# Workshop Build



## ody (Sep 30, 2014)

I've recently moved into a house to start family life .. and having a large garden decided to build myself a dedicated workshop.  Being in the UK I'm restricted to building in my back garden, under 30 square meters and off "substantially non-combustible materials" if within 1 meter of a boundary and maximum height of 2.5meters.   So taking the restrictions into account and the size of my back garden I opted for a 4x6meter shop built on a 8inch steel reinforced concrete slab with 7.2newton concrete blocks.  I'll have a few windows and a steel door and 2meter wide roller shutter.  My budget was £5 but I ended up spending £1.5k on various additions I'd like for the shop.  I'm doing all the work myself and so far the costs have roughly:


£700 - 500 Blocks, 12bags of cement, 2 ton bags MOT, Damp proof sheet. 6sheets of A142.
£50   - shuttering for slab
£700 - ~7.5cubic meters of C35 concrete with fibers
£100 - cement mixer

So this is the bit of land .. I started by clearing all the shrubbery and mountains of cat sh*t.




It took about a month of on and off digging in the evenings / weekends but I finally go down to some stable soil.  What worked for me was to take a layer of 2-3inches away at a time. I don't know what it was about this bit of land but it seemed to attract all the neighborhood cats that treated it as a giant litter box .. so most digging sessions started with me filling a wheel barrow full of cat treats before getting to the real work.




I managed to scrape together enough rubble from my front garden and my nextdoor neighbor who was having an extension put on .. they must love having a neighbor that rummages around in their skip.




Got the 2tons of MOT on .. luckily the neighbors had a ton left over as well and even then I could have done with more.  Oh well I'll just have to have a thicker layer of concrete.  At this point the rubbel and MOT is only 2-3inches thick at best.  Everything was well packed down with a whacker plate .. don't forget this bit!




Got the shuttering in place .. didn't take much effort as I only needed to put it up on two sides as I want the concrete to be level with the drive.




As I didn't bother with putting sand on top of the MOT I used some weed control fabric to stop the MOT puncturing the damp proof membrane.




On top of the weed control fabric I added a damp proof membrane.. it came on a roll 4meters by 30meters .. the slab was about 4.5meters so had to overlap two pieces and stick together with gaffer tape.  I also added 6sheets of A142 reinforcing steel mesh on top of some bricks I reclaimed from a seller on ebay.  He said he only had 100 and the buyer was to collect ALL of them .. by the time I was finished going back and forth I had 200 .. I'll make a BBQ out of the rest.




Concrete was poured nice and early on a Saturday morning .. very hard work and you've got to keep moving and tapping it down as you go.  Don't be afraid to get into the concrete to move it about and use a vibrating poker to help get the air bubbles out .. I also got an easy trowel but wish I'd just got on the concrete and hand trowled it as the finish was terrible (my lack of experience).  Also I ended up using the entire truck load of concrete and had to spread the high spots about to finish the fill .. got very lucky.




It took two weeks to figure out how to get the first course down and squared .. it turned out my shuttering wasn't square so I had to build over onto the drive at one end by a few inches.  But once the first course was down I was a happy camper.




This is the second course .. I got about 8 blocks down before I realised I'd forgot the DPC!  By the time I'd taken the blocks back down and started the course again with the DPC my back started to give out .. I powered through and managed to finish the course after 8hours of graft!  I'd planned to do 3 courses in that time.





Well that's it so far.  I'll update as I go along .. feel free to ask any questions .. I know I could have done with someone to ask when I was planning this build.

cheers
Andrew


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## GA Gyro (Sep 30, 2014)

Did this kind of work for a living for over 2 decades... hard on the back.  

Your project looks good!  Take your time with the details, you will be glad you did!

Watching and enjoying !

GA


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## RandyM (Sep 30, 2014)

This is a GREAT project Andrew. We are really glad you are sharing it with us. Can't wait to see is all finished up and you moved in. Make sure you keep us up to date.

I thought it would be better if the thread was in our shops section. Hope ya don't mind me moving it.


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## xalky (Sep 30, 2014)

Hard work , yes! You'll get lots of use out of it when it's done, and you'll be able to say that you built it yourself. There's nothing like a man on a mission to get the job done. I hope you'll have some help when it comes time to put the roof on.


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## ody (Oct 1, 2014)

Thanks for the replies.

I know what you mean by paying attention to the details, Gyro, I managed to lay the second course against the string from two bricks .. well gravity pulls it down in the middle as the bricks are not heavy enough to keep it taut so the blocks followed the line   I'm solving this problem by laying the corners first and I'll let these set overnight and finish the course tomorrow and carry on this way so I can run a taut string between the concrete blocks that are set in place.

No problems moving the thread, Randy, I wasn't sure anyway where the best place was for it.

The roof is going to be a special setup .. I'm going to run two universal beams across the pillars you can see length wise and from these two beams hang another beam on runners for a built in gantry system.  The beams will also serve as a support for the roof.  As I'm limited to 2500mm in height it's going to be a tight fit to make sure I get the maximum amount of head room. I've pretty much used up all my favors with friends but will be helping one move soon so will call the favor straight back in.

Here's some pictures of the couple of hours I just put in this evening.


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## fastback (Oct 1, 2014)

Nice looking shop.  Your doing a great job.


I have also been there.  Some years back I needed to build a horse barn, and mine was to be 30' x 30'.  Around here they would not let me build on a slab so I had to dig down below the frost (42-inches) and place a footing and then used 8 x 8 x 16 block for the first 5 feet.  I hauled all the materials with my pick up truck.  The blocks were new, but seconds, so I saved a bundle.  The building structure was western platform.  My Dad gave me a hand (a big hand) the structure ended out being a gambrel 30ft x 30ft x 30 feet tall.  Most of the studs were repurposed.  At the time, it cost me $3,500.00,  pretty cheap.  Once we got ride of the horses I converted it to work shop for my cars and had a cement floor poured. 


I could go on but I don't want to hijack your thread, maybe I already have.   

Anyway, good luck with workshop.

Paul


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## Bishop (Oct 1, 2014)

I will be following along and living vicariously through your build. One day I will build a proper shop and get out of my garage....one day. : )

Cheers
shawn


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## Falcon67 (Oct 1, 2014)

I had to lay some block at my old shop when I fixed the outer shed.  One side was below grade and I used a small footer and some 8x8x16 blocks to build a base for that wall.  What a pain in the rear view.  Good idea on the corners, I'll be cheering you on from some distance away.  Having done my own from the ground up, I feel your pain now and yet to come.  Take many pictures and save them, plus keep this blog alive with updates.  You will look back and someday have to convince yourself that was really you that did all that work.  Satisfaction guaranteed upon move in.  We're space pigs here in Texas, it's alwasy good to see how work with the hand they are delt.  Good luck!


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## ody (Oct 4, 2014)

That sounds like hard graft, Paul. My neighbor had to have their extension footings dug down over 10ft .. when the building inspector came round to check it was deep enough he commented that he'd never been so sh*t scared in his entire 30years career whilst stood in the hole .. the ground was back filled with all kinds of rubbish and had a single leaf wall that was the retaining wall for the existing terrace as the ground slopes down quite a degree at the front of the house.  The builder has some solid brass ones for sure.

I wanted to be a Mounty once when I was younger .. and have always wanted to visit Canada .. if you ever decide to build a "proper shop", Shawn, maybe I could fly over and help 

Texas has to be up there with the best places to be a hobby machinist, Falcon .. some of the stuff on youtube I've seen from you Texans is pretty epic. Maybe if I manage to make some money from this shop I'm building I'll be able to fund a bigger better one on the front of my property which has a huge garden .. or about the size of a Texan driveway 

And here is where I got up to today .. it was belting down with rain and wind this morning so only got 4hours in whilst splashing about in an inch of water that has collected inside the shop.


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## jeff_g1137 (Oct 6, 2014)

Hi
my post has gone ?????


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## RandyM (Oct 7, 2014)

jeff_g1137 said:


> Hi
> my post has gone ?????



Yes it is. Please read this for an explanation.

Site Crash

Sorry for the inconvenience.


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## jeff_g1137 (Oct 7, 2014)

Hi Andrew 
I live in Droylsden Manchester, are you far away.
Jeff


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## hermetic (Oct 7, 2014)

Hi ody, When you are doing the blockwork, it is normal to build the corners (some call them quoins) first, go up 3 courses at each corner, building with the square and level, then fill in between using your builders line string. If you dont have a square you can make one out of timber. Fix it together with one screw at the corner then measure 300mm down one arm, mark it and measure 400mm down the other arm. when the measured diagonal between the two marks is 500mm it is square! It's looking really good so far!
Phil
East Yorks.


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## ody (Oct 8, 2014)

jeff_g1137 said:


> Hi Andrew
> I live in Droylsden Manchester, are you far away.
> Jeff



Hi Jeff, I did reply to your post that got lost but it was lost also. Thanks for the offer of help! I'm in the Cheadle area so not far away.  With the weather the way it is at the moment it might be some time before I get to the roof.  My shop only works out at around 14x18ft so not much bigger than your shop .. also the asbestos garage you can see in the pics will be taken down when I finish the block work so there will be clear access to the doors. 

cheers
Andrew


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## ody (Oct 8, 2014)

hermetic said:


> Hi ody, When you are doing the blockwork, it is normal to build the corners (some call them quoins) first, go up 3 courses at each corner, building with the square and level, then fill in between using your builders line string. If you dont have a square you can make one out of timber. Fix it together with one screw at the corner then measure 300mm down one arm, mark it and measure 400mm down the other arm. when the measured diagonal between the two marks is 500mm it is square! It's looking really good so far!
> Phil
> East Yorks.



Hi Phil

 Thanks for the advice.  I struggled so much with getting the block work square that I just stuck to doing it level by level as I can correct mistakes .. it would go wrong real quick if I put up the corners 3 courses .. maybe when I build my next shop and have some block work experience under my belt 

cheers
Andrew


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## ody (Oct 8, 2014)

It's been raining, a lot, so progress this week has only consisted of moving the blocks inside the shop so I'm not having to move them 1 by 1 through the small gap between the shop and garage. Having the blocks close to hand when laying them will make the job a whole lot easier.


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## Bill Gruby (Oct 8, 2014)

You are moving right along with this Oly. I wondered what you were going to do with the garage. I hope you don't have the trouble we have here in Ct. getting rid of the asbestos. It's a real hassle. You cannot do it yourself, a hasmat  trained team has to do it. Then there is only one place to take it to.

 "Billy G"


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## ody (Oct 8, 2014)

Hi Billy, luckily I can deal with the garage myself, I'll just hose it down as I go and take it apart as carefully as possible putting the asbestos in marked bags which I can then dispose of at the local waste facility, for free.  I'll get a FFP3 mask and all over suit that I can throw away for a bit of added protection.

cheers
Andrew


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## ody (Oct 8, 2014)

Here's a mock up of the gantry system in sketchup.  I'm thinking of using 126x76 universal beam which will span 4.1meters ish .. I've had a go at trying to figure out the load capacity but these bending moments and what not are beyond me .. if anyone has any ideas on how to figure out what the rough weight capacity would be I'd appreciate it .. otherwise I'll make sure the beams don't bend two much when in use 

The long beam running perpendicular to the two main beams will be free to run side to side and a trolley on that beam will mean I'll have full X and Y travel across pretty much the entire span of the workshop.


.


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## jeff_g1137 (Oct 10, 2014)

ody said:


> I'm thinking of using 126x76 universal beam which will span 4.1meters ish .. I've had a go at trying to figure out the load capacity but these bending moments and what not are beyond me .. if anyone has any ideas on how to figure out what the rough weight capacity would be I'd appreciate it .. otherwise I'll make sure the beams don't bend two much when in use
> 
> The long beam running perpendicular to the two main beams will be free to run side to side and a trolley on that beam will mean I'll have full X and Y travel across pretty much the entire span of the workshop.
> 
> ...



Hi

The old RSJ of 5" x 3", was a 2 Ton spred load, over 14' & a point load, of 1 Ton.
The universal beam is a bit lower, but not buy a lot.
Are all the beams the same size.
If they are, the S.W.L on the crane will be about 1 Ton (rough weight capacity) but less at the ends of the beam.
the over hang on the beam can only be about 2-3", from the cross beam.

I can not find my book at the moment,

Jeff


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## hermetic (Oct 10, 2014)

Hi again Ody.
 Block work is not easy if you haven't done it before, but after this job you will have done it before, so you will be experienced!! Another couple of things I forgot, most important KEEP THE BLOCKS DRY!!! not only are they heavy to handle when wet, they do not "suck" at the mortar and slide all over, much harder to build straight with them. Also are you using soft sand? if you are try adding a shovel of sharp sand to each 4 to 1 mix (3 soft x1 sharp x 1 cement) Some builders use all sharp sand for blockwork, some part, it is personal preference, and use mortar plastisizer (febmix) as well. Although this doesnt seem to make sense, part sharp sand with febmix produces a mortar which is easy to apply, and sticks well, but doesnt let the blocks slide all over when you are levelling them. The pic shows the last bit of blockwork I did , big hollow blocks, 9x9x18 in old money, and heavy. They would just not go on right, and I was constantly trying to thicken up the mortar bed to get them level:-( then I measured them amd realised that the new blocks were nearly 3/4" smaller than the older ones built 30 years ago. Like everything metric, they are rounded down!
Check your perpends (vertical joints) and try and keep them in line on alternate courses, it looks better, but if your'e going to render it, don't bother too much, Keep at it, you'll have the roof up before you know it!
Phil


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## frostheave (Oct 10, 2014)

ody said:


> I've had a go at trying to figure out the load capacity but these bending moments and what not are beyond me .. if anyone has any ideas on how to figure out what the rough weight capacity would be I'd appreciate it .. otherwise I'll make sure the beams don't bend two much when in use



There are a ton of structural calculators available online.  This is one of the best I have found.

http://www.webstructural.com/modules/

Bob


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## ody (Oct 11, 2014)

Thanks Jeff! I just needed to know it would be able to support a few hundred kilos so it should be fine.  I'll do a proper test and measure the bending of the beams to a few mm and then mark it up with a SWL when it's installed.

Thanks for your advice, Phil.  I'm using the cheapo bags of sand from Wickes 10 at a time and it works out as cheap as buying a ton bag.  I'm managing to get along as is right now so won't mess around to much but I will defiantly look into plastisizer for the next build.

I checked the link you provided Bob but it's still way over my head, thanks anyway!

So another day and another course up.  This time I mixed the mortar and stuck it all in a wheelbarrow and moved it around as I went .. having everything to hand all the time brought my time down from 8+hours to 5hours per course .. I'll be a pro in no time


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## Henrymac (Oct 11, 2014)

Is that a terrorist, with a grenade laucher in your sketchup!! Don't let him escape!!:roflmao:


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## ody (Nov 15, 2014)

Thought I would check in .. it's been one thing after another these last weekends so I've had very little time to work on the workshop .. plus the evenings are now a write off 

I would have uploaded a picture but I'm being told I'm over my quota or something .. oh well I guess that brings this thread to an end.  I'll post some pics in the future when it's complete under a new thread.


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## JimDawson (Nov 15, 2014)

You probably went over your upload size quota, this will increase as you post more. I normally resize mine to <100Kb

Could I suggest that you reduce the size of your pictures, 640x480 is plenty big for web use. There are free plugins for both Google Chrome, and Firefox for resizing pictures. There may be one for Internet Explorer also, but I'm not sure.

Google: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/d...mbipgnbi?hl=en

Firefox: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/fir...image-resizer/

Irfanview is another very good freeware/shareware viewer that has a lot of useful features, like resizing.
http://www.irfanview.com/


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## John1961 (Nov 27, 2014)

Looking good Ody! 

I take it that laying block was cheaper than framing with lumber? I've not laid block/brick but have experience with tuck pointing. I admire you for trying this. Wish I lived closer, I'd stop by to help.

Good luck!


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


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## extropic (Nov 28, 2014)

Really enjoying your thread ody. 
I much appreciate your thoughtfulness integrating the gantry system into the original build. Every time you use it will bring a smile to your face.

One question: please define MOT

Keep those posts and pictures coming.

Regards,


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## ody (Dec 5, 2014)

John1961 said:


> Looking good Ody!
> 
> I take it that laying block was cheaper than framing with lumber? I've not laid block/brick but have experience with tuck pointing. I admire you for trying this. Wish I lived closer, I'd stop by to help.
> 
> ...



Hi John

 I had to use block as building regulations require it when building within a meter the boundary .. for fire reasons I believe.  I was toying with the idea of building it out of timber a meter away from the boundary but figured a block build would last my lifetime at least as I have no plans to move.

cheers
Andrew


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## ody (Dec 5, 2014)

extropic said:


> Really enjoying your thread ody.
> I much appreciate your thoughtfulness integrating the gantry system into the original build. Every time you use it will bring a smile to your face.
> 
> One question: please define MOT
> ...




Thanks, I'm going to build it in sometime next year now so will try and document it .. I've not figured out how to resize the images I've already uploaded so given up on posting pictures here.  I'll try and get a webpage setup at some point.

MOT is what we call cleaned and graded hard core over here.

cheers
Andrew


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