Just wondering if this would be any help for anyone, seeing that I'm starting the second garage (this is where I am as of yesterday) and I thought perhaps seeing as I'm doing it myself why not let others see how easy it really is to build a garage. My neighbour at my other house is still waiting on builders to start his new one and is forking out £20k for one smaller than this, which will cost me about £2000 to build...

You can see here that I am not digging trenches for the foundations, rather I levelled the ground (easily done by hand) and simply nailed and screwed staging planks together to form a mould. This way no expensive diggers are needed plus and the reason I’m doing it this way…when it rains it won’t fill the trenches up which is a right pain in the a$$. In this case the founds are 450mm wide and 200mm deep (about 2/3rd the height of the boards) but I am going to fill it right up as the ground is clay and moves a bit when it dries out, I’m also adding some rebar (simply dropped into the wet concrete. Hoping to get the concrete poured at the weekend weather permitting.



[Edited on 28/4/08 by Mr Whippy]
Rescued attachment foundations.jpg

what does building control say about the build method? and is the garage itself lightweight steel /wood?

[Edited on 28/4/08 by tomblyth]

Is that not likley to crack appart as the ground subsides unevenly?

Interesting in theory, but not sure I would want to do that myself!

proof read it and spotted the typo's

there are no issues with doing the founds this way so long as the topsoil is removed and the founds are poured on undesturbed subsoil. The garage will be make from 6 inch wide concrete block, like the one next to it. There will be two up and over doors, with a tile roof and a beam accoss the wall for an overhead crane. I've used the shutter method quite a bit now after first seeing it on the web.

thats not a bad idea me the the old fella are just deciding on how to do a new garage
so far we've decided on an 8 metre square with pillare in the centre of the side walls to support a beam for a lift/winch

if i do the footing like you have itll save me getting rid of all that soil

top man Mr W


any pics of your other garage??

[Edited on 28/4/08 by eccsmk]

here's a picture that shows the other garage before it was tiled, you can see that the foundations were covered over up to normal soil level.

that's a telephone exchange next door incase you wondering, not a school

these garages are 6.4 m square so three cars will fit inside.

When dry the subsoil is like concrete it's so hard, foundations cannot be poured on top soil though as that is always spongy

[Edited on 28/4/08 by Mr Whippy]
Rescued attachment other garage.jpg

thanking you Mr W

glad it is of some use, what I'll do then is every monday I'll post some pictures and a description of whats been going on and why I'm doing it like that. I'll also let you know the cost of materials to give people an idea of how much you can save by doing the work yourself

Cheers.

top stuff sir!!
im just going to my local builders merchants for the price of a thousand blocks

The farm where my office complex is has just been getting some concrete blocks to block up some doorways. They got some very heavy ones with holes in the middle that you can leave open or fill with concrete for added strangth. I was amazed how cheap they got them for by going direct to the manufacturer. From memory about 70% of the local builders merchant cost.

Nice idea Mr Whippy. Dont see any reason at all why such a method should be a problem. The top soil that surrounds std founds doesnt offer any strength after all, that is just natural shuttering. I guess what would put some people off is the exposed founds - but then no reason why you cant cover near to floor with the render.

Mr W, you have a problem, unless you intend to raise the ground level around your garage to provide cover to the foundation you are likely to experience frost heave which is obviated by the minimum 450mm cover specified in the Scottish building regulations as being the minium cover to a foundation. If your garage is less than 30 sq m you wont get a comment form Building Control as the garage wont need permission, however, if it's more they won't be happy. Regardless of size, the cover to your foundatiion is an issue in so much as you are likely to have a failure.

The foundations will be buried later. Indeed the ground level will be three block levels above the foundations and then another two above that before the damp coarse level. I should make it clear that this method is to do away with the need for trench foundations which are problematic at best. Once the top soil is cleared away there is always an excess of soil left over, this is what is used to bring the level of the ground back up well past the foundations.

This is by the way house number 5 and garage number 6 so far with 4 more houses to do, me and my folks have been building houses for over 20 years so we have tried many different methods, this we've found is the easiest. The volvo is sitting at the final ground level

No worries then, I just didn't want you to end up with a problem. You wouldn't have been the first person not to have sufficent cover. Plus it makes this clear to all the forum members now. All the best.
delboy

Any update on this Mr Whippy?

I had to use minimum 1 metre depth of footing for my garage to meet building control requirements. This meant nearer 1.5m at the uphill end.

I then used 450mm depth of concrete (15 tonnes for the footing)

Building regs chappie said they have to stipulate same footings as a dwelling now as too many were building a second floor onto garages later on and requiring underpinning.

mine was 50 sq m so needed building regs.

Having said all that, if I hadn't had nosey neighbours and only just moved in, I would probably have ignored the legalities and just done it as I saw fit.

one of my neighbours still refuses to beleive that i could have built the 50 sq m garage without planning permisson, even though i have told her times that it is exempt!

http://www.beardmorebros.co.uk/website%20pages/how%20to/build_garage.htm

any more updates mr w??

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Originally posted by JB
http://www.beardmorebros.co.uk/website%20pages/how%20to/build_garage.htm

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My neighbour got worried that I was going to knock down his garage with the digger and told me to stop. I kept working.

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