It’s been a long time in the making but my garage/workshop is finally built! We started this project in September 2016 after receiving planning permission for planning documents that I drew up and submitted myself. It was only supposed to take 4-weeks but alas….the builders tried to scam me!
Long story short, builders that I thought looked decent enough turned out to be liars and just general scum. Alarm bells started ringing when they laid a thin wafer of a concrete base without any reinforcement, then they stopped turning up with excuses about family troubles, followed by a confession of sorts about how they were actually planning to build the garage which was nothing like we agreed with the structural engineer and was downright unsafe! Have since spent the last 9 months recovering a small sum of money from them (my deposit and a partial payment towards materials that I never received!) with the help of trading standards. I feel like I dodged a bullet but it’s still been a long stressful time! New builders were epic and have certainly restored my faith in tradesmen in general.
Anyway, onto the photos! The general idea was to remove the old concrete prefab garage next to the house, turn that into a driveway behind solid gates and build a new larger garage into the back garden. The back garden is sloped so the walls of the new garage needed to be substantial retaining walls for the surrounding earth. Steps needed moving and we also removed the bottom tier to give a bigger patio area.
A couple of shots before we started work.
And then the scum builders started demolishing the old concrete prefab garage and digging out the earth to make way for the new garage. At this point, everything looked pretty kosher.
Alarm bells! I got home from work one day to find they’d laid membrane down and then just poured 3” of concrete in without any rebar support, no steel for the walls to be built on, the worst looking shuttering I’ve ever seen (yes, that is part of concrete prefab garage wall!) and no drainage. I called them up on it and was told “Fibres in the concrete add strength, you don’t need rebar”.
Finally had a confession from them stating they were going to use a single skin of block with cement poured inside. No rebar and nothing to anchor it to the concrete. I told them not to bother coming back and to refund my money. It was getting towards the end of the year and the weather was turning so we decided to put up scaffolding to ensure nothing collapses with the frost over winter. It’s a bad time to build anything and no builders were available to start the job on short notice.
At the beginning of 2017, the frost did start to do damage. Clay behind the membrane had collapsed and was bulging while a bit without membrane just fell out. Unfortunately, there wasn’t too much we could do as the new builders weren’t available yet so had to wait it out.
Finally, new builders started and everything began to look up! Old concrete chopped out, proper shuttering built, 30” of concrete poured with two layers of mesh rebar and rebar bent to 90 degrees to anchor the walls to. Perforated land drain ran all the around base of the garage to help drain water away from the walls.
Walls started going up. Double skin wall tied together with steel and the cavity filled with mesh rebar and concrete. Any part of the external wall that would be visible is simply built with face brick to match the house. Patio wall also started and build double thickness without a cavity.
Roof trusses in place with felt and tiles. Drainpipe to match the house also added.
Steps to the side built. Finally have access to the top of my garden again!
Finishing touches! Side door fitted and electric roller shutter garage door fitted. Armoured power and network cable run from the house, under the steps and into the garage as well as a new consumer unit and connection.
I've still got the rest of the patio and upper garden to finish. Also planning to plasterboard and paint inside the garage to make it nice and bright.
Any suggestions on bright LED lighting?
Long story short, builders that I thought looked decent enough turned out to be liars and just general scum. Alarm bells started ringing when they laid a thin wafer of a concrete base without any reinforcement, then they stopped turning up with excuses about family troubles, followed by a confession of sorts about how they were actually planning to build the garage which was nothing like we agreed with the structural engineer and was downright unsafe! Have since spent the last 9 months recovering a small sum of money from them (my deposit and a partial payment towards materials that I never received!) with the help of trading standards. I feel like I dodged a bullet but it’s still been a long stressful time! New builders were epic and have certainly restored my faith in tradesmen in general.
Anyway, onto the photos! The general idea was to remove the old concrete prefab garage next to the house, turn that into a driveway behind solid gates and build a new larger garage into the back garden. The back garden is sloped so the walls of the new garage needed to be substantial retaining walls for the surrounding earth. Steps needed moving and we also removed the bottom tier to give a bigger patio area.
A couple of shots before we started work.
And then the scum builders started demolishing the old concrete prefab garage and digging out the earth to make way for the new garage. At this point, everything looked pretty kosher.
Alarm bells! I got home from work one day to find they’d laid membrane down and then just poured 3” of concrete in without any rebar support, no steel for the walls to be built on, the worst looking shuttering I’ve ever seen (yes, that is part of concrete prefab garage wall!) and no drainage. I called them up on it and was told “Fibres in the concrete add strength, you don’t need rebar”.
Finally had a confession from them stating they were going to use a single skin of block with cement poured inside. No rebar and nothing to anchor it to the concrete. I told them not to bother coming back and to refund my money. It was getting towards the end of the year and the weather was turning so we decided to put up scaffolding to ensure nothing collapses with the frost over winter. It’s a bad time to build anything and no builders were available to start the job on short notice.
At the beginning of 2017, the frost did start to do damage. Clay behind the membrane had collapsed and was bulging while a bit without membrane just fell out. Unfortunately, there wasn’t too much we could do as the new builders weren’t available yet so had to wait it out.
Finally, new builders started and everything began to look up! Old concrete chopped out, proper shuttering built, 30” of concrete poured with two layers of mesh rebar and rebar bent to 90 degrees to anchor the walls to. Perforated land drain ran all the around base of the garage to help drain water away from the walls.
Walls started going up. Double skin wall tied together with steel and the cavity filled with mesh rebar and concrete. Any part of the external wall that would be visible is simply built with face brick to match the house. Patio wall also started and build double thickness without a cavity.
Roof trusses in place with felt and tiles. Drainpipe to match the house also added.
Steps to the side built. Finally have access to the top of my garden again!
Finishing touches! Side door fitted and electric roller shutter garage door fitted. Armoured power and network cable run from the house, under the steps and into the garage as well as a new consumer unit and connection.
I've still got the rest of the patio and upper garden to finish. Also planning to plasterboard and paint inside the garage to make it nice and bright.
Any suggestions on bright LED lighting?
) and instant-on. Doddle to fit as well.