The Garage!

[markocosic]

My first 'house' job - the old man's retirement present from us kids - and still very much a work in progress:


Done:
*Replace consumer unit - Split load, 100mA RCD/main switch feeding the lighting circuits and a 30mA RCD feeding everything else, one new lighting circuit, one new ring main (14 doubles), new single socket circuit (garage door opener), new cooker circuit. Not too bad a job, but cutting socket backs/mini-trunking neatly is well hard, and the previous spark was a grade one prat for putting the box in the most awkward corner to reach and leaving absolutely no spare cable.
*Tile the walls - 35 boxes of 250x400 tiles at 1.6m^2 per box, 11 22.5kg bags of RapidSet, squillions of plastic crosses! Never tiled before, never want to see a tile again...
*Sand/paint Ceiling - It's all about the Dulux Trade. Goes on like jam on toast/sh1t to a blanket, covers a multitude of sins, and dries before your very eyes.
*Fit lights - 8 off 2x70W 6' battens on the ceiling, 11 off 1x58W 5' battens around the edge, all HF fittings with Full-Spectrum Activa 172 "Daylight" Tubes. Cost 500 notes in all, but WOW... No shadows anywhere, full colour rendition, seriously nice to work in, and the 1.75kW of distributed heat (whilst you're in the otherwise unheated space) is very welcome.
*Fit garage door opener - LiftMaster 1000. Absolute nightmare of a job thanks to a product that is totally mis-sold. Had to re-inforce the door (fair enough), redesign the springing for the door (not cool), and strengthen the beam for the door opener with an 80x40x3 box section in order to stop it bending excessively whilst operating. Cool once in, but I'd never do this again (buy an integrated door/opener unit designed for the job by engineers, not a door opener that's a window winder motor, elastic band, metal pole and remote control...)
*Make shelving - my designs. It's all 20x20x2mm box, cut to length by the supplier (200 cuts - £20...), stick welded together by me. Hide boxes and boxes of stuff (yet to buy the plastic crates tho) up out of the way. Proof loaded to 300kg/metre. Failure mode - wall plugs ripping from wall, unless you do what I do and have 4mm ply as the shelf top. That way, anythign too heavy fall through as you lift it up, and dad can't stack so much stuff on as it pulls the wall down. Add under-shelf lighting battens for wall-washers. Will post drawings at some point.
*Make workbench - 50x50x3mm box (£80 cut and delivered) section steel frame, standard cheapie kitchen worktop (£50) attached using 150 screws. Adjustable feet (M12 nuts welded to plates on the bottom of the legs plus bolts) and 20 No 10 by 3" screws to hold it to the wall. Absolutely bombproof, and 4.5m by 0.6m is a handy size! Lots of cross-beams make it rated for 1500kg.metre without undue flex. Worktops do get damaged, but the last one made like this lasted 20 years before getting too scruffy.
*Skirting boards - 4x2, LOL! More like a bumper-bar for crashing toolsboxes/jacks etc into and not mashing the tiles.
*New sockets - who can spot all 14? Ceiling mounted ones are the most useful things in the world! Keeping it all at light switch level means you can hose-down the worst of the muck/floor safely, and means old men with broken knees can still use them. Don't let kid brother screw any (ceiling...) on though - because they'll all be to c0ck.
*Fit smoke alarm - buy yourself one with a 'silence' button for the garage, well useful....


To-Do:
*Sand/Grind/Paint floor - What are people's favourite paints?
*Edge workbench/silicone gap between it and tiles
*Fit emergency light/torch (rechargeable torches that come on when power goes off or you pull them off the wall bracket - well useful)
*Fit vices/drill presses etc
*Make under-bench storage trolleys
*Play with all the tools we bought ourselves as the payment/treat for doing it ourselves!
*Fit the kitchen on the other end of the cooker wire.

*Fix the bloody cars! (Rover threw a hissy fit and bled power steering fluid all over the floor, Land-Rover needs the 200bhp 2.0 Turbo 16v Injection "hooligan" engine taking out and a crummy turdo-diseasel putting back in so smallest sibling can get insured and learn to drive)

 

[ColJack]

floor paint - something light in colour and grippy...

Emergency lighting.. great idea.. get one over the fuse board and one over the door..

might I suggest fitting an emergency stop system to the bench sockets with stop buttons located within reach of any fixed equipment such as drill presses and grinders... costs a few quid but can save fingers...

 

[markocosic]

Would like light grey, grippy, AND chem resistant - recommendations?

They're this sort of thing (3 quid each from LIDL ) rather than pukka emergency lighting, but same difference:

http://www.maplin.co.uk/free_uk_del...amp_2804/Rechargeable_Emergency_Lamp_2804.htm

One by front door, back door, garage outside door (fusebox), garage-house door, either end of hallway, either end of stairs. Mostly means you're never short of a charged torch, heh!

E-Stop probably a waste of time to be honest. Drill and grinder are only 0.25kW induciton motors. (Stall easily and once stalled have no starting torque) Hand-tools (angle grinder - 1.4kW, jigsaw - 0.7kW, drill - 1kW and series wound DC motors so very torquey) are the nasty pieces of work!

 

[ColJack]

not too keen on those lights..

they only flash when the power is off.. not good... ( step... wait.... step.... wait.... etc.. )

you can get proper emergency lights from around £15 from screwfix, and probably cheaper from a wholesaler if you buy a few..

 

[corrie]

Still got the petrol engine in Landy?

Alex

 

[videotuning]

Petrol engine on Landy is old...sell that

 

[corrie]

You wont say that when you see his conversion

Alex

 

[markocosic]

You mean this little beastie?

Sadly no - apparently the insurers have cottoned on to the fact that a smaller engine from a group 17 turboed up to it's eyeballs and stuck into a group 1 car is risky...

Getting a 2.5 naturally asthmatic diseasel in so that youngest bro' can be insured/learn to drive on it.

The nutter engine is still in the family though - so if you see a fairly innocuous looking silver 800 steaming up behind you at 155 leptons per hour with the lights flashing, dive out the way, yeah?

 

[corrie]

Ah well.........legislation

Alex

 

[jeffsmith]

Most paint doesn't like oil - garage floors are always coated in oil so to get a sound finish the key is preparation. Most floor paints available will do what you need if given a clean substrate, a good key and long enough to dry (days - weeks).

Watco advertise paints specifically designed for repainting garage floors. Although I've never used it they are usually pretty good at solving problems.
(Wont be a cheap option).

You can antislip a surface yourself by scattering sand between coats.

You don't really want antislip though if you're going to be turning car wheels on it as this kind of tension on the coating often leads to it pulling the coating up. Maybe you could just antislip the areas around doors where wet feet would slip?

You will rarely see antislip in a commercial garage. A glossy (standard) finish can be just as safe if kept cleanish.

If it was mine:

I would give it a really good mop down with detergent then rinse the detergent off with several buckets of clean water.

Then I would probably hire an STR machine from Speedy or somewhere for a day. They're like floor polishers but with an industrial sandpaper on the bottom to create a key on existing floor coverings.

Then I would give it a coat of any two-pack floor coating using a squeegee to ensure a good finish. Leave it a day or two until the smell has started to decrease then give it another coat and leave it for up to a week before putting anything on it.

Hope this helps,
Jeff


~ EDIT ~

Just realised the date of this thread - SORRY!