Slow going - my double storey extension build

[kingandy2nd]

No rest for the wicked



Thanks. Yeah, just waiting on the planning application to go through…although I’ve started the groundwork already. Will probably start a fresh thread on that.

Planning permission granted this week, but think I’ll actually just continue on this thread to keep it all in one place

So the plan is for a detached garage/outbuilding to go in the ‘dead’ space where our shed lived. I call it a dead space as the angle of the house means you can’t see the area from the house windows, and the front/side garden where the driveway will be is again to the side of the property where we never currently look or pass by. Old photo from 2013 of the space:

I’ve got loads of building materials left over from the extension, as I over ordered on a lot of things due to a combination of over-estimating and also sometimes purposefully over ordering because the lead times for building materials was so long during Covid times. I also had old windows I’d removed, and a couple of doors (including a bi-fold) that I’d bought but not used for the extension.

Therefore I was looking to build a garage on the cheap, but doing the maths once you factor in the foundations (which around here must be piled), it was never going to be cheap cheap! I also decided early on that I wanted the building to be able to be converted for other uses in the future if needed, so it would be built to current regs for insulation, etc.

A very kind forum member, who I won’t name (but is welcome to claim their work if the wish) did me the following design :

Basically a double garage which is 6.1 x 6.3m externally, with a pitched room which will allow me to install a 2-post car lift inside once complete.

Another kind member also did the location plan for me for the PP but I can’t seem to upload that at the minute.

I’d already had the idea for the garage while the extension was ongoing, which allowed me to do some very valuable prep work while the house was apart. Mainly this was running a 16mm twin and earth cable through the ceilings from the consumer unit (fuse box) to a terminal block outside. I’d also branched off a water pipe from the system and taken that outside. I had then run and armoured cable (also 16mm) and a blue MDPE water pipe under the new deck and to the location of the garage - pictures of that in the deck build above but also dome more details below.

Special ‘Hockey stick’ mdpe pipe cored through wall with insulation around it for frost protection. On the inside i connected a stopcock that as 15mm copper on one side to mdpe on the other.

That hockey stick pipe then goes inside an ‘insuduct’ with more insulation inside it to get you below ground. The brown thing in the picture which will get painted grey eventually. That’s followed by some regular ducting with insulation (which is surprisingly expensive) to get below the required 750mm depth. The underground 110m showing is to the soakaway for the extension which needed rejigging to fit around the new water pipe.

Electric cable and water pipe runs, I offset them to either side of my trench if either needed to be accessed in the future.

I also had to think about waste water as I wanted a sink in the garage, so inspection chamber (manhole) installed and run backward to the existing manhole.

And I broke into the existing 70s manhole to connect - so much concrete to dig out to create which was all very hard and in a difficult/ confined space!

Cutting the new channel.

Done, and cleaned. Pic below taken from other side, so the left connection is the new one (you can see the different coloured haunching concrete)

And finally more insulation where the water pipe will go into the garage. On this side it’ll come straight through the floor internally.

I also had to put a second soakaway in the garden. Thankfully there was enough space to hit the minimum distances from buildings/boundaries. Forgot to take many pictures of this:

The problem with all the groundworks is that once you’re done you cover it all back over again and don’t have much (visually) to show for your efforts

BC came out and signed off the sewage stuff and the soakaway. Interestingly they were not bothered about the electric cables or the water pipe - said it wasn’t their remit. I do remember at the start of the extension build that I found all the sewage / draining some of the most daunting parts to do, but it felt like a doddle this time round.

Costs so far:

Building control application £370
Planning Permission £328
Soakaway £260
Electrical cables £280
Water piping, insuduct, etc £300
Manholes x2, underground sewage pipes - all leftovers

So approx spend so far = £1.5k garage, £118.5k overall.

Thanks for following along

 

[kingandy2nd]

Next job was to clear the space for the outbuilding which mean the moving the shed, removing a conifer tree and then removing the old fencing.

Moving the 3 x 3m shed was going to be the biggest challenge, as it had been in situ for 10 years and was one of the cabin style sheds (where all the individual pieces of wood slot together one by one, rather than the whole wall is one piece). Therefore, I figured I try to move it in one piece rather than dismantling it.

Using leftover hardcore, sand and paving slabs from the old driveway I’d replace, I relatively quickly knocked up a new shed base patio - didn’t need to be pretty obviously as it was going under the shed.

(The old uPVC windows are part of my stash of building supplies).

Then came the fun part - the shed move!

The plan was to use the stone henge method to get the shed 15ish metres and turned 90 degrees for its new base.

Step 1 - pick a nice day and empty all your crap from the shed.

You can see in the picture the 3.6m 3x2 inch lengths of timber already inserted under the shed to lift the shed using the power of leverage. Also in shot are a couple of the 3.6m 4inch round fence poles I bought to do the main work of shifting the shed. I had to search quite far and wide to find those at a sensible price!

Step 2 - get it rolling.

It certainly helped that I knew the shed had a decent floor supported by 3x2 timbers (from when I built it). The worst part was the initial lift to get the fence poles under the shed, as I had to try and lift the shed evenly while Clare inserted the first poles. In the end I used two of the flat timbers, one under each shoulder, and from a crouched position I basically stood up and with a bit of creaking (from both my knees and the shed) it lifted up at the front.

Once the first couple of poles were in, I repositioned closer to the shed and repeated. When we had 4 poles in, the shed lifted its own rear up and I could get behind it and simply push (although it was still ruddy heavy).

Clare would remove the poles from the rear as the shed went forward, and replace them at the front. Slow going but we then had to pivot which was fiddly and we could have done with a few more poles.

And hey presto, shed in its new home after a bit more leveraging to get the poles out from under it.

I could then crack on with removing the old patio where the shed had been (the flags will get reused around the new garage. I then had to remove some old concrete fence posts that seemingly had half a ton of concrete holding them in place.

Thankfully having a mini digger at your disposal makes these types of jobs easier!

Then I put in the drains in for the rainwater (linked to the pre-dug soak way). In hindsight I should have removed the conifer stump which was massive before putting the pipes in, which made it more fiddly, but again having the digger to pull the top of the stump helped with pulling the rest of the roots out.

Finally, once again after all the work, you’re back to bare ground and nothing much to visually see

Not that you can see it in the photo, but I’ve pegged out the outline of the garage with sting line below too.

No too much spend for this instalment. Cement for the shed base (sand, hardcore and patio slabs were all leftovers). Had to get a grab truck for the soil. Couple of hundred quid for the timber for the shed move. All in all about £500 spend.

Garage costs £2k, overall £119k. Cheers

 

[kingandy2nd]

Next bit of the build I handed over to the professional as the garage needs piled foundation due to the sandy ground conditions where we live.

Day 1 : Groundwork’s dug out

Day 2: Piles going in

Day 3 : Ring beam cages

Day 4: Concrete In

Amazing how quick stuff can get done with a team of pros and some good weather.

All in costs of the foundations £9,900.

Will round for the sake of ease, Garage cost £12k and total cost £129k.

 

[Dereekoo]

Next bit of the build I handed over to the professional as the garage needs piled foundation due to the sandy ground conditions where we live.

Day 1 : Groundwork’s dug out
View attachment 362044

Day 2: Piles going in
View attachment 362045
View attachment 362046

Day 3 : Ring beam cages

View attachment 362048

Day 4: Concrete In

View attachment 362047

Amazing how quick stuff can get done with a team of pros and some good weather.

All in costs of the foundations £9,900.

Will round for the sake of ease, Garage cost £12k and total cost £129k.

How deep did they go?

 

[kingandy2nd]

How deep did they go?

Most of them went 8m £££

 

[Dereekoo]

Most of them went 8m £££

Wow thats deep, presumably all the houses round about are piled although for a garage I would have thought a slab foundation would have sufficed although I guess total cost came into the equation?

 

[kingandy2nd]

Wow thats deep, presumably all the houses round about are piled although for a garage I would have thought a slab foundation would have sufficed although I guess total cost came into the equation?

I live about 100m from the beach (as the crow flies) and the whole estate was built on former sand dunes, so piles is the preferred route around here.

I had a good experience with the people that did my extension piling in 2018 (WL Piling Ltd) so just went back to them and didn’t shop around. Some of the piles for my extension were 12m deep so I got off lightly

Ultimately with the piling done, the building could be used for alternatives in the future (or even built up higher) without worrying about the foundations.

 

[Mottie]

Basically a double garage which is 6.1 x 6.3m externally, with a pitched room which will allow me to install a 2-post car lift inside once complete.

Have you thought about a single post hoist? I found them much better - more so nowdays because on most cars you have to put your foot on the clutch or brake to start them and it can be awkward getting the drivers door open wide enough with a two poster.

An old photo of my single poster - would lift a 3 ton car.

 

[kingandy2nd]

Have you thought about a single post hoist? I found them much better - more so nowdays because on most cars you have to put your foot on the clutch or brake to start them and it can be awkward getting the drivers door open wide enough with a two poster.

An old photo of my single poster - would lift a 3 ton car.

View attachment 362070View attachment 362069

I'd not really thought about a single post to be honest... I'm sure that's perfectly safe/secure but it doesn't look it

Need to do some research I guess.

 

[kingandy2nd]

So some progress has been made with this project, although still pretty slow going to be honest! A busy summer of work/social stuff and a small bathroom refurb have need more of a priority.

Probably not the right order for doing things, but the next stage I wanted to complete was the driveway. Typically you’d do that after the garage was built, but I wanted a clear space for all my building materials to be stored, so doing the driveway was my focus.

The council approved and then came dropped the kerb because only they allow approved contractors to do that.

As with any new driveway, the first thing you’ve got to do is dig! For this, I needed 150mm depth for the MoT 1 (hardcore) 50mm for the sand/grano, then a further 50mm to accommodate the block paving.

The only space I had for the soil was actually where the drive was going, which meant digging it out in two halves and having to wait for the grab truck to take the first pile of soil away before continuing with the rest.

Thankfully having a mini digger at my disposal meant I could just do the two parts of digging at my leisure over a couple of weekends, rather than needing to get the grab truck to come at a specific time.

First picture is the second pile of dirt, with the ground on the right being dug to depth.

The wooden stake are knocked into the finished driveway level, which I worked out by stacking some bricks on the foundations to work out the level of the garage floor. Although you can’t see it, each stake is marked at 250mm to get the depth right.

I was then able to start on laying the edging kerbs for the new drive. I do this on roughly a 100m bed of concrete, and then I haunch behind the kern with more concrete. Be careful not to get too much or too high concrete in front of the kerb stones, as it will affect how you can place the block paving.

I got started while the dirt pike was still there, as the time and weather allowed. With my 4 legged helper supervising as I went.

One side done. It kicks out at the end as I’ll have a gate down there eventually. The concrete rectangle it for a new wall/planter down the line.

Fast forward a bit now and the dirt pile has gone and was replaced with 16 tons of MOT 1. That was more than was needed for the drive alone, but as the guy was delivering it I filled his truck and the rest went into the base of the garage (which you can’t almost see behind my digger and tracked tipper).

These kerb stones aren’t the same size / quality as I’d used on my main driveway, but I was about a metre short of having enough to do this driveway, and with no leftovers from other jobs having appear on eBay I decided to buy these other kerbs which were left overs that I got for £300 inc the bloke delivering them - versus £960 for a full pack of the kerb stones I already had.

I had also concreted in the first line of paving at this stage.

Unfortunately at this point my usually trusty wacker plate (an Aldi / Scheppach special) died on me. It stated to belch out black smoke and then refused to start on me). I did an oil change and replaced the carburettor but then it would start on the choke but die as soon as I tried took the choke off). Having probably had my money’s worth out of it with the main extension build, I gave up on it and bought a used one of the same model from eBay.

While the garage will be a double garage, a telephone pole on my property which you can see on the left, which means I have to kink the drive on that side. It won’t be a problem for getting in or out of the garage, but means it’ll be a squeeze to get two cars parked side by side on the drive.

I’d also decided I wanted some extra security as my garage will be were my nice cars will be kept, so I bought a couple of Rhino telescopic security posts. These were ok to fit, just dig down about 900 mm, fill with some pebbles then concrete the rest of the post in. There was a bit of head scratching to ensure the finished height was going to mean the were flush with the driveway.

Having now got my new (used) wacker and the posts in, I could push on with the laying of blocks.

Having read a thread on here I understood that grano dust was now preferred to sand as the bed for the blocks, so 4 bulk bags ordered (I used about 3 and a quarter).

I use metal conduit pipes to set my levels and then use my screed level (blue thing at the back right) to get the right level. You can see the conduit in the grano below. Once you do start laying you pull the pipes out and fill the small gaps left.

You do need to do a couple of passes with the wacker to bed it down, then relevel the grano again.

Once all levelled, you can start to lay the blocks. I personally lay all the full blocks you can and then return to do all the cuts later.

More by luck than judgement I needed very few cuts, just around the posts and a few at the sides, so in about 4 hours on my own I managed to get about this much laid - most of the time is spent just hoofing the blocks from the pallet to the drive.

Once all the block are cut and laid you wack them again with a rubber pad on the wacker to embed them into the grano. Before that stage, the blocks might feel a bit loose or unlevel in places, but the wacker will help with that.

Finally you fill the gaps with silica sand by sweeping it in. I had a number of bags of this left from my previous drive, so they got used. Unfortunately over time the moisture had got into them (and you should do it with dry sand), so I spread the sand out on a dry and sunny (but cold day as it is February) and left it for the day to dry before sweeping it in. I then gave it another wack for good measure and filled any gaps with more sand.

Another job my furry friend enjoyed helping with!

And the ‘finished’ job. Obviously not quite finished as I will need to do the part up to the garage once the building is done and I’ll need to put some acro drains in because of the slope away from the road.

As for the spends, there was a decent saving as I’d already had (and accounted for) all the block paving as part of the original extension/house build.

2 x Grab Trucks - £460, ballast + concrete + grano - £600, hardcore - £650, replacement wacker £200, kerb stones £300, security posts £500. Council dropped kerb £1,750.

Round it to £4.5k for ease. So total garage spend £16.5k, total overall spend £134.5k.

 

[kingandy2nd]

As mentioned above, over the winter I also had a small refurb job inside the house in the main bathroom. It stated because the floor was looking a bit tatty (it had been in 10 years or so) and I never really like the plastic bath panel. It wasn't terrible, but was looking a bit tired and dated.

This is an old picture as I failed to take one before I started.

The original plan was to replace the floor (which I did quickly with a couple of new packs of Wickes laminate), and I bought an anthracite bath side and end panel from Plumbworld to make it look more modern. To do this, I had to remove the toilet and sink as I'd put the old floor in before putting the suite in.

New floor down (I reused the old underlay as it was fine):

However, while browsing the Plumbfix site, the I noticed they had some reasonable deals on vanity units and enclosed toilets, and as I was sprucing up the bathroom and had never particularly liked the exposed waste pipe for the toilet I decided that a unit to fill the space under the window would be good. Unfortunately there was no single unit they sold that fitted the bill, but a separate 500mm enclosed toilet and 800mm vanity unit with sink would fit with a couple of cm to spare to allow the removal of the bath panel.

The pipes from the old sink were nearly in the right place, but I did need to do some adjustments last the new vanity unit was draws so the pipe had to go behind the lower draw and into the middle of the second draw with had a cut out for the waste trap.

Fitting cistern toilets I always find a major faff, with needing to fit, remove and then refit the unit several times to get all the measurements, etc.

Finally with it done, the other minor hitch was because I had ordered two separate units, it turned out that the toilet was slightly lower than the sink unit. I got around that with a cheap white worktop from Ikea which I cut to the shape of the toilet. I also found a (nearly) matching gloss grey end panel in Ikea's lucky dip of spare wood for a pound, which I fitted to hide the toilet pipe which is enclosed (you can just see it on the left in the final picture below to keep the grey theme across the units).

Final finishing touch as it always bothered me to not have a proper mirror above the sink was the corner bathroom cabinet. That does light have lights in it, which are battery powered - which is great as there's no mains power nearby. As we now have an en suite, this bathroom is only used by guests now, so batteries should be fine.

The units and the bath panels were 700, flooring and mirror were 100 each, along with about the same for plumbing bits inc the tap, silicone, skirting etc...so call it £1k for the refurb. I've not touched the shower, tiles or bath (other than re-siliconing which obviously saves on the money). Total spend on the house £135.5k.

 

[Mottie]

Another job my furry friend enjoyed helping with!

Years ago when we lived in the house next door to the workshop, whenever I had an oil spill and cleaned it up with oil absorbent granules that had been swept into a nice pile, our furry friend would creep in and crap in it!

 

[kingandy2nd]

Small update as I managed to get a day and a half of building time in over the Easter weekend. Only a day and a half as I did a trade of labour with a mate of mine - he came over and helped me with the garage for half the long weekend and I went to help him plaster his house for the other half of the weekend. Worked out ok as I hate shifting bricks/block and there was a lot to shift.

We spent the first few hours laying out and measuring to ensure the garage would be the right dimensions and ultimately square. Then the rest of the first day was spent laying the foundation blocks.

I opted for the Plasmor Stranlite foundation blocks. I used these on my extension and they were great for giving the right width for the cavity wall above. They were special order as most foundation blocks are the lightweight variety, and given how susceptible normal thermalite blocks are to damage/cracking, I wanted something a bit more solid.

We were experimenting with the brick tone for the engineering blocks that will go above ground, so you’ll see some different colours to the mortar in the pictures, but all this will be underground or under concrete so it doesn’t matter.

The blocks are 300 x 275 x 140mm and they are heavy! So the work was a bit back breaking. At the end of the day we’d got all the foundation blocks laid and the inner skin corner blocks, which was helpful to let those set before the in fill the next day.

The next day I had to do some other odd jobs in the morning, but with a nice day we managed to get the rest of the inner skin of blocks laid (where required, as the concrete floor comes to the outer skin where openings are) and then 3 of the 4 outer skin corners made up in engineering blocks. Ten shots of mortar dye was the preferred colouration in the end.

The furry foreman approved of the works and the colour, so that was good enough for me!

Like I always do, I over ordered on the blocks and stuff, but better to have too many rather than not enough. I spent £2k at the builders merchants which included everything to get me to concrete floor level (so that spend includes insulation, mesh, etc that haven't been used yet).

So total garage spend so far £18.5k, total overall spend £137.5k.

Thanks for following along.

 

[Odds]

The furry foreman?

 

[Mottie]

Water, drainage, electricity. That garage will need its own door number and postcode!