Precast concrete Sectional Garage - Marley Major - 6.65m x 3.25m (21ft x 10ft) | eBay
Printable View
Less than £90 and only 2 bids so far... Probably because the seller's not prepared to post the item...Quote:
Originally Posted by i2i
Yes I was looking at that one and some others... apart from it being a long way away (7h+ drive) that design with 400mm panels is very old and there aren't enough of them for the size I want since I dont want the up n over door either. There are several others on ebay but none quite suitable for my needs but I'll keep looking.Quote:
Originally Posted by i2i
In the meantime I've done some calcs etc and reckon thats its perfectly feasible to create some timber moulds and cast one's own panels relatively simply and its cheaper by a long stretch, about £2000 less than the ready made workshop in its basic uninsulated state. Also it'll be exactly the size I want with the windows and door i want and not the nearest similar size. And I can incorporate fixings for wall battens to hold insulation and wall boarding etc. at no cost whereas all these options start adding up when you spec them!
I've come up with a modular mould arrangement that'll allow me to cast 6 panels at the same time and 3 different heights and 2 widths of panel to accomodate the windows & door. Once the base is laid and can be used as a work area it'll take me 6 days to cast all the necessary panels assuming each panel can be turned out of the mould after 24hr and left to set.
What I'll probably do is make one mould then cast a couple of test pieces and if that works make the rest of the mould sections...
Are you going to reinforce your panels?
And how are you going to deaerat the concrete in the moulds?
I'll admit it's something I know very little about, but I've seen one of my dad's mates cast a step many years ago, and he spend ages tapping the mould to get rid of air (vibrating pokers exist for this purpose), then you have to make sure it doesn't dry out too quickly.
reinforcement using rebar rods and 20mm glass fibre strands in the mix
yes, can get a vibrating poker quite cheap, or another idea I read about was to make a vibrating table
The slabs are made using a vibrating table.
Also upside down, inside surface down and outside up so as the finish can be applied, the opposite to paving slabs.
You would also have to gauge the mix well with the right amount of water etc.
I knew someone who tried the paving slabs for a living and almost went broke till he got the mix right!
Is a wooden workshop a no no.
I made mine out of 22mm ply and 4x2 timber, even bought anail gun to make it all easier.
Peter
Peter,
Still looking at wooden option as well, had a look at some examples. Main objections to wood is the permiability, its hard to control moisture and everything I've read suggests machine tools in a wooden workshop is the least desirable route to go. Also there's the maintenance. And its hard to make it as soundproof as a concrete or brick structure and thats important. Finally you can't site a wooden workshop within 2m of the boundary because its not non-combustible, so I'd have to make it smaller. Not that sure its much cheaper either! So while its still an option, its least preferable.
Another opton is timber frame but plastic coated metal box cladding over OSB as used on the roof. Again the soundproofing might be an issue unless I use a lot thicker foam.
Just an update...
Found 2 companies on the web (not one of the big two suppliers) who will sell me just the panels and fixing bolts and am waiting on their quotes. I'm also in a long email conversation with one of the big garage manufacturers who are close to agreeing the same thing, though its not something they normally do. But their price is only £24 inc VAT for a standard panel 2m x 0.6m... that means the whole workshop will be under £800 for the walls (by comparison the other major manufacturer will only supply 'a limited number of spare panels' at £70 + VAT). All in I'm looking at under £3500 fully insulated and ready to use.... ok I have to build it myself but hey, how hard can that be?
I've looked at acquiring an existing garage... even one thats close to me and is big enough to make it worth considering (arbitrarily set as the number of panels I need to add is no more than 1/2 of what's there already) will need a 3.5tonne van to shift it and thats going to cost me £150+ to rent for the day so I'm looking in total at getting on for £750 to a £1000 second hand... might as well buy new and avoid the hassle and effort of carting it over...
My shed/workshop is wood and it's clear that moisture penetrates it from the amount the de-humidifier collects when it's damp outside. With the de-humidifier and heater (thermostat set very very low) I've never had problems with corrosion, unless you count the time a bottle of ferric chloride dripped on the lathe!
Soundproofing is an issue when the router's running, but the other machines are quiet enough. For that reason I try not to run the router after 9pm, though it's been known for me to still be up there well past midnight...
I wasn't aware of this within 2m of the boundary regulation. Mine is less than that as it's only about 0.4m from the hedge. I think the 20*10' structure cost about £2000 with delivery and installation, plus the cost of the concrete base and insulating it. Maybe it's worth asking some suppliers what they can offer?
Building it isnt hard but you will need help. You do need to make sure your foundation is fairly level though. Pick a day thats not windy and start from a corner. How are the joints on the ones your looking at sealed?
The prices you have got so far are great. My original plan was a concrete sectional garage as well and I had enough panels to make a single garage but wanted more and I was quoted £80 plus for each panel. I think it was a Marley one I had. Ended up giving it to a mate of mine, then had to help him build it.
Wood seems to be expensive... I can get something like this: 20' x 10' Shiplap Tongue and Groove Workshop Shed - Premium Range - Wooden Sheds for £1300, heavier duty than the £800 versions... but I'd still need to insulate it and at the end of the day it would need maintenance and the like.
Also would need upgraded windows etc. the £3500 I'm working to includes uPVC windows and door with 3point security deadlock (apart from the mill and lathe theres a few grands worth of bicycles etc.)
Hopefully I'll settle on a supplier for the panels tomorrow and I've also got someone coming to quote me on the base... already been quoted £790 for that which is about what I can buy the raw materials for!
Assembly depends on which manufacturer. The 'generic' ones are just mastic butt joints as is one of the main manufacturers. The other is a T&G arrangement similar to the Marley (which incidentally you can still get as well, but they were expensive too).Quote:
Originally Posted by Web Goblin
Foundation isnt a problem, will be 4" hardcore, 2" blinding sand and a DPC then 8" deep concrete, 12" deep round the sides to 6" out from the hardcore. When they build these normally the sections are free standing and then sealed on the inside with a 1 - 2" fillet of mortar to make it weathertight. I'm considering setting them in a 5mm mortar bed to make it weathertight, then internally I'll put down a 15mm screed and then 5mm of floor levelling compound to get a perfect smooth level finish. And then I'm going to paint it red with floor paint. 'Cos I've always wanted a red floor in the workshop :)
Floor in mine is red as well but I have a wooden floor. It does look good. Just as a side point red floor paint takes about a week to dry when you put it on top of creosote treated wood.... who would have thought it!
So the quotes are in...
Company S. Panels are 6' 6" x 2' and 3' 3" x 2' (seems imperial is rife in the concrete panel industry) 33.6sqm @ £1580 inc fixings, delivery & VAT = £47/sq m
Company N. Panels are 7' x 2' and 4' x 2', 36.5sqm @ £1999 inc. etc. = £54.80/sq m
But the current 'winner' is
Company H. Panels are 6' 6' x 2' and 4' x 2', 35.2sq m @ 1070 inc. etc. = £30.4/sq m
Waiting on one more quote...
Would prefer the 7' panels as less roof working to do, but almost double the price!
Well after a long chat with one of the suppliers about how these are constructed and being advised that "it's not rocket science and you'll save about £2,500 doing it yourself", I've being playing with Sketchup, as you do lol....
This is based on the 6'6" panels so there's a few lumps of wood to provide a wall bar and purlins with OSB cladding. Might put some T&G over the cladding to prettify it so SWMBO doesnt get too upset... she wasn't too impressed with the idea of concrete though what she thought it was going to look like I still have no idea...
Attachment 6636
Irving, what do you propose for the roof.
I for one would go for the plastic coated steel sheeting as its really upto the job.
Used it last year when I enlarged my concrete garage by 4' 2" wide and 1' in length and still couldnt get the car in it!!
Peter
Roof will be Plastisol coated steel box-corrugated sheet over 18mm treated osb on top of the purlins, 100mm poly insulation between them, and 18mm OSB inside... all sealed with expanding foam... snug and dry :) All sourced off eBay very cheaply :) Whole 6m x 4.2m approx roof will cost about £400
Just a heads up on the steel sheet, get the right screws!
I had some from another job but the screw pitch was to fine and stripped when pulling the edging onto the sheet, ended up with bolts!
peter
Designing this workshop is as bad as designing a CNC machine, so many ways to do the same thing...
So anyway, I'm reviewing the internal heights and decided it would be beneficial to have the higher side at the back, so I can lift the head on the mill and still get the drawbar out... plus I don't need the headroom over the bench. But that means having the guttering at the front, which isnt so aesthetic but I can live with it. I can't see any negative reason not to have the slope to the front, in fact that way round it possibly makes the building less obtrusive. Also going to bring the purlins directly onto the wall plate at the front, saves effort and only loses 20mm height over the workbench, and makes the fascia smaller, again less obtrusive.
It also means I can run the gutter into a water butt which overflows into a soakaway (there's no room behind for a water butt, only a small soakaway). That potentially gives me a reservoir of cooling water for the future (after filtering). I considered running a cold water feed from the nearby outside tap so I can make tea ;) tho I'd like a sink and a water bath for PCB etching/cleaning but you can't let that run into a soakaway so no washing facilities. (also starting to get dangerously close to 'permanent' and planning permissions).
You need to be careful about the distance from your foundation to your soakaway drain. When I did my conservatory a few years ago I had to dig it 5mts away from the foundation and also 5mts away from the boundary of my garden. I dont know what the planning regulations will be in your area. You dont want to wash away your foundation in a few years.
Hmmm, can't see any regulations pertaining to that. At least one of the gutters on the house just exits onto the flower bed with nothing special under it and as far as I can tell has been like that for best part of 80 years. I was planning to dig a hole about 2' round and 2' deep and fill it with gravel and let the overflow from the water butt exit into there. It would be 'downhill' from the foundations but at least 8 metres from the house. 5 metres away in most directions would be outside my garden lol, and there isnt anywhere that's 5 metres from all boundaries! (garden is long and thin)Quote:
Originally Posted by Web Goblin
I do remember asking the local building officer about that regulation when he stated it and the answer was something like "you need to do it to get your completion cert". I ended up with a 1 cubic meter hole and thats alot of digging. It does come in handy when Im cleaning out the filters of my fish pond though.
So I had 2 online quotes for the base and one Romanian guy that came round. The 2 quotes were around £700 but when I queried the detail suddenly they didn't want to quote any more... the third went away and came beack with a quote of £4,500 ouch... just for the base!.. I asked for a breakdown and was told materials are £1800. Hmm, well my ebay costings suggest 1/2 of that. But that means labour is £2700 for 3 people for 5 days... well I suppose if you're going to dig it all by hand... well thats way outside the budget.... so might have a rethink there... anyone got a microdigger they could lend me for a couple of days?
The tree roots aren't a problem.. as long as the tree is thinned about 40%... thats another £700 :(
Well one of the 'online' quotes came back and actually quoted for the job I asked for... £5250 :crushed::crushed: since when did digging a hole get so expensive??? And how come thy're materials and plant costs are so much higher than what I found on the web... e.g. microdigger hire, 3 days, from a local firm £65+VAT a day, the quote £122/day??? WTF?
Anyway, suffice to say i dont have the budget for that... so I'm going to have to do it the hard way... dig it out myself. What i need is a way to lift/transport 1 ton bulk bags. I'm thinking of welding up something out of 4 x 2 steel box thats essentially an a-frame hoist on big wheels.... any thoughts?
By the time you take in 3 days digger hire, at least 2 guys, skip cost, setting up time, wood to set-up, it's surprising how things mount up. Personally I'd go for a mini-digger, as the extra weight makes a big difference. How wide is your access?
A power wheel barrow may also be a major benefit. If you need to haul stuff a big distance, you'll wonder how you'd ever of managed without one!
Concrete, I'd get ready mixed. It costs more, but mixing yourself, by the time you've finished, the other end will already be setting.
Have you budgeted in a power float to smooth of the concrete before it fully sets? Might seem pointless, but if you're not putting down an internal floor, they make a huge difference to smoothness.
Have you tried asking around to see if there's any local builders willing to help you for a couple days for suitable tax free payment?
Having an experienced builder/brickie can make a huge difference, and keep you right.
As for £700 to prune a tree???
What they doing, spending days manicuring it with a pair of scissors?
Given those pics, it's no more than a days work, and if you deal with the prunings, they've got pretty much no costs other than labour...
Thanks guys.
I had 3 quotes for the tree, all were about the same... 3 guys for a full day they reckoned plus carting it all away... was estimated at between 3 and 4 tons of wood...
The access is only 720mm wide...can get a microdigger in there, just about.. can just about get a 6cu ft (0.6cu m) powered barrow through there - hiring those two is nearly £600 for 2 days
The ground needs levelling and then digging out to at least 400mm deep for 150mm at the edges or so i have been advised by 2 different builders because of the tree roots, only 300mm in the centre (100mm ballast, 50mm blinding sand, DPC, 50mm insulation, 100mm concrete). Thats around 15 cubic meters, or 22tons of spoil to be shifted. Even a microdigger's 0.022cu m bucket will take 2 - 3 days digging. Then I need to barrow in 3.6 ton (2.6cu m) of ballast and 2 ton (1.3cu m) of sand and finally pour around 3.7cu m of concrete... while a digger+powered barrow will make it easier, I will need to do this over the course of a few weekends/evenings because I have no holiday left til Jan. Even if I took the time off work unpaid i couldnt keep both bits of machinery effectively utilised on my own. So its all going to have to be done by hand... the ballast and sand gets delivered in those 1 ton bags and if i take the spoil out the same way i wont need to hire 2 x 6yard skips for a week, I can get a grab truck to come and lift them away, which is only 25% of the price of skips. so its how to lift those bags... else its use a standard 85kg (0.05cu m) barrow... thats 300 trips out and 78 back lol but at least i can take one out and one back in the same journey
hmmm... bulk bags are either 85 or 90 cm cubes... they wont fit down the side passage so its still going to have to be a barrow, powered or otherwise, and a spade...
Well did a test dig this morning, marked out 1m x 1m in the furthest corner (so SWMBO doesnt get too upset lol) and got a "grub mattock" from B&Q. For those of us of a "gardens are somewhere to look at and sit in" persuasion, this tool is a revelation and great fun to use, until your arms get tired that is... makes short work of roots and anything else (well ok maybe not the 3" ones) and makes it very easy to lift the result with a spade...very quickly took off the top 5" or so apart from two 3" dia roots that were just under the surface... I'm still amazed how much spoil comes out of such a small space !
Looks like I'm going to hire a microdigger and powered barrow for delivery Friday morning, that gives me most of Friday, Saturday and Sunday to dig it out and get the spoil to the front garden, grab truck to retrieve it on Monday.... at least thats the plan...
this reminds me of the age old question...
How much earth is there in a hole measuring 1m x 1m x 1m. ?
i2i,
loads. I found that out when I had to dig a 1m3 drain for my conservatory.
Irving, the old grubbing mattock is a great tool. I used one as well for my foundation and I'm currently digging out a pathway at the back of my workshop with one as well. A mini digger and powered barrow will save you loads of time. Would it be easier to hire an 8yarder to dump the soil into? Try not to copy me and pull the track off the digger. Its a right pain in the arse to put back on.
Just dig another hole and put the soil in that...:barbershop_quartet_Quote:
Originally Posted by Web Goblin
will need 2 x 6yarders at least and thats silly money here in London, over £500 plus I dont know if I'll be finished by the end of the weekend. I'll use the digger/barrow to shift the bulk of it before they go back and finish by hand. The advantage of the grab truck is that it'll come when I'm ready and costs me nothing until I am...Quote:
Originally Posted by Web Goblin
Apparently 1.6 tons approx must have been taken out.... but there's none in the hole now lol...Quote:
Originally Posted by i2i
No wonder I was knackered after digging mine out.Quote:
Originally Posted by irving2008
At £500 plus no wonder you dont want a skip. I think mine cost about £100.
Well tree is now well lopped, much to SWMBO'd dismay as now there is no foliage left. She wasn't/isn't happy, mainly because we can now see the flats at the end of the garden. But on the advice of 4 different tree companies, all who quoted the same price within £20, all the upper branches were dead wood or rotten and all the diseased foliage was on the outside only and there was a strong chance of branches coming down and destroying the fence or falling on someone... Basically it should have been cut back every two or three years, not 10! so now its a much smaller tree and there's no chance of branches falling on the workshop roof...
But it also means I can get on with digging foundations... so there's a microdigger and powered muck truck coming on Friday morning and the weekend should see the hole dug and a big pile of earth on the front drive.... I may have to shore up the back LH corner as it'll be 800mm - 1m deep there by the time I've leveled everything... I'm wondering if I should either build a retaining wall or simply design the concrete pour to provide some butressing in that corner, but still leave a channel between that and the main shed base... ideally the base should be 20-25mm proud of the ground level but thats not possible cos of the slope into that corner. So the plan is to make the hole 75mm bigger all round and after the concrete has set fill the gap between concrete and soil with 20mm gravel so that water run off the soil or off the concrete has a soak away. This should also deter roots from trying to grow back.
I'm hoping if I go down 300mm elsewhere it'll be clear of roots etc. If not I'll go down another 100mm. The centre will be 100mm ballast, 25mm sand, dpc, 75mm insulation and 100mm of concrete - 300mm deep.
So Friday will be using the digger to lift all the big roots and lop them off 100mm or so outside the base... then dig it out starting at the high point at the back. I made a simple clamp with a camera thread to mount my laser spirit level onto a tripod to use as a basic levelling measure. That should be good enough to +/- 1mm.
Still got to find a local source of rebar, either rods i can weave into a mat or ready woven matting... and got to get 21m x ~300mm of 18mm osb for shuttering and a load of 2x2 to stake the ground out and support the osb during the pour...
Nice to see progress on this one. Happy digging.
Instead of re-bar you could use this stuff: Concrete & Screed Fibres
I used it on my foundation for the workshop and the bike shed. Big benefit is that you can drill anywhere without worrying about hitting bar.
Yes, I've looked at that stuff. If you go on the concrete industry's website and look at the pages that talk about reinforcement they are quite clear that steel is the way to go for anything involving tension so large slabs subject to ground heave, like on london clay, its needed. Fibres are good for other stuff, particularly controlling cracking due to shrinkage and the two should be considered complimentary.
The concrete I'll get pumped in will have fibres in it, but the firm in questions still recommended 'fabric' (thats the industry term for steel mesh). I need type 142 apparently, 6mm wire 200mm mesh. and It shuld be at least 50mm from any surface so you shouldnt hit it with a drill under normal circumstances, a 2" hole in concrete is quite deep.
Looking at using sleepers or 75mm half-poles as a retaining wall rather than concrete, it'll look nicer and is quite cheap.
Going for both methods should give you a very stable base. The pump method is great to watch. When we did our conservatory we had to get a pump in to over the house to the back garden. Emptied a fully loaded concrete lorry in about 30 minutes. All the kids in the street were out to watch.
Thats a lot of concrete! were you doing it yourself? I've never laid this much before, I am, shall we say, apprehensive, about it.
But my first issue is whether I need to build retaining walls or not. the ground slopes up to the left and towards the back. The far left corner is 58cm higher than the datum (front right corner), Frnt left is 28cm higher as is rear right. So if i dig down 275mm (so the top of the base is 25mm above datum) I have a 'wall' of earth 855mm in the left rear corner. I think that needs retaining. and similarly the left and right side need retaining to about 1/2 way along the base and grading from there. Got to find a solution that doesnt take up a lot of space else I either need to move the base over a bit, or make it smaller... and I've already compromised on size :(