Garage Conversion

[andsally]

Hi there

Any advice would be much appreciated.

Friends have downsized to a new property which has a semi-detached garage in the garden, which is not attached to the house. It will never be used to house a car. Intended future use is for much safe storage; possibly to run washing machine and freezer; maybe put in a window throw light on to a work bench.

Garage is 5m long x 2.7m wide. Highest wall is 3.5m and lowest wall is 2.1m. Party wall (3.5m high) appears to be 100 thick blocks. I think construction is brick on footings, with the concrete floor slab poured in afterwoods, as floor slopes towards the doors and a dpc is evident in the courses of bricks upon which the blocks are built. Roof has 4x2 rafters and clay tiles.

Would like to remove double doors, brick up using blocks and then render outside face.

To create extra space in the unusual shape I had the idea of adding joists at the height of 2.1m to create a "loft" space in the garage.

Any suggestions or advice please?

[/img]

 

[freddiemercurystwin]

Can you be more specific about what advice you want, do you mean simply how do I fit new joists to the wall to create the storage space or do you mean what do I need to do in order to convert the garage?

Also I'm not sure what you mean by

semi-detached garage in the garden, which is not attached to the house

 

[andsally]

Hi freddymercurystwin. I have been reading your posts regarding similar matters, which have helped.

The garage is in the garden and is separated from the house by several meters. When I said "semi detached", I meant to say that the centre of the whole building runs along the boundary with the next door neighbours. A "party wall" (100m thick block), which runs to the ridge board, divides the building into two separate garages.

I think I would like confirmation that my ideas are structurally sound and that any work would not compromise integrity of existing building.

To run 6x2 joists at 400mm centers at 2.1m high. As the "party wall" is only 100mm block, attach a resin-fixed ledger board here and hang the joists from this.

Rest the other ends of joists on the wall plate upon which the rafters sit. However, the space here is tight and I will have to cut angles out of the joist, which could compromise the load bearing capacity of the joists.

Was also thinking of insulating using 4x2 stud wall with 600mm centres: sole plate attached to concrete floor; header plate attached to underside of new ceiling joists. This would both secure top of stud wall, reduce load on ledger board, and give further support to joists that partly rest on wall plate.

In image (not quite to scale), the proposed new woodwork is in red.

Thanks

[/b]

 

[andsally]

Anyone, please?

 

[freddiemercurystwin]

Bolt or resin anchor your wall plate to the party wall.

Hang a 100x50 vertical wall plate off the existing wall plate on joist hangers to give you a wider bearing and trim the ends of the new joists to suit. Provided you're not sticking loads up there it'll be OK. Even without the additional bearing I'd say it'd be OK , its still gotta sheer about 100mm of timber to fail!