has anyone brought a pre fab garage lately? Mel and Me are looking for our first house but finding one with a garage in our price is not the easyist thing...my mums friend has a house for sale soon that could be spot on...apart from no garage BUT I have been looking at the idea of pre-fab garages.. for a 3m by 5m garage its 2k, so thats a viable option. but how much have people paid to have the base laid? anything to look out for on them? or anything that worth spending a couple quid more to get? like a side door etc
Side door is one more door for robbers. I've split main doors on the one at my mum and dad's I still have at my mum and dad's, much better than an up and over You can have one open while you work or do stuff inside without passers by being able to see what you have inside etc.
Find a friendly brickie to build one with blocks. Prefabs are rubbish, they always end up leaking. If you find the right guy, he'l have enough blocks "left over" from a big job to do yours.
the other opetion was seeing how much a proper one built with blocks was, on the door I was tempted by split doors, as then I have more room above me.. having said that its a few quid more and folks wont be able to see whats in the garage as its hidden round the back behind some big doors on the car port. something to think about though cheers
Hi Karl, we've just struck a deal supplying Garage Doors to a Local good quality long standing Concrete Garage outfit in Ollerton, Notts. PM me if you want the details. Philip Karl find me at Curby on Sat. for a chat.
doh! I thought I had dremt seeing this section, Sorry Chris, Phill, I will catch up with you at Curby
Right different house but the same thing, the house we got in the end has a garage but its no where near big enough for all my junk, plus the brick wall on one side is falling down, and the other issue is theres only a 2ft gap between the back corner of the kitchen and the garage, and the drives not wide enough to park a car on and then get a trolley jack under it and work on it... so the plan is take the brick garage down, save the bricks for other jobs, then take the shed down thats behind the garage and put up a double length garage in place of them both, that way I have somewhere more secure for the spare wheels and bikes, as I can put up a stud wall in the garage to turn it in to 2 areas. The size I am looking at is 3m x 8m or so, as its a little wider than a normal garge by a few inches and nearly twice as long. So im now looking for advice when it comes to digging the base out, as I plan to do it all my self with the help of a couple of mates, and then either get a company in with concrete mixed to order or mix my own as a friend has a mixer I can borrow.
Have you talked to the local planning officer about whether it's likely to get approved? If the garage footprint is nearly as big as the house, you might struggle. Sounds like a lot of concrete to mix on your own... 3m x 8m doesn't sound right for a double garage... are you sure about that? Sounds about 1.5 garages long. Make it wider if you can, too.
planning shouldnt be an issie as i am replacing a 6ft by 4ft shed, and from the bed room window I can see most neighbours have a garage and drive down one side of the garden, and a few have done what i want to do. the length is only approx, it wont quite be double length but longer than a normal one (im hoping for 9m+ really but I need to make sure I leave a cars length between the front of the nw garage and the back of the house so I have room to park a car and work on it. the sock garage width is 2.7m iirc, and I think the next size is 3.17 from looking around so Ill try and squeeze in a 3.17m one if I can with out it making the garden look all garage
For the base, hire a digger and do it yourself. Piece of p*ss once you get the hang of it. Ideally for a 150mm `raft` you`ll want to go down around 350mm; 150mm hardcore, 50mm sand, then your 150mm concrete. You`ll be pulling out far more material than you`ll realise, so factor plenty of skips into the budget! Prefabs do leak initially, as Parz says, but with patience you can fill/seal all the gaps and make it totally water-tight. See my mate`s pre-fab build here.
Personally i would still get in contact with the local planning department. I deal with Planners on a regular basis and sometimes they can be a pain in the a**e. It goes in your favour though that others in your row have done the same as you intend. With regard to the raft build up Mike is spot on
Stu, been watching that one, would love to build something that big but Mel would kill me! and im on a budget too. as for it leaking, Im a dab hand with the silicon sealant so it will be sealed everywhere once its up and settled, so should be ok and cant be anyworse than what I have now!
A 'friendly chat' with the local planning officer is always going to help your chances of getting the application approved when it lands on his desk, and give you an idea of how long it will take, or what they'd start to get twitchy about.
Don`t use silicon! `Gripfill` is what you want, or even mix up some mortar and point it as you would a brick/block wall.
I have been out with the tape measure and a 3.17m (12.5ft) wide one will be perfect, it uses up about 1 /3rd of the garden width, and if its 8m long then it sits perfectly in the space from where the base of the old garage will end, up to within 1 foot of the hedge at the bottom of the garden, and this is basically all space used at the mo for a shed and bins etc
Just seen this thread. i paid 1400 fitted for a 8ft x 16ft conrete prefab, with one window and up/over door and 500 for base.
These don't exist any more, unless its just my council that are arseholes. You have to submit a pre-application, and its bollox anyway, its just one persons opinion on whether you'll get planning and it means nothing. Need to do a load of drawings too, not proper to scale ones but still decent, also road plan, location plan, access etc.
My mate had to do that for his. He was told everything checked out regulations wise, but he still had to submit the plans, drawings, etc as `a formality`...of course the attendant fee it occured was clearly nothing to do with it...
