $8000 including slab extension. But would I have pride in it? Even though I loved my previous setup in the country, I wasn't a fan of the "tin shed" anymore. It quickly became apparent I wanted a bespoke garage, something to make the most use of space, and warmth and “love” in its construction…. as it will very likely be the last major project for my father and I to work together on.

My plan is to remove the 6mx3mx2.4m shed, install it at my father’s house (in turn replacing an rundown zincalume horror)… and then extending to a 6.5mx7mx3m oversize double garage. The building will match the house as closely as possible in cladding, size and quality. This building will add value to the house. Along with a new driveway and a great interior, I hope to have it as a good place for to have the boys over and watch football and drink beer.

Here is the plan:

 

[spectral]

OK, lets get cracking.
From a design point of view, I wanted windows looking out into the garden, plus another looking up to the house. I only wanted single door access, as I have a 2 car garage up the top of the property to house our daily drivers. I wanted to build it high enough so I can slot in a 4 post parking hoist if I wish down the track. Likewise, I wanted a small eave over the front of the structure so I could have the main door up still if its raining. After playing around, I came up the above. Looks quite simple, but the style matches the house (even the roof pitch). Please excuse my dodgy CAD work!

The first job however, is a driveway down to the shed. The one concession my wife demanded was that her frangipani tree had to stay put. OK. However this works well for me, as I only want a single vehicle access into the garage, and that tree does look fantastic in bloom.

Here are some photos of the site. The excavator work is a half day exercise and concrete will be poured the next day after that weather permitting. I built the retaining wall around the driveway using treated pine sleepers. The new garage will come out a further 500mm via a slab extension (doweled into existing). The extra 500mm will be great for moving around in the garage when a car is parked (and can have storage / benches on the back wall). The garage will be 7m wide, so a further 4m than current. I will have to loose the tall green tree.

Here is the site ready for the excavator:

Here is the driveway poured. The access is 2.5m wide besides the house, so it can be a tight fit. I wouldn’t be able to get a car trailer down there, that’s for sure, but my 4x4 and 7’x5’ box trailer are no worries as long as you are careful 

Next it was time to pull down the single garage, and box things up ready for the slab extension:

 

[spectral]

I decided to use a steel stud frame wall.

I choose steel for its anti-termite and rot properties. Termites are a massive problem in this area of Australia and most houses built more than 20 years ago before they got smart seem to have at least a couple of outbreaks in their history.

Any, no such issue for this building, there will be very little (if any) timber used in the construction. I used a local “Endurofab” reseller to produce the pre-fabbed frames and trusses. They come with structural approval for council and should go up fairly easily. I ordered the frames and trusses, and was told a 4 week wait.

The frames arrived on schedule and we wasted not a lot of time getting the first 4 up. It took us around half a day, as we were working out what part was what and also had some pretty dodgy weather as well.

Each section is “held” together with around 8 Tek screws, but after all the bracing, panelling, trusses are added there will be a lot more rigidity. So this is just to hold it all up for now.

The frames are nice to work with, certainly a lot straighter than your average timber truss and pre-fab frame. The manufacturing process is very accurate.

On day two we got the rest of the frames up and 2 trusses. They use an “interesting” tie down method that looks a bit shady to me personally, but it has met/exceeded all wind and loading requirements. I’ll comment again when all the bracing and roofing is it, but there certainly is a bit of movement in it at the moment!

On day 3 we got the rest of the trusses and 80% of the roofing iron on. This went slower than expected as with only 2 guys, and limited ladders of sufficient height, there was a lot of up and down. In hindsight I should have just hired better equipment.

 

[Playwme]

Nice looking Lotus. What engine are you running?

Shed looks like it'll be a corker too. I like bespoke. Have you maxed out the available space?

 

[spectral]

After getting all the roofing iron on, it was time to stick the underlay for the external cladding on. I will be using a PVC/Vinyl cladding to match the house.

I’m using fibre-cement all round as the underlay. Some people use ply, however given this will be a lengthy build (budget and time reason), I didn’t want the pressure of having to quickly cover up the underlay, as ply will probably not last the season without starting to degrade.

With fibre-cement, I can leave it on the outside as long as I want to. I wanted to get the structure as water tight as possible quickly so I can start storing some tools / equipment in there.

So we spent a Saturday cladding the southern and eastern sides. The black plastic is a flashing to stop water running down the top sheet, and into the “inside” of the lower sheets. My father told me that it was better to run them vertically, but since I had already purchase the fibre cement in shorter than eave height we would have had to join them anyway

The next day we cladding the northern and western sides. I purchased the right lengths (3.0m) this time, and it went up a lot quicker and neater. This stuff was also pre-primed (you can see the blue paint), which while not a huge advantage, can potentially protect it a bit better down the track.

Here is how it looking after all the underlay is done.

Next will be windows and pedestrian door. This need to occur before I apply the cladding.

 

[hewey]

Looking forward to following your build. I really like it when guys take the effort to make their sheds look better than a standard tin box and match it to their house.

 

[spectral]

Nice looking Lotus. What engine are you running?

Shed looks like it'll be a corker too. I like bespoke. Have you maxed out the available space?

Hi, the Westfield ran a 4AGE 20V motor from a JDM Toyota Sprinter.
And yep, hopefully the shed will turn out well. The space is the most I can fit, both in height (council restriction of 3.5m average height), and floor space (wife set that as the limit of garden I can use up!)

Looking forward to following your build. I really like it when guys take the effort to make their sheds look better than a standard tin box and match it to their house.

Cheers thanks!

Sorry some of the photos are a little dark.. I always seem to take them at the end of a day's work.. so nearly night time!

 

[spectral]

Next up was trying to get the thing watertight, or close to it.

I was excited this, as I was tired of having all my tools and gear spread throughout various parts of my house. Always losing stuff !!

I had budgeted a smaller than usual amount for windows and doors, as I was hoping to pick up some secondhand bargains.

I actually got lucky and got a nice western red cedar door that was installed in a display home for about 12 months. These are normally $350 or so at least, so was happy to get it for $150.

It was a very easy install. 45min job. Only awkward part was when I didn’t have a lot of room between studs and tried to get the screws to self drill.. kept slipping. We got there in the end though.

We moved onto the windows next. As I ordered the frames before the windows, I had allowed a 1250x1250 gap. Again, I was hunting for a bargain, and found 3 x 1250x1000 aluminium windows for $90 each, about 50% of normal price.

I had to build new window supports into the frame to take up the vertical space, however in hindsight, this was a good move anyway, as it lets me have a higher workbench under the windows, previously it was much too low.

Besides the new frame, the windows went in perfectly. We had to build timber reveals around them, which added to the cost, but overall, still well under what new ones would have been.

Here is the shed with the pedestrian door and the windows in:

Lastly was the roller door – and probably the trickiest one to install. Like the windows, when ordering the frames, I had to “guess” the size of the roller door opening.

I went for 2800mmx2800mm as I wanted a decent height to get a large 4WD with roof racks/camping gear in, and wide enough to easily drive/back into.

Again, I was on the hunt for a bargain, and with decent roller doors in that size going for around $1000, a couldn’t resist a 2665Wx3100H one brand new on ebay for $250. So I had to adjust my opening down to around 2600, length was of course fine, the remainder is on the roll still.

Only issue was the colour, it was a Shale Grey, and I would have preferred something darker.. but for the price, I couldn’t complain. I got it up on the brackets with a bit of creative lifting and bolted it down. Suprisingly easy really.

However I did notice several small dints in the door - so much for “as new” condition!! Grrr. I was going to contact the seller, but seeing as I carried it home on the roof of my 4WD and installed it myself, I knew he would just say that I had damaged it. Oh well. Later on I might try to knock them out gently from the inside.

I will add a header frame to cover up as much as the gap as possible.

I’m not looking for “air tight”, but I don’t want dust/leaves/**** blowing in either. I think I will use a bristle seal like this : http://www.chillerblinds.co.uk/products_files/p1010657.jpg

Other than that, all the windows and doors are now complete!

 

[spectral]

One of the things that has been annoying me while building the garage is that I don’t have a good workbench.

From measuring, cutting, grinding or anything, working on the concrete floor is a pain in the neck. As is working on 2 wobbly sawhorses which were my other option!


I have always wanted a solid wooden top workbench with a steel frame… so I had a good look around locally and found a bloke that had knocked down his 30 year old pergola made of some sort of hardwood. I took a punt and for $100 I got around 30 linear meters of 165mm x 45mm.

I say “took a punt”, as it was basically sight unseen, and was covered in ugly red paint.. very thickly.

Anyway, I loaded it up on the roof of the Prado, and at least I knew I was getting solid hardwood… there was about 200kg in it at least!
I took it around to my bosses workshop, and we ran the thicknesser over each length to take off the roughness and the paint (they were rough sawn from the mill 30 years ago). All I can say is wow. The quality was amazing.

Turns out (my boss is a “timber guy”), that the timber is an Australian Hardwood called Ironbark and is as hard as they come. The colour was just beautiful. He commented that he would have paid $300+ for that timber at a recycling yard, so at least I got a bargain!

Now with all the lengths at exactly 43mm thickness, I quickly welded the end frames from spare 75x50x2mm RHS and then coach screwed them to the timber planks. This will be an island bench in the middle of the garage that is on lockable castor wheels. It will be my main working bench for everything except greasy/oil work and welding. The thing is solid.. probably about 100kg or more there!

I'll soon mount the castor wheels, and then give it a coat of epoxy that is used in the marine industry to give it a nice durable finish. The timber is very hard on its own already though.

Given I've only used about 20% of the timber I purchase, I will add to this by running 3.5m lengths (x 4) thickness along the back wall as the general “counter”, that will have my grinder, sander and vices setup on it. I will also eventually build cupboard doors for storage under long bench as well.

Anyway, now I have somewhere to least work on without hurting my back. Later on I will add cupboards/doors to it to make it more usable, but for now, it does the job of getting me off the floor.

 

[grease_monkey]

I like the new setup!

 

[Briggs]

Great looking locost. Im in the process of building one myself. If you aren't on the sight check out locostusa.com.

 

[hewey]

Love that workbench! Will look great finished up.

 

[1/2 Cup]

Wow, great build and fantastic work bench, well done.

 

[dave from downunder]

Re: Spectral's garage build

Nice make spectral I live in Tasmania mate those frames from "endurofab " can you give some more photos of the frame and what costs are involved . Considering the before and after you have done a marvelous job and I dare say kept the wife happy . Got to be happy with that mate cheers
Dave


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Bib Overalls]

I like that bench (a lot). Don't let your wife see it until you have it covered up with project clutter. Otherwise you will be eating your dinner off it in the house.

 

[spectral]

Thanks everyone. Yes the wife is eyeing off the rest of the timber for some new furniture

Dave: Some details of the frames are here : http://enduroframe.com.au/manufacturing/ENDUROFRAME_building_system

The pricing is pretty good around $3000 inc frame assembly and delivery for my 7mx6.5mx3.0m. That also includes the engineering drawings, roof battens, tie downs and a decent supply of tek screws (not enough though ) You can save around $250 by getting all the steel lengths loose if you prefer, but I thought it was money well spent, as it all turned up very straight and square.

 

[spectral]

Now that the windows and doors are all in, I was able to start with the external cladding to the garage. This is the stage I’m most looking forward to as it will really complete the exterior.

I had budgeted $3000 for the cladding based upon a supply only quote from the same company that had clad our house 5-6 years earlier. I had made some phone calls, and found a wholesaler that was running out an old colour at less than half price. It was a pretty close match to the house.

As a result, all the cladding came in at around $1100. Combined with the underlay, the total expenditure was less than $2000. The colour is slightly lighter than the cladding on the house, but since there is around 12 metres between the house and the garage, I don’t think it will be too noticeable unless you are looking for it… (that said, it may really bug me.. I’m not sure!! :S)

Here is the start of the front wall! Its super easy to install and handle.

The only tricky part here is cutting to shape around windows and doors, however the material is easy to cut, so its not like trimming steel or tin.

By the end of the day we had the front and about 30% of the side wall done. Only about 4-5 hours work, there was wasted time around the apex of the roof as the tree is in the way of the ladder position, so a bit fiddly. Plus there was about 4 beverage breaks plus lunch. If I was on the clock, I'd fire myself for being slack

Anywhere, here is how it looks now:

We also trimmed out the roller door a bit better, looks a lot neater now.

We are now pretty much up to date with this thread, so more content will normally only come after a weekend's work.

Over the next 2 weekends we will finish the cladding and hopefully put the barge caps and eave lining (going for decking boards stained to match the pedestrian door).

That will pretty much finish the exterior, and then we move inside for electrical and general fitout.

 

[1/2 Cup]

Wow, looks fantastic.

 

[F3ARED]

Hey mate,

About the dents in the roller door, I was told of a trick the PDR guys occasionally use to pop dents out. Might work on your door, might not but its worth a shot. Basically what you do is heat up the dented area using a heatgun, obviously taking care not to make it red hot otherwise you'll burn the colour on it. Then once hot grab a wet cloth and some dry ice, put the wet cloth over the dent and then hold the dry ice in the area of the dent [obviously the cloth between the dry ice and the metal]. Metal has some memory so with any luck it should hopefully pop back into place.

Tapping it from behind with a dolly or a hammer will most likely result in cracking the paint on the other side.

Cheers

Nick

 

[dr_obson]

Mate congratulations this is a top shed!
There's a few really good Aussie builds on here at the moment im definatley subscribing to this one as well.

Fit out is my favourite part looking forward to it, especially if its on par with that work bench you made.

Dane

 

[HOTFR8]

Great looking shed but you must get rid of the power cord through the window. I take the wiring is yet to be done. Keep up the good work and post more photos as you can.

 

[spectral]

Thank you for the kind comments everyone. I am also looking forward to the interior fitout - At this stage I will likely be going for a themed retro race garage style. Maybe Gulf or Martini Racing colors.

I have a 62 Beetle waiting to be completed and also would like to start on a Porsche 550 replica in a couple of years as a long term project. A good friend is building one currently (see attached), so hopefully will have the jigs/bucks etc available if I'm nice to him Martini is also similar to the BMW colors - which matches my daily drive 135i M-Sport.

HOTFR8: The extension cord is very temporary until electrical fitout is done. I usually roll it up after a weekends work, but it does stay there Saturday night

 

[HOTFR8]

HOTFR8: The extension cord is very temporary until electrical fitout is done. I usually roll it up after a weekends work, but it does stay there Saturday night

I sort of guessed that. keep us posted of the progress.

 

[spectral]

Alrighty, another day of work done. Would have spent the entire weekend, except I had to attend a BBQ that was only going to be an hour or so, but 8 beers later and its night time.... how did that happen?

So we finished off the cladding, its now all done and I'm very happy with it. Sorry about the blurry photos, I must of had a mark/smear on my phone camera lense...:

During the week I was looking for a bit more storage for inside the garage while I do the fitout. So we knocked up some drawers and cupboards in a "counter" style to go against the workshop half of the back wall.

I used the rest of the hardwood timber I recycled as a counter top. In the photo below, you can see they aren't fixed down firmly yet, as I may need to remove them when doing the drywall, not sure yet. I used a thin piece of MDF painted white as a splashback to stop anything rolling off the back and down inside the walls.

I reckon they look alright for cheapies.. used 8 sets of ball bearing, soft close slides for the drawers so they are nice to use, and can carry decent weight and not bind up.

We have a show day holiday on Wednesday this week coming, so hopefully I can get the eaves finished up. I need to look at a proper set of steps for the pedestrian door as well.

 

[1/2 Cup]

Nice, real damned nice in fact, many thanks for the update.

You have got to be pleased with the outcome, I luv it.

 

[spectral]

OK, trenching time!

As I am getting close to the final certifier inspection, one of the jobs that I have been putting off is the stormwater connections. I will be running a 90mm downpipe from each gutter into a 100mm rainhead, and then 100mm DWV pipework all the way back to the 2 x 10000L rainwater tanks under the house.

This will be a "wet" or "charged" setup where the pipes hold water up to the tank level. I had this setup on my previous house and it worked very well. The advantage being you can run water "uphill", as long as the tank inlet is below the rainhead height. The inlet in my case is about midway up the windows on the garage, so about 6ft higher than ground level.

Before the pipe was laid we first dug down 750mm first:

We then laid 32mm heavy duty electrical conduit and pulled though some 6mm2 cable for power. We then back filled about 200mm, and then laid down the pipe. Warning tape was placed about 200mm on top of the pipework and around 200mm below ground level.

After that we finished backfilling and then rolled it as flat as possible. I will probably get a bit of sinkage in the trench, so have left over soil to refill as it settles over the next month or two.

Was a hard days work, probably one of the more physical tasks in the construction so far


Next weekend I will do the above ground component of the stormwater, and hopefully the electrician will be available to get me connected up.

 

[1/2 Cup]

Its great to see you have done your submains to the standard, well done.

6mm2 should give you plenty of capacity.

Regards

 

[spectral]

Thanks mate!

Power/Lighting will be 10 x double T5 fixtures, couple external down-lights, 10x Double 10A GPOs and 1 x 15A socket as well for my welder. I don't have any 3 phase requirements.

 

[panthersteve]

Looking good, if I ever start shed building again the bespoke way will be chosen

Cheers
Steve

 

[spectral]

Looking good, if I ever start shed building again the bespoke way will be chosen

Cheers
Steve

Thanks Steve.

Its a budget build, but admittedly it will be at least $3K-$4K more expensive than a typical Titan/Ranbuilt etc portal based structure.

Total cost all up will be AUD $17K ($14K USD for our friends across the pond) for everything except for benches and storage. If anyone is interested I can post a breakdown on all items.

 

[taumac]

Re: Spectral's garage build

What a great build. My dream is to have a place like that in my backyard.

 

[spectral]

I just stumbled on a picture that I absolutely love. Its from earlier on, when the driveway was getting poured. Here are my 2 site supervisors , making sure those dodgy concreters are getting it right.

 

[metalhead140]

Awesome work, not sure how I missed this before. Very nice build and good to see you doing it yourself!

 

[spectral]

Well, the great news this week is that I've had the final inspection and it passed with flying colors. The certifier was very impressed with the quality of the frames and the accuracy - his tape measure agreed with the approved plans to the millimeter! So credit must go to the Endurofab manufacturing process there.

So I'm very happy - the neighbours had been making a few noises about the height of it, but it is all within spec and now has the final approval - so there is nothing much they can do.


Construction since last update has included :

Stormwater connection to my existing rainwater tanks - an extra 50m2 of roof area will help collect so I can continue to water my garden during the drier months.

Steps into pedestrian door - Used galvanized 2 step stringers with nice wide hardwood treads. I stained these to match the door.

Hardwood decking for eaves - Used a 90x18mm local hardwood (stained to match steps and door) under the eaves. It really finishes it off nicely. I don't have a real great picture of it unfortunately, but you can sort of see the effect in the photo below.

Next up is electrician - however I will be on holiday in the USA for the next 4 weeks so will be a little while yet!

Also by the time I return from holidays, hopefully my grass will have grown back!

 

[1/2 Cup]

Fantastic spectral, nicely detailed.

 

[spectral]

Fantastic spectral, nicely detailed.

Cheers mate!

Quick question for the masses... I've bought 2 x "Up/Down lights" for the exterior lighting of the garage as seen here :

Whats the consensus on placement.... either side of the roller door, or one at each end of the front side of the building... I can't decide!

 

[1/2 Cup]

IMHO, I would place them either side of the roller door and perhaps a little lower than you have them.

Regards

 

[HOTFR8]

Well done.

 

[hewey]

Coming along great.

I agree with 1/2 cup, lights each side of the roller door. Not sure how dark your yard is at night, or which door you will use the most often, but have you thought about third on the side wall between the door and window?