Building a garage

[hooblah]

Hey guys I'm a complete noob here and I need some advice! I'm an M+E engineer by trade so I've no problem with doing the job, just when it comes to building I'm out of my depth, especially with the jargon!

So I'm planning on building a 8mx6m garage at the bottom of my garden. There's already a single garage there but its made of some sort of block work. I live on a hill and the garage is sunk into the garden on 2 sides. The ground is mainly chalk with about 2-3ft of soil on top.

What I'm going to do is knock down the existing garage and dig up the garden. I will need to lay a base and a retaining wall to hold back the garden.

I have no problem with digging but when it comes to building the retaining wall and laying a concrete base I'm at a bit of a loss. I have no idea what I'm doing, can anyone point me in the right direction?

 

[nickjb]

As it will be over 30m2 floor area you will need to get building regs involved. That means it'll need to done properly. Worth checking If you need planning permission as well.

Once you have all that sorted the actual building shouldn't be too tricky if you are handy. There are lots of good guides and blogs out there.

 

[hooblah]

Yes I know that. I'm looking into getting a structural engineer involved and I'll be booking an appointment with the council to see some planning bloke pretty soon. My mate is an architect so he can do all the drawings for me.

Would you mind pointing me in the direction to some of these guides as I'm struggling to find what I need?

 

[theprinceofdarkness]

I had a mate who dug his garage into chalk, total depth, 8'? The way it worked was that there were rebar rods going under the floor and bent up to reinforce the block work of the walls. It did mean that every block had to be lifted over the height of the rods, before they could be settled on their mortar course. This all worked OK. The downside was that the wall was meant to be tanked with bituminous paint as work proceeded, but it turned out not to be 100%, not a disaster, but damp patches on the walls. One thing they did not do was to make any allowance for ground water, which would have run up to the tanking and pooled vertically against the wall until it found a weak point.
I would run a groove around the base and fill it with gravel, so the water would fall to this level then run out via the open sides. A vertical permeable barrier with gravel should be built in as work proceeds, to encourage the water to fall into the drainage bit. For tanking I would use a sheet material with overlapped and taped joints. Too easy to miss when painting the "other" sides of blocks and mortar courses.
Frank

 

[hooblah]

Noone else?

 

[noseall]

Noone else?

Do you want a ten page step by step guide or is it ok if we just answer specific questions?

 

[hooblah]

A step by step guide would be nice but failing that just answering the questions should be enough

 

[freddiemercurystwin]

I have no problem with digging but when it comes to building the retaining wall and laying a concrete base I'm at a bit of a loss. I have no idea what I'm doing, can anyone point me in the right direction?

www.google.co.uk

Would you mind pointing me in the direction to some of these guides as I'm struggling to find what I need?

www.google.co.uk

If you want answers to specific questions then you need to ask specific questions. Saying you just want a guide or 'build a retaining wall' is not providing enough info. Some photos of the site, what is the shape, how high and where will the retaining walls be, cavity walls or single skin, pitched roof, flat roof, size of the doors etc etc? until then its Google.