Thanks guy :) .
August 2015
Time for another belated update on the garage/life. Lets see, the last update was May so this is 3 months worth of stuff that's been going on.
Ok, I got the rest of the trusses up without much hassle, that was the good thing about making them up on a jig., just repeat everything.
When it came to the other end of the garage I did have a little problem joining the panels together as I only had 2 "corner" pieces that I had already used on the front of the garage. The panels are about 75-80mm thick so I bought a length of 80mm box section and used that as the corner posts. I drilled and tapped the holes to bolt the panels too them and also welded on base plates to help strengthening it up a bit.
I then started on the purlins. To save even more money, I made use of what I already had and reused the 50x150 I had used for boxing in the foundations. I attached these using Tek-screws, wonderful things! Just like screws with inbuilt drill bits on the end so no need for pilot holes, just screw them in with a cordless like you normally would putting screws into wood.
Put them in over a few days, then stood up on the highest point for the first time.
Then it was time for the actual roof. I bought some 18mm OSB3 board as my first layer. I managed to rope both brothers to help me out with this as I wanted everything to be water tight in one day in case it rained (this being Scotland and all)
Ross turned up first, raring to go.
Starting to sheet it up. I borrowed the works rip-saw for the weekend which was very useful.
Then the centre section. It was feeling pretty surreal actually walking on the roof, atleast it made me feel more confident about the strength of the whole thing.
First layer done, ready for the vapour barrier, and pose.
Vapour barrier all taped up.
This was when Scott turned up and we reunited as team Barlas!, nothing could stop us now.
Attaching the 50mm insulation panels. We worked out a way of doing the roof. The insulation panels were 1200mm wide and the roof panels were 1000mm so once we had one sheet of insulation down and pinned we then placed a roof section on top and put a few more tekscrews in to keep it down. I had decent length screws to get into the purlin underneath also. I also put sticky rubber between the roof section joints to help make it even more weather tight. Oh, I also used proper foil tape between all the insulation sections to make another barrier.
Bit too much posing and coffee breaks for my liking ;) .
Scott's pretty tall so it was handy having him at the ready to pass the panels up, after a while we started getting a good system going.
One panel to go.
To tidy up the apex and edges I cut a few lengths of 1.6mm galvanised sheets from work into strips then took them along to my old work and folded them over. I still had a few things to do at either end so I just put the centre up first and folded the vapour barrier over so the OSB and insulation wouldn't get wet in the mean time.
Cut to a few weeks later. I neatend up the eaves of the garage with a metal cicular saw and a straight line. I had also installed the guttering but hadn't plumbed everything in yet. Oh, and you cant really see it here but I have the foam eave fillers in too. I couldn't find the right profile anywhere so I went to a local foam centre and was quoted £85 just for foam, no special shapes or anything, just a continuous section of foam!. So, being the cheap ass that I am I went around a few of the bargain shops and found a place that had foam knee pads that were made from 50x50 sections of foam, best thing was they were only 50p each and each knee pad had 10 sections. All I did was separate them , angle the ends and they fitted, so I saved £80.50.
To seal the end trusses of the garage I used more OSB3 I had left over, cut the triangles out, painted them in extra thick bitumen paint to seal them from water and installed them using a mixture of screws and tek-screws. I also fitted the flashings by this point.
I had then hoped to get straight onto the doors but shortly after fitting the gutters we had a huge downpour. Now, I was probably very naive thinking that I could use 2 x 25 gallon buckets and that I would empty them "everynow and then" because it had been raining for about an hour and each bucket was over flowing!
Well, that means I better plumb in the roof water drainage.
Got the pick-axe ( my dads one really, I cant seem to find mine, the running joke is its buried in the foundations somewhere ;) ) and shovel and started to dig. I had forgotten just how much of a work out it was.
Good thing is I have a vent in my garden just outside the back door so I was able to tap into that using a clay to PVC adaptor.
P-trap concreted in.
As I could only really do stuff after work this was my temporary solution so I don't flood my garden, flood the council grass instead.
I bought some drain channels on Ebay and set about laying them. I bought a few bags of cement and 24 bags of ballast to mix up. I really wish I had a mixer but I dint so all of it was done by hand, all half ton of it, my guns were aching by the time it was all done.
Whilst I had a trench dug I thought id lay the power cable too. My dad gave me an old bit of 5mm thick wall piping so I ran a 10mm twin and earth cable though it which should be more than ample for what I need.
Great, that was the drainage done, now back to the doors. As usual, I didn't want any flimsy nancy pansy wooden door, I wanted steel! So I took some measurements and drew up some plans.
I wanted all the height I could get so I designed the doors to go right up including the anlged section.
I took a weeks holiday from work......so I could then go to my work and make the doors.... I used 50mm box section for the frame.
I used 1.6mm galvanised to sheet it out and made my own heavy duty hinges.
After a weeks work my dad came round and helped me fit them. I was a bit anxious as I only left a 10mm gap all around but they fitted like the proverbial glove.
Inside
Then I used some 25mm angle and rubber beading to make a weather tight seal.
Ive since fitted more sliding bolts. The beauty of it is there's no way to open it from the outside right now (that wont be until much later when I'm using the van) Even if someone cuts the hinges there's a back up system ;) .
Now for the entry door, again it had to be metal but I didn't want it to look like an industrial unit so I made a faux 4 panel door. Framed and sheated then I cut up some wooden (bleugh) beading for decoration. I also have 2 nice anti-saw locks attached
I managed to fit this door myself. I had 3 hinges on it to start off with but as the door has a slight bow in it the middle hinge was binding with the door frame so that whenever I opened the door it made the frame twist slightly. That caused the sealant to flex so I had to cut the middle one off, never mind. Il deal with the hole later.
You may have also noticed in the last photo I have fitted my strip lights. I only have them wired to a plug just now so I can have light if I need to work inside when its dark until I get all the electrics connected up. My boss was throwing them out as he bought new ones for the showroom. Little bit paint and they were fit for purpose. They are a tad long though so I have had to stagger them , beggers cant be choosers and all that eh.
Getting close to where I am right now. I've started doing the bit I've kind of been worried about. Rendering the upper part of the trusses and wall to match the rest of the garage panels. I've looked up a lot of information regarding how to do it and so I went and bought all the materials. To render onto wood it needs to have a mesh put on first, this is called lath. It needs to be as tight as possible so I attached it with about 120 screws and washers over the looser areas.
Then my scratch coat. I used a 4:1 mix of sand and cement with some waterproofer/plasticiser mixed in and bought myself a good trowel. It was a bit daunting but I was getting the hang of it. I'm definitely not a plasterer though.
Then I bought some galvanised beading to put around the windows so it looks neater then I gave the wall a scratch coat.
To level everything out I gave the upper section another scratch coat as it was 10mm further back than the wall. Then that brings me nicely to today. I bought some small stone chips from a garden centre and started the roughcast coat. Now that is tricky! I messed up the first time as I had not made the wall wet enough before rendering so by the time I finished a section all the moisture had seeped into the wall and the outside was dry so the stones never stuck in. I s****ed it all off and started again, this time I really wet the walls then got on with it. I was a bit more successful this time but I can honestly see why this is a proper time served apprenticeship kind of job. The professionals make it look so easy too.
The good thing is its all getting painted when I'm finished anyway, I think il use a textured masonry paint to blend it all in. I have already gotten the slate grey for the roof , just waiting for a few sunny days to do it.
That's me completely upto date now. Once I have finished this wall I will move onto the back of the garage and do that end in the same way with the roughcasting. After that its just a few other little things to tidy up/finish then paint and the exterior will be done and I can move onto the inside to insulate and sheet. I think my boss wants me out pretty soon though so I think I will have to move a lot of stuff along to the garage and work around the van. Will be a bugger but will be pretty cool to have the van home as well :) .
Until next time!
