I bought a house on 7 1/2 acres two years ago and have been working on the house, but as you can see from the picture below the detached block garage needs some attention. Since I follow this board quite a bit, I thought I would share what I was planning on doing. Feel free to comment.
For a little background, the building was constructed to store an RV (thus the 10' ceilings and the barn doors). At some point the RV must have outgrown the garage so one of those RV storage tents was constructed in front of the garage (you can see the back edge of it at the left side of the picture) and the garage was converted to a pretty enormous model train setup (notice the covered window and the blue walls with mountains painted on them). The barn doors were sealed closed and the tree roots from a nearby tree grew under the front edge of the slab and lifted the slab about an inch so the doors couldn't be opened. The guy that owned the house before me took a chainsaw and cut off the bottom 8 inches of the doors. And this is where I inherited it.
Structure
The garage is built out of 6" block on a concrete footer and has a 4" slab that is in good condition except for the front 4' which is lifted up by the root. I plan on cutting the slab back and repouring that section or grinding down the area, but grinding down a 16' x 4' area sounds less appealing than just taking it out. Since the roof and soffiting needs to be replaced anyway, I plan on using attic trusses to give myself some additional storage. The garage will match the house with a stone water table and Hardiplank siding above, but probably in the short term I will concentrate on the inside since the block is in good shape. I plan on putting dormers on the North-East side to catch the morning sun and I am looking into putting solar panels on the South-West side of the roof.
Plumbing
Currently there is no plumbing in the building. It is about 100 yards from the well and about 125 yards from the house. I don't have any plans currently to have any plumbing since it would be cost prohibitive to connect the septic which is more than 150 yards away.
Electric
There is 200 amp service from a transformer between the house and garage so I should be set power-wise. Currently there are six fluorescent fixtures on the ceiling, exterior lights on the front and back of the building, and four power outlets along each wall about 4' off the floor. It is a professional looking job with everything run through conduit so I plan on keeping what is there unless there is a need for additional circuits.
HVAC
I would like to eventually heat and cool the upstairs area so I imaging that an heat pump might fit nicely in the corner behind the stairs on the attic level. There have only been a couple of times I wish I had heat in the winter time so I will probably consider something for the garage area in the future, but with 10' ceilings I don't think I should have an issue with a ceiling mounted fixture.
Hopefully I will be able to get something started in the next couple of months so I will post back when I make some progress on things.
For a little background, the building was constructed to store an RV (thus the 10' ceilings and the barn doors). At some point the RV must have outgrown the garage so one of those RV storage tents was constructed in front of the garage (you can see the back edge of it at the left side of the picture) and the garage was converted to a pretty enormous model train setup (notice the covered window and the blue walls with mountains painted on them). The barn doors were sealed closed and the tree roots from a nearby tree grew under the front edge of the slab and lifted the slab about an inch so the doors couldn't be opened. The guy that owned the house before me took a chainsaw and cut off the bottom 8 inches of the doors. And this is where I inherited it.
Structure
The garage is built out of 6" block on a concrete footer and has a 4" slab that is in good condition except for the front 4' which is lifted up by the root. I plan on cutting the slab back and repouring that section or grinding down the area, but grinding down a 16' x 4' area sounds less appealing than just taking it out. Since the roof and soffiting needs to be replaced anyway, I plan on using attic trusses to give myself some additional storage. The garage will match the house with a stone water table and Hardiplank siding above, but probably in the short term I will concentrate on the inside since the block is in good shape. I plan on putting dormers on the North-East side to catch the morning sun and I am looking into putting solar panels on the South-West side of the roof.
Plumbing
Currently there is no plumbing in the building. It is about 100 yards from the well and about 125 yards from the house. I don't have any plans currently to have any plumbing since it would be cost prohibitive to connect the septic which is more than 150 yards away.
Electric
There is 200 amp service from a transformer between the house and garage so I should be set power-wise. Currently there are six fluorescent fixtures on the ceiling, exterior lights on the front and back of the building, and four power outlets along each wall about 4' off the floor. It is a professional looking job with everything run through conduit so I plan on keeping what is there unless there is a need for additional circuits.
HVAC
I would like to eventually heat and cool the upstairs area so I imaging that an heat pump might fit nicely in the corner behind the stairs on the attic level. There have only been a couple of times I wish I had heat in the winter time so I will probably consider something for the garage area in the future, but with 10' ceilings I don't think I should have an issue with a ceiling mounted fixture.
Hopefully I will be able to get something started in the next couple of months so I will post back when I make some progress on things.
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