FridgeFreezer Posted January 2, 2013 Share Posted January 2, 2013 Having eventually got my lovely steel workshop built and the 109 and all my tools and stuff into it, and almost able to move round & work on things... I moved house ...so now it's all got to be done from scratch again! The new place has what could be described as a generously-sized single-car garage (as in you could park a car in it AND still walk round), with ~5m of concrete driveway in front which is begging to have walls and a roof put on it to extend the existing garage and make a proper sized home for the 109 and all the tools and stuff. Existing garage is brick-built, so the extension should be too. I've no idea how much it costs to do a brick-built garage, anyone on here had one built recently or qualified to hazard an educated guess? I'm just after some ballpark figures to see how many pennies we need to save up. Work involved would be pretty similar to building a standard single garage, just plus a bit in each direction 2nd part of the puzzle is to add a 3m x 3m (ish) shed/workshop/office in the garden, as my GF makes jewellery as a hobby and it's better to wave blowlamps and chemicals around in the garden rather than indoors next to the curtains we've seen plenty of sheds for ~£750 and under that would do the job (with a bit of insulation, lighting, electrics, etc. added), but looking for recommendations / ideas / experiences from knowledgeable forumers, one concern is how cold it gets in a wooden shed / how much heating it takes to bring it up to a comfy temperature for fiddly work. Located in Basingstoke as I know prices vary by region. Recommendations of decent local builders welcome. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
crclifford Posted January 2, 2013 Share Posted January 2, 2013 Fridge, Not much help to you I know, but I built a double garage, single skin block, with wooden cladding, attic trusses etc for about £12k. This was not including foundations as these couldn't be simple strip foundations. Therefore, I would expect you to be able to get a larger than average single garage built for about £8 - 10k, if you do the work yourself, you should be able to do it for cheaper than that. On the shed side of things, you may find that adding it to the end of the garage at the same time is cheaper than buying a whole new shed and mounting it elsewhere in the garden. HTH Chris Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zoltan Posted January 2, 2013 Share Posted January 2, 2013 FWIW my mum used to make jewellery when I was a kid and she worked out of a (converted) spare bedroom at home. I don't recall any acid meltdowns or gas explosions. I think your g-f will have a devil of a job stopping her tools going rusty in an outside building Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ejparrott Posted January 2, 2013 Share Posted January 2, 2013 If you do go the shed route, I can highly recommend having it spray-foam insulated. Its a sub con job, but its quick, and fills all the holes. Its then a quick job to line it and be in and happy. I so wish I'd had it done with my workshop, it'd be all done by now if I had. We had the narrowboat done many years ago. That has a steel cabin. Its very cosy with the stove lit, and there's no water problems. FWIW, my long term plan is to replace my exisiting concrete sectional garage from the same building manufacturers. I will be having that spray foamed! I intend to design it to include an integral 'shed' at the back, although I'll build in the partion wall, to replace the falling apart shed that currently resides at the end of it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
simonr Posted January 2, 2013 Share Posted January 2, 2013 My advice would be - stick with what you know! Build a steel frame, clad the outside with these: http://www.panespol.co.uk/department/brick_effect_panels/'>http://www.panespol.co.uk/department/brick_effect_panels/ To look like the rest of the garage. Clad the inside with the aluminium foil lined foam used in building and you have a lightweight well insulated structure you can build yourself. Better than a builder having your trousers down! For the garden, buy a second hand shed - they seem to be almost free if you dismantle & remove it yourself and insulate with the same stuff. Si Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FridgeFreezer Posted January 3, 2013 Author Share Posted January 3, 2013 I'd considered grafting a tin/wood extension on as I'm very pleased with my tin shed at the old house, but it would be a devil of a job to make it look proper (the neighbours seem to be the fussy type) and the existing garage needs re-roofing anyway. Without drawing a picture it's tricky, but I really can't see it working nicely. Spray foam is not something I'd considered, but will look into it. Tools rusting would be bad, I was planning on having a dehumidifier in there just in case. The spare room is all of 6'x6', not much room for two people, two workbenches, drawers of tools, etc... GF does jewellery, I'm tinkering with electronics so got the lab power supply, scope, soldering irons, etc., it would be far nicer to have the "lab" in a shed and have the spare room as a spare room, maybe then we can move the hoover out of the beer cupboard under the stairs! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CwazyWabbit Posted January 3, 2013 Share Posted January 3, 2013 Well if you need to lose one of your desoldering stations Mr Fridge just let me know It would make far more space on your bench for you Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Superpants Posted January 3, 2013 Share Posted January 3, 2013 I’ve just gone through a workshop building project, and ended up building in timber as the cost was significantly better than doing it in brick/ block and aesthetically looks better than steel. If you go for a standard shed, you are unlikely to get the wall thickness that you would need to get a decent thickness of insulation in. My construction used mostly 3”x 2” timber, and was therefore able to get 65mm kingspan seconds (about 1/3rd price of new) in the walls. In a garage sized building the temperature is soon (30mins or so) up to a working temp with just a standard fan heater, even in the coldest weather. Another thing to consider with standard sheds is wall height and headroom- most of them are pitifully low! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sean f Posted January 4, 2013 Share Posted January 4, 2013 Comes down to cost in the end but when I had my garage built I intentionally had the shell built double skinned and damp proofed to comply with full housing regs, I have every intention of keeping it as a garage but it could be converted to an extra room just by blocking in the garage door adding a window in it place, knocking a hole through from the house and adding a suspended floor, adds potential sale value to the house and you never know what is going to happen in the future, also means it heats up quite quickly the big uninsulated bit is the door. Cost wasn't much more and certainly a lot less than it would cost to get it upgraded later. I also had the door built extra height to be able to get the land rover in, achitect actually advised it any way and does it as normal for new build garages as lots of people have 4 wheel drives or people carriers that won't fit under a standard height garage door and the cost is negligable if it is done right from the design stage. My cost wouldn't be much use to you as I added an extra room at the same time and had some other work done, also it was block built. For de humidifying an old trick that many people probable already know is to put an oven tray of salt on the floor, it absorbs all the moisture and holds it in. When it starts to get damp just put the tray in the bottom of the oven as it cools after doing some cooking, dries the salt back out for another go and cost nothing if the oven was in use anyway, works well with caravans or cars laid up over winter. How much salt you need depends on the size and just how humid the area is. Great advantage is its cheap, simple and requires no external power. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
o_teunico Posted February 5, 2013 Share Posted February 5, 2013 A friend of my mum is an amateur painter and uses a caravan parked in the garden as her studio. Well insulated, with cooking facilities for tea/coffee, bathroom, bench for siesta and decent space in the dinningroom area for working. This could also work for jewel workshop. Non road-legal caravans can be sourced cheapily. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ejparrott Posted February 5, 2013 Share Posted February 5, 2013 I know a model engineer who is building a traction engine in 1/3rd scale, and he's using a stripped bare caravan for the painting, with suitable extractor. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FridgeFreezer Posted February 6, 2013 Author Share Posted February 6, 2013 TBH you can buy a pretty decent wooden shed/workshop for ~£750 and it looks a lot less pikey so I think we'd stick with that sort of idea for the workshop. We've had one builder round so far, quoted £14k for extending the garage & re-roofing the whole thing, but that did also include the cost of digging up & carting away 5m of concrete driveway & re-laying with new foundations just to be sure. Still quite pricey though! Another one is coming tonight so we'll see what he says. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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