Tear down or fix up?

[starquestMM]

Fix up. Raise roof if needed.

I wish I had your problems

 

[Bib Overalls]

I would raise the roof with four courses of standard block and one course of half high block.

You don't want a sloping drive way feeding rain water into your shop via the garage door openings.

Perforate the old floor (electric jack hammer or large corded hammer drill - rental), fill with builder's sand or crushed rock, and place a new floor s few inches above the driveway level. I would place the slab over foam insulation and also run waste lines for any plumbing you might want in the future. Never be easier.

The only down size of a masonry building is the cost of heating in cold weather and the condensate that form when the walls are cold and you turn the heat on.

 

[JimR1998]

Raise roof and grade 36"

RE: Raising height 4.5 courses of block

Very interesting. I hadn't thought about it in such an ambitious way. We'd have to bring in many tons of fill (guessing on the order of 60 yards) to bring up each side about 3 feet, and one side would need to be brought up over 6'. But that's mainly dirt moving and I don't think terribly expensive. Money is in raising the roof and filling & pouring the garage floor. Hmmm. It undoes some landscaping but not in a terrible way.

I'm not even sure it's possible due to zoning, HOWEVER, if the grade all around the garage was increased-- they would measure from the new grade instead of where it is now.

I will give it some thought. That might get me closer to where we want to be and solves some other problems at the same time. Hmmm.