Cost of building attached garage fully DIY?

[kingandy2nd]

I would agree with noseall, but see where you are coming from too.

If you ever read the Housebuilder’s Bible the author talks about the building triangle with time, cost and quality at each corner of the triangle:

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Basically it states in any build you can have two corners of the triangle and the expense of the third. I.e. you can have a build that is cheap and quick, but the quality will suffer or you can have a build that is good quality and cheap, but it will take a long time, etc etc.

I read that first link to the garage the guy on Scoobynet built. I was mightily impressed with the work and the price and speed at which it was built – given it was winter as well. He may just have been a highly talented guy with no day-job, but I have a sneaky suspicion that he either had a lot more experience than he let on, or got a lot more help from his builder mates than he admitted to. Just my opinion.

 

[loply]

Fortunately because this is a garage (not my living room!) the need for top quality isn't that high, e.g. internally the roof joists will be left visible as per most garages, most of the internal will be left with exposed breezeblock, the roof and walls won't be insulated etc, because none of that is necessary when I'm going to be splattering oil, swarf and grinding dust all over the place anyway!

Then comes time and cost, well, it doesn't really matter how long it takes and if the cost is kept low then all the better. I'll get on the job weekends and evenings and see what happens. I've done large renovation projects (the kind that take 3-4 months of every spare hour!) 3 or 4 times before so I know I can handle the "when's this going to end" sensation! Building **** is my hobby, hence the need for a massive garage, so I don't mind having to do it one bit!

If this were a habitable extension then fair enough I couldn't have it cheap good and quick, but as a garage I think it makes things a lot easier to do DIY. The 'quality' of the garage for me is defined by a few things:

1) Amount of floor space
2) Presence of a back door and a front door
3) Amount of natural light

If the quality of my building work turns out good it's a bonus, if it doesn't then so be it, the house is shoddy anyway, why does the garage pointing need to be better then the the main house?

Anyway! I do have one more query... It looks like one of my main costs is going to be the facing bricks. Stupidly I forgot to deduct the square meterage for the front and back doors and the windows, so that saves me a bit, but it's still nearly £1,500. I'm wondering if it might save some cash to build both parts of the cavity wall from breeze blocks (or even using those 'cellular blocks'?) and then to have it rendered.

From my estimates the breeze blocks would save £1100-£1200 on the cost of bricks, I'm wondering if getting 28sqm rendered cost less than that? Maybe £750-£800? I think it may look better too, as the bricks are eroded on the main house the new ones won't match (even if the color is close the crumbling and general effect won't be).

Cheers for the advice so far,
Rich