Slow going - my double storey extension build

[kingandy2nd]

No rest for the wicked



Thanks. Yeah, just waiting on the planning application to go through…although I’ve started the groundwork already. Will probably start a fresh thread on that.

Planning permission granted this week, but think I’ll actually just continue on this thread to keep it all in one place

So the plan is for a detached garage/outbuilding to go in the ‘dead’ space where our shed lived. I call it a dead space as the angle of the house means you can’t see the area from the house windows, and the front/side garden where the driveway will be is again to the side of the property where we never currently look or pass by. Old photo from 2013 of the space:

I’ve got loads of building materials left over from the extension, as I over ordered on a lot of things due to a combination of over-estimating and also sometimes purposefully over ordering because the lead times for building materials was so long during Covid times. I also had old windows I’d removed, and a couple of doors (including a bi-fold) that I’d bought but not used for the extension.

Therefore I was looking to build a garage on the cheap, but doing the maths once you factor in the foundations (which around here must be piled), it was never going to be cheap cheap! I also decided early on that I wanted the building to be able to be converted for other uses in the future if needed, so it would be built to current regs for insulation, etc.

A very kind forum member, who I won’t name (but is welcome to claim their work if the wish) did me the following design :

Basically a double garage which is 6.1 x 6.3m externally, with a pitched room which will allow me to install a 2-post car lift inside once complete.

Another kind member also did the location plan for me for the PP but I can’t seem to upload that at the minute.

I’d already had the idea for the garage while the extension was ongoing, which allowed me to do some very valuable prep work while the house was apart. Mainly this was running a 16mm twin and earth cable through the ceilings from the consumer unit (fuse box) to a terminal block outside. I’d also branched off a water pipe from the system and taken that outside. I had then run and armoured cable (also 16mm) and a blue MDPE water pipe under the new deck and to the location of the garage - pictures of that in the deck build above but also dome more details below.

Special ‘Hockey stick’ mdpe pipe cored through wall with insulation around it for frost protection. On the inside i connected a stopcock that as 15mm copper on one side to mdpe on the other.

That hockey stick pipe then goes inside an ‘insuduct’ with more insulation inside it to get you below ground. The brown thing in the picture which will get painted grey eventually. That’s followed by some regular ducting with insulation (which is surprisingly expensive) to get below the required 750mm depth. The underground 110m showing is to the soakaway for the extension which needed rejigging to fit around the new water pipe.

Electric cable and water pipe runs, I offset them to either side of my trench if either needed to be accessed in the future.

I also had to think about waste water as I wanted a sink in the garage, so inspection chamber (manhole) installed and run backward to the existing manhole.

And I broke into the existing 70s manhole to connect - so much concrete to dig out to create which was all very hard and in a difficult/ confined space!

Cutting the new channel.

Done, and cleaned. Pic below taken from other side, so the left connection is the new one (you can see the different coloured haunching concrete)

And finally more insulation where the water pipe will go into the garage. On this side it’ll come straight through the floor internally.

I also had to put a second soakaway in the garden. Thankfully there was enough space to hit the minimum distances from buildings/boundaries. Forgot to take many pictures of this:

The problem with all the groundworks is that once you’re done you cover it all back over again and don’t have much (visually) to show for your efforts

BC came out and signed off the sewage stuff and the soakaway. Interestingly they were not bothered about the electric cables or the water pipe - said it wasn’t their remit. I do remember at the start of the extension build that I found all the sewage / draining some of the most daunting parts to do, but it felt like a doddle this time round.

Costs so far:

Building control application £370
Planning Permission £328
Soakaway £260
Electrical cables £280
Water piping, insuduct, etc £300
Manholes x2, underground sewage pipes - all leftovers

So approx spend so far = £1.5k garage, £118.5k overall.

Thanks for following along

 

[kingandy2nd]

Next job was to clear the space for the outbuilding which mean the moving the shed, removing a conifer tree and then removing the old fencing.

Moving the 3 x 3m shed was going to be the biggest challenge, as it had been in situ for 10 years and was one of the cabin style sheds (where all the individual pieces of wood slot together one by one, rather than the whole wall is one piece). Therefore, I figured I try to move it in one piece rather than dismantling it.

Using leftover hardcore, sand and paving slabs from the old driveway I’d replace, I relatively quickly knocked up a new shed base patio - didn’t need to be pretty obviously as it was going under the shed.

(The old uPVC windows are part of my stash of building supplies).

Then came the fun part - the shed move!

The plan was to use the stone henge method to get the shed 15ish metres and turned 90 degrees for its new base.

Step 1 - pick a nice day and empty all your crap from the shed.

You can see in the picture the 3.6m 3x2 inch lengths of timber already inserted under the shed to lift the shed using the power of leverage. Also in shot are a couple of the 3.6m 4inch round fence poles I bought to do the main work of shifting the shed. I had to search quite far and wide to find those at a sensible price!

Step 2 - get it rolling.

It certainly helped that I knew the shed had a decent floor supported by 3x2 timbers (from when I built it). The worst part was the initial lift to get the fence poles under the shed, as I had to try and lift the shed evenly while Clare inserted the first poles. In the end I used two of the flat timbers, one under each shoulder, and from a crouched position I basically stood up and with a bit of creaking (from both my knees and the shed) it lifted up at the front.

Once the first couple of poles were in, I repositioned closer to the shed and repeated. When we had 4 poles in, the shed lifted its own rear up and I could get behind it and simply push (although it was still ruddy heavy).

Clare would remove the poles from the rear as the shed went forward, and replace them at the front. Slow going but we then had to pivot which was fiddly and we could have done with a few more poles.

And hey presto, shed in its new home after a bit more leveraging to get the poles out from under it.

I could then crack on with removing the old patio where the shed had been (the flags will get reused around the new garage. I then had to remove some old concrete fence posts that seemingly had half a ton of concrete holding them in place.

Thankfully having a mini digger at your disposal makes these types of jobs easier!

Then I put in the drains in for the rainwater (linked to the pre-dug soak way). In hindsight I should have removed the conifer stump which was massive before putting the pipes in, which made it more fiddly, but again having the digger to pull the top of the stump helped with pulling the rest of the roots out.

Finally, once again after all the work, you’re back to bare ground and nothing much to visually see

Not that you can see it in the photo, but I’ve pegged out the outline of the garage with sting line below too.

No too much spend for this instalment. Cement for the shed base (sand, hardcore and patio slabs were all leftovers). Had to get a grab truck for the soil. Couple of hundred quid for the timber for the shed move. All in all about £500 spend.

Garage costs £2k, overall £119k. Cheers