OK, the contents of this post have been moved into the second post.
I'm going to use this post to brain dump things that folk might find useful.
What did things cost? Note, these are off the top of my head, and as good as I can remember, and there will be LOADS I have forgotten.
- The garage itself (14ft wide, 38ft long) - £6,200 (I had to pay an extra £700 for the big door)
- The concrete was about £2k, but there was A LOT! We ended up doing mass fill, and the far end, due to the slope, was 600mm deep. We could have gone for a retaining wall on strip footings and then fill with rubble and a 6" slab, but once you factored labour into it, there wasn't much in it, and not much concrete saved as building control wanted the strips to be 1m deep.
- Rebar in the base - about £350
- Rebar in the pit - about £200
- Shuttering and pit build (inc materials) - I think this was about £2.5k. I used someone else as my block laying is crap, and I wanted it to be someone elses fault if the shuttering let go!
- 50m of 16mm^2 T&E + roll of warning ribbon - about £370
- Not done it at the time of writing, but reckon it's going to be about £1k to completely panel and insulate the inside - walls and roof
- Excavation - I've had a mini digger in 3 times now - each time at about £150 for the day. Better off getting one that comes with a bloke who will operate it - twice the price per day but half the time, so save yourself the ballache
- Paint for the floor - didn't go as far as I'd have liked, so in total £400
- Sealing the floor (prior to painting) - two tubs at £27 each, although the second one only got half used.
- Application to building control - I think this was about £300
- Structural engineer - £500
- Damp Proof Membrane - £150
- Bloody great piles of shingle, type1, sand etc £400
- Soak away (including pipes, silt trap, proper SUDS system, drainage channel across the front) - £400
- waste pipe (used as a conduit for network cables and electric cable) - £70
- Blue MDPE pipe (for hot water in, cold water in, waste water out - each run 50m) £100
- Compressed air ring (excluding compressor) £300
- Panelling - 50mm polystyrene in the walls, 75mm in the roof and 9mm ply over the walls and 3mm ply on the ceiling and white primer + eggshell £1k
- Electrics - including installation / testing £1k
- Work benches - £200
What would I do differently?
- Put some temporary fencing up round the concrete slab whilst it was going off to protect it from the local wildlife.
- Get the floor power floated to make it uber smooth.
- Make the pit about 6" deeper!
- The pipes I "buried" under the slab - I should have knocked up some concrete to put over them in advance to hold them still. When we did the pour they wanted to float. The ventilation to the pit survived, but the drainage from the pit did not.
- Put more supports on the shuttering - don't underestimate the weight of deep concrete!
- Don't underestimate how much it will trash the rest of your garden.
- Maybe I would have made it wider, but then whatever you have, you think it could be bigger. I had entertained a notion of being able to get a pair of cars in side by side, but that's not realistic and I've plumped for putting some racking down each side whilst still leaving enough space to get around a car.
- I think I did a pretty good job of hiding all the services away - water, power and network all come up through the slab, and are then hidden behind the panelling. The sump pump even runs between the ceiling and the roof, as does the compressed air ring. Even the surround sound (yeah, I know...
) speakers have their wires buried in the walls. I left the alarm system until quite late in the day though, and I wish I'd fitted this very early. I could have gone for a hardwired system then. Even with a wireless alarm, there's 12v wires running to the siren transmitted and the internal hardwired sirens and strobes. I really wish these were behind the walls, as they are the only visible wires / pipes etc.
Originally Posted by TomK
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We have a massive side garden and when my backs fixed I intend to make it into a double car port (well I dream about it every time I look at it) 
