Help needed sorting the utility and WC

[sotal]

I've asked a few questions on this already as I have been planning this for a few months but it's now getting close to needing to be done.

Basically we have a Utility room and toilet in the back of the garage.

I have attached a diagram roughly to scale showing the walls etc.

Our house was extended in 1986 (we've only lived here a few years), this involved the garage being made wider and a bedroom was built above.

On the diagram you can see that the 'original' garage was single brick for the most part, and part of the original side wall was left in place. The new side wall is double thickness.

I need to completely redo the utility and toilet as they are very dated and tatty.

Since this was done a conservatory has been built which now allows you to enter through the door at the bottom of the diagram (this used to just go outside)

In a previous question I was asking about raising the floor as the utility and toilet are 2 bricks lower than the conservatory. The outcome of that discussion was inconclusive but I've decided whilst I'm at it I'll raise the floor in there anyway.

The partition wall to the right is coming out altogether and will be rebuilt, it's tatty and has parts missing and isn't built as well as I would like.

So the parts I'm concerned about are:

The single brick wall on the left of the diagram to outside
The raising of the floor
Damp

The current floor for the whole garage including toilet and utility is a good solid concrete, the utility area smells a little damp sometimes.

I presume there is little or no damp proof along the back wall (left on diagram)? How would I know?

There is no heating in the utility or toilet so they are cold in the winter (the boiler is located in the utility though). I have access to the main central heating pipes so will probably get a plumber to stick a radiator in there.

What I'm concerned about though is that any heat will be lost though the single brick wall. Should I have an internal brick wall built? Or would some kind of studded wall be OK? perhaps with insulation between? A large section of that wall is taken up by a double glazed window.

I need some guidance on the exact way to raise the floor, I thought about replacing the partition wall with a two brick high brick wall (to be better for burning fluids etc) This will give me a completely boxed in (with brick) area to fill. I could then build a new partition wall on top of the two brick wall after the floor has been filled. I've read about using kingspan and a dpm etc but I'm unsure of the exact order to put this down and the thicknesses I should use.

Please help! I'm supposed to be making a start in a couple of weeks time!

View media item 25808

 

[sotal]

Any clues anyone?

Do you need any more detail to be able to answer?

Thanks in advance

 

[Deluks]

What was the question again?

 

[sotal]

What do I do about the single brick wall?


How do I correctly raise the floor by two bricks in height?


How do I check what damp proof measures are in place and what should I add? Are there even likely to be any in place in an attached garage?

 

[noseall]

Are you talking about modernising this space to bring it up to current regulations or simply improving what you already have?

If it is a half brick thick structure with an uninsulated floor and roof, then any addition of insulation, ventillation or damp proofing will be an improvement.

 

[sotal]

I would like to modernise it in the most cost effective way, whilst bringing up to standard at the same time wherever easily possible.

At the moment it has largely been unused, as it was in the back of the garage, so you either had to go through the mess of the garage to get there or you had to go outside and through the back door of the garage.

Now that the conservatory has been built which incorporates the back door of the garage inside the conservatory we have started to use the rooms for the first time since living here but they need modernising and I would like to do it the best way I can afford to - I would hate to just decorate it all and make it look nice but then have problems later.

 

[noseall]

Improving this space is likely to incur the wrath of building control.

Is this something you have considered?

 

[sotal]

Yep considered,

any advice on how it should be done?


Thanks

 

[sotal]

Any advice?

It boils down to three questions.

1. what is the best way to raise the floor?

2. what is the best way to improve the single brick wall?

3. how do I know if there is any damp proofing? What is the best way to combine this with point 1 & 2

Thanks

 

[sotal]

Anybody able to help or is this too complex for the forum?

 

[sotal]

I've spoken briefly with a builder today who said to do the following:

Put Kingspan down on the floor,
Put damp proof membrane over the kingspan
Continue the damp proof membrane up the brick wall to cover it,
Put concrete over the kingspan/membrane
Attach timber to the wall over the membrane
Put more of the kingspan type insulation between the timbers (on top of the membrane)
Then plasterboard over
Then tile over this.


Does this sound the correct way to do it? and can anyone help with thicknesses etc?

Thanks in advance

 

[hotrod]

Anybody able to help or is this too complex for the forum?

It's not too complex, it's just that to ensure the works comply to current BRegs is an exhaustive task that requires a lot of time to sit here listing each individual component. Primarily for your project you need to consider, insulation, ventilation and fire safety - however there are other areas that will need to be addressed. That's why Noseall asked the question about you considering incuring the wrath of Building Control. If you are serious about DIYing this have a read of the following AD's

B1 Fire Safety
F1 Ventilation
L1B Conservation of Fuel - existing dwellings

Any questions come back.

 

[sotal]

Thanks for the reply,

I have considered the building control side, but it seems to be a bit of a grey area with waht I am wanting to do.

I'm not converting the use of something from one thing to another, the room is there now, I could just redecorate it, but I'd like to improve it to make it better and closer to buidling regs. As I've read it as I'm not converting it or making a new habitable room etc that I don't need to involve building control.

I did read somewhere about converting a wall from single skin to double skin (ie building another brick wall to create a cavity etc) required better foundations and a lot of work and it was much more viable to stud the wall, or use 4" lightweight thermalight blocks. The site this came from was talking about garage conversions which is similar but in my case this room was always a utility and toilet.

I don't want to dismiss what you are saying and I take great interest in the info you have posted and I've downloaded the pdfs you supplied for some bedtime reading, but at this point I just want to make a good job of redecorating the utility and downstairs toilet and want to make sure it's done in such a way that I won't need to redo it in a year or so due to damp etc.

Thanks again for the help