My garage project

[zvezdah1]

Well here's some pics 2/3s of the way thru the build.
A little background: bought the house 23 years ago with a homebuilt cinderblock retaining wall and garage, leaked and flooded for years no matter what I did. Fast forward to August, hired a contractor, wrecking crew came out demo'd the wall and garage. They cut a bit further into the slope and than had a 120 foot long px 6ft (avg height) allan block wall (also called interlocking concrete block). Than had the garage slab poured with brick foundation, they used 3k psi concrete and they also sloped the garage approx 1 brick height so water drains out but you absolutely can't tell the slope is there. The layout is 22x24, would've liked to have gone bigger but to cut further into the hill would've made the wall 8ft or so and pretty overwhelming (read expensive). Heat pump and insulated the other day, next week sheet rock, wainscotting, and complete the wiring, then the garage door, then the driveway poured. I plan to put racedeck tile in as opposed to epoxy, after giving it lots and lots of thought.

The big selling point for the wife, is it's now connected to the house thru my office.


I'm just glad it's almost over! The fun part begins soon, equipping it, it's going to be for motorcycles. tho my wife will be able to park her car on the left side.

Chris

 

[bluesman2a]

Looks like a nice build you've got going there Chris. I know of walls, just finished a 140' wall with a max height of 10'. What are your impressions of the engineered block approach did you like it, would you recommend it?

If you have them, I would love to see more pics of the wall and how you did your breeze-way!!!

 

[zvezdah1]

HI Bluesman! Say you're in my neck of the woods I see. Are you a blues music fan?? A number of us ride to the delta in MS once or twice a year on our motorcycles, to hit Reds Loungs in Clarksdale!

I did a lot of online research into retaining walls and settled on the interlocking block, in watching the install, the first, ground level blocks are the key and they spent two or three days just laying the 120 foot length and very meticulously, after that it went pretty quickly, additionally they filled all spaces with gravel as they went and put a french drain behind it with more gravel, I also like the fact that it's engineered to give a 1" lean per foot of height into the hill to further add strength. Had I more money I'd have gone further back into the hill and had a higher wall so a bigger garage. After living with a cinderblock wall for years, we absolutely love the looks of this wall!!

I'll take some pics of the breezeway construction as well as the wall later today.

Chris

 

[zvezdah1]

BLuesman,
Some more pics. They're going to bust thru the wall into the house next week, I opted for a 4' opening with no door, to open the room a bit. Also, we're getting the whole house re-roofed as it needed it anyway but you can see by the garage10 pic how it's flashed and tarpapered. Feel free if you have other questions or need other pics.

Also shots of the wall.

Chris