Going to get a garage built.

this looks very nice, i would love to have a space that i could build a garage like that, 10m long is huge

 

looking mega

 

Coming together nicely...nice one!

I'm liking the raised height section.

 

Looking brilliant Trev.

Breaking ground tomorrow on my mate`s garage build.

 

I'm still trying to decide over the type of door. Sectional, or roller. I've had some good advice so far off here (with particular special thanks to PAB who works with garage doors). I had pretty much settled on the idea of a sectional, but today my builder mate popped over and yet again tried to convince me to go for a steel roller.

Pros and cons that I can see:

Sectional (Hormann): Much better wind / dust / heat insulation. Would probably do a better job of keeping in noise. But, the door obviously retracts back into the garage, potentially stealing ceiling space which could be used for hanging stuff, and restricting lighting.

Roller door: Doesn't take up the ceiling room. Not supposed to look as nice as sectionals though, and I get the impression they're not so good for insulation.

 

Steel roller doors certainly aren't as wind/dust tight as the rubber sealed sectional doors, from my experience.

The sectional door indeed will retract into the garage, but no worse than an up and over door.
I don't find them a problem for storage...you just have to close the door slightly to access the storage above - ideal for the lesser accessed parts you will store up there.

Not sure if it's an issue, but sectional doors send to be quieter on opening and closing than steel...mine was near silent...where as the steel roller doors tend to make a racket.

 

It looks amazing but your never be able to hang your car on the wall with those big windows.

 

Yeah good points about the doors. I'm definitely going to forget the roller idea. I don't want anything that'll be noisy (especially given where the garage is located) and I know a sectional will keep the place warmer and probably mask machinery noise a little bit more.

What's happening tomorrow is I have a guy coming over to build the soakaway for the garage (which will be run into the garden area), then tidy up a lot of the driveway that got knackered, and dig out a trench to lay in the armoured electricity cable and water pipe. I always assumed you would use conduit to run the mains cable through but several people have advised that the cable is simply put into the ground as it is without running through conduit, with just sand surrounding it. Does this sound okay and the right way of doing things?

I know an underground conduit would be useful for pushing new cables through in the future. If I can arrange to get him to obtain and lay some down then perhaps I will do, but I'm not sure how essential it is, as internet access can be via wireless and the security system I have uses wireless detectors.

I intend to have a little wash basin inside but I don't have a drain sorted for it. I was intending to run the drain pipe from that into the soakaway too. Perhaps join it to the bottom of the gutter pipe just before it goes into the ground.

 

As long as its just water going down. Any soap etc... will block the soakaway over time.

 

Okay, could be an issue then.


Regarding the armoured cable, I've been doing some reading on various DIY forums and I understand that:

- The armoured cable need not be enclosed in any kind of trunking; it is just laid into the ground as it is.
- It needs to be positioned about 450mm (~18 inches) deep.
- 150mm (~6 inches) above the armoured cable, we should lay yellow electrical warning tape.
- The armoured cable should be surrounded with sand.

I know there are many other considerations concerning what kind of RCDs to use, how to connect to the CU, etc. but for now I'm just concerned about getting the cable in the trench.

The other question is what size of cable to go for. It's not a very long run between the garage and the house, and it's hard for me to estimate what my power requirements are going to be, so I'm thinking I might as well go overkill and buy 6mm2 stuff.


I guess I should phone Building Control tomorrow morning to see if they can offer any advice. I did pay them a few hundred quid after all...!

 

Trev,

You are correct in that you don't need to run conduit.
It may be an advantage for running cables later on though. It's up to you.

I believe you can run the cable at a shallower depth though, if run within conduit. Mine was no more than 12" down, inside a 4" pipe.
Depth may not be an issue if you are digging by machine. I was digging by hand...so I chose the lazy option.

As for cable, I seem to recall I ran a 3 core 4.0mm2 SWA cable (although may have been 3 core 2.5mm2), and just tied core 3 to earth, along with the armoured braiding.
I managed to obtain some cable from work...so used what an industrial sparky suggested.

I guess you should gauge it on what you want to run, if you intend to run really big MIG/TIG welders right on the edge of single phase 240v supply capability, a plasma cutter, a big pressure washer and a big air compressor...then maybe you should go with at least 4mm2...even 6mm2.

If it's just for sockets for normal hand power tools, battery chargers, inspection lights etc, then 2.5mm2 should be OK.



Just thinking:
What's the depth requirements for a water pipe, to ensure it doesn't freeze?
Is that 18" down?

 

Thanks again for the advice.

In the end, I went and obtained:

- 30m of armoured cable. I got the 10mm 3-core stuff. Total overkill, probably - especially considering the bloody stuff is even thicker than what's coming off the electricity pylon to the house in the first place!

- Warning tape.

Put the cable in at 18" down and then the tape 6" above that.

Put a water pipe in as well. Yep - chap said water pipe needed to be 18" down.

We did also put a large conduit down at the same time after all, so I have something to shove extra cables down if I need it.


What is a total ballache is the news that an electrician gave me who came over to quote for connecting the armoured cable up for me. He first informed me that the house consumer unit is old and needs updating. Fair enough - I'm actually very happy to have a modern one installed. But then he moved into the house wiring and found that the lighting circuits don't have earth connections. So, before he'll touch anything to do with the garage, the house CU needs to be replaced and half the house needs to be rewired as well. To cap it off, he said he'd also want to do all of the garage internal wiring himself and could not inspect my work and connect it up if I did it.

Think I'll get a few more opinions! Though I know the house wiring needs to be updated at some point anyway, so it might as well be now, but it's just expensive doing everything at once.


As well as laying the pipes and cable into the ground to the house, the soakaway has also been done now. The driveway is quite a wreck now because of the heavy vehicles that have had to drive over them for when the foundation was being done, so I got the chap to replace some of the really broken concrete areas with scalpings. Still not a very pretty driveway but at least it's good enough for now until we get it totally renewed.

I'll post some more pictures later.

So the garage now just needs me to fit the windows and doors, and do the wiring inside, and then probably do the necessary work on the house electrics.

 

Think thats the way these days, Electricians won't sign anything off unless they do it themselves from start to finish. They become liable for the install. Have terrible trouble on site with some of them

 

Put as many sockets in as you can.

 

Find another electrician - sounds like this one's just trying to generate work for himself.

 

Looking amazing Trev

 

Trev - roller doors aren't all clangy metal things...

My parents one is whisper quiet opening/closing, insulates, seals well against draughts.


I'm building a garage for a mate soon - just designed it and starting building soon. Total budget - 750.

Should be nearly as good as yours...

 

Any update photos??

 

Ah, yep -- every single day I think to myself "must update the garage thread tonight" but keep getting sidetracked!

It's actually complete now, except for painting and sealing the floor inside.

Special thanks to PAB for the long time spent on the phone giving garage door advice, and for supplying the sectional door. Very much appreciated mate.

I'll hopefully be back early enough from Curby tomorrow to post some pictures up.

 

Get photos up of the Man Cave!