Hi all, am part-retired now and want to spend more time tinkering with my old motorbikes in the garage - however am fed up with my awful garage of 25 years now (!) - it's brick built, about 8ft wide and 16ft long with a sloping corrugated asbestos replacement roof that slopes from one end at 8ft high to about 6ft the other end - cold, leaks, rough floor etc etc.
Whilst I still have it in me (!) I want to extend the garage to about 26ft long, 14ft wide and put an apex roof along the length.
I will keep the left hand long wall (slicing off the sloping bricks and then build up to a constant 8ft height), and the end wall (raising this), and extending out the front for the extra 10ft. I will build a completely new full length wall for the right hand side (removing the old) - hope all that makes sense !
-I'm guessing that footings for the new long wall should be about 1ft wide and 18" deep ?
-I want to use blocks rather than bricks (100 or 140/150mm thick ?), I'm reasonably fit but I guess the thicker blocks might be very heavy to be laying up higher.
-do I need to go double-row on the blocks for sturdiness ?
-if I use high density concrete blocks are these weatherproof or need sealing ?
-new piers every 9ft ?
-timber truss roof structure (don't think I need RSJs) ?
-because of low angle of roof I won't use tiles but plastic coated metal panels ?
-because I will spend a lot more time out there is there any simple way of insulating it better ? (choice of blocks/insulations etc ?).
That's a lot of questions for starters but any hints would be much appreciated. I may have the loan of a digger in a couple of weeks which would certainly help with the footings !
Cheers, Joe
Whilst I still have it in me (!) I want to extend the garage to about 26ft long, 14ft wide and put an apex roof along the length.
I will keep the left hand long wall (slicing off the sloping bricks and then build up to a constant 8ft height), and the end wall (raising this), and extending out the front for the extra 10ft. I will build a completely new full length wall for the right hand side (removing the old) - hope all that makes sense !
-I'm guessing that footings for the new long wall should be about 1ft wide and 18" deep ?
-I want to use blocks rather than bricks (100 or 140/150mm thick ?), I'm reasonably fit but I guess the thicker blocks might be very heavy to be laying up higher.
-do I need to go double-row on the blocks for sturdiness ?
-if I use high density concrete blocks are these weatherproof or need sealing ?
-new piers every 9ft ?
-timber truss roof structure (don't think I need RSJs) ?
-because of low angle of roof I won't use tiles but plastic coated metal panels ?
-because I will spend a lot more time out there is there any simple way of insulating it better ? (choice of blocks/insulations etc ?).
That's a lot of questions for starters but any hints would be much appreciated. I may have the loan of a digger in a couple of weeks which would certainly help with the footings !
Cheers, Joe
