Building under your garden

One of our houses has a basement that is as large as the ground area as the house itself.

Its got power down there and its dry, its bare brick down there however, and I've no idea what to do with it.

I had visions of underground bat cave style car park.
 
Gilly said:
Yep, either side and at the back.

I would speak to the council first anyway, but if there's no lasting visibility of any substructure what problem could they have?
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I can see them having concerns about subsidence/drainage and possibly about how you’re going to get the thing in and how you’re going to dig the hole because of access? It will be interesting to hear what the council say. I hope it works out for you.
 
sp1ke said:
do it....

I want to build an underground home studio, kit it out with 100k worth of gear (OH IF ONLY).

make sure you take progress pics.

GOGOGOOG
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The great thing about that is you don't need much sound proofing, because you've no-one to disturb :D

simulatorman said:
I can see them having concerns about subsidence/drainage and possibly about how you’re going to get the thing in and how you’re going to dig the hole because of access? It will be interesting to hear what the council say.
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The drainage is a good point and something I'd need to speak to a specialist about.

I'd probably look at re-siting the garage with a long-term view to extending the house in future and therefore I'd take the garage down. It's only used for storage at the moment.
 
Seems like a good idea to me, but what about structural integrity of the containers? How much weight are you planning to bear on the roof, with a massive split and weld in the middle?

Would that mean you would have to put supports in the middle? or just going to archway it like the reddit job?

Mm that part seems dodgy, might want to reinforce that roof considerably if a lotta dirt is doing on top
 
I remember an episode on Grand Designs when they did exactly that. Planning permission took ages to get but they got it in the end. Think the episode is still up there.
 
Gilly said:
LOL, I'm not building a grow-room :D

They catch you through your energy utilisation :shifty:
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Yeah but they don't track how much petrol you're buying ;)

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My dad tried to build under our house without planning permission, was quite a sight seeing a mini digger 12ft down a hole in our front room!

Suffice to say the council found out and shut him down, not to mention taking him to court over it, very expensive mistake!
 
I was thinking that this idea sounds like it could be quite difficult to pull off. Then I remembered my mate's dad let us dig a pit in their garden and build an underground bunker using pallets and damp course sheeting. It was freaking awesome, and we spent ages in it, camping out etc. Then it rained... So, yeah, drainage.
 
Stev said:
My dad tried to build under our house without planning permission, was quite a sight seeing a mini digger 12ft down a hole in our front room!

Suffice to say the council found out and shut him down, not to mention taking him to court over it, very expensive mistake!
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Lol, what was the purpose? Was he trying to find gold?
 
I would have thought that you would almost certainly need planning due to possible sewers, utilities and drainage issues, as it could be a lot more involved than digging a hole and dropping a couple of containers in.
At what level is your water table for a start? if you are due to breach that then this will get fairly expensive rather quickly.
 
You'd need structural calculations to make sure the containers wouldn't 'float' out the ground running your hard work

Waterproofing
Insulation
Ventilation

Maybe party wall awards and of course where you put all the spoil
 
Narj said:
How do you get around potential flooding in heavy rain? You'd have to make the entrance watertight I presume! :eek:
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Not to mention the fact that if going anywhere near the water table i would have thought that containers (drowned in water all around them) would rust to the point where their structural integrity was compromised in a fairly short amount of time? I could also see big problems with them leaking (are they totally watertight?).

This project should really be constructed from properly sealed blockwork with pumped drainage, i dont see that containers are anything like a suitable thing to use.
 
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