3 replies to this topic

[mollydog]

Part 1
This is about my DIY double garage built that started in the summer of 2019 while on holiday in Italy till the garage doors were fitted last February, it was a long journey, and nearly as long a story, as it's a long and full of images and video clips I'll post in small sections,

We had a normal one car garage that had an asbestos roof that we uses as a spare junk room full of things that should of been thrown out years ago but were kept just in case there were ever needed (which turned out to be never)

the moment I bought my Elise in 2010 I wanted to keep her in a garage, but our garage was  already full, full of junk that had nowhere else to go, so as a temporary measure I bought a 5Mx2.5M tent and used it over the first couple of winters





my goodness, every gust of wind looked like the tent was going to fly, then come winter the condensation would be dripping on the car, well on the third winter I bought a 6Mx3M marque it kept the rain off and the wind didn't move it, not after the long pegs I attached the frame to



 pegs and straps to be sure the wind wasn't going to be moving it









 fitted lights



and with an extension I was also able to keep the Elise on charge as it wasn't used much



it was roomy enough for minor work but anything like taking off one of the clams and it had to be taken outside to do it



or when I decided to replace the original rad that had plastic end caps with an aluminium rad well the front clan had to come off for that job 



lucky I was able to do most of the work on the car in the marque

the old rad



I alos swapped over the flimsy looking jubilee clips



the rad had only one fan , on the new aluminium rad I fitted a second fan, for my drives down to Italy and the many slow moving traffic in the local villages



The ali rad, no intention of buying one but I was at the Stoneleigh kit car show as I had been going since starting my first (and only) kit car build, I used to get there on a Friday night and camp till late Sunday night, on this particular year, on the last day (Sunday afternoon) I thought I'd take a final walk round and came across a stand by coolexperts who make ali rads, I knew the going price for the ali rad made for the Elise and as it was the last day and they had on with them they offered it at a too good a price not to buy one





fitted the second fan on the ali rad



splicing in new fan connection





my wiring for the new fan

 

Edited by mollydog, Today, 06:22 AM.

[mollydog]

Part 2
one thing I noticed, the Elise has a very weak horn and driving in Italy you can never have a too loud a horn, lucky on the Elise there are two holes in the crash box made for cars with oil coolers, well I used these two holes for two tone Hella horns, very useful  in Italy



 



while I had the clam off I also fitted the wiring for the low coolant alarm



the testing

https://youtu.be/vYF...Vz2nauo-HmIagWg

I did a few more modes but I'm getting away from the garage build

So in the summer of 2019 while I was at my home in Italy and my wife and daughter were at the local swimming pool I was googling for timer garages, and came to the conclusion I could build a log cabin garage, 





looking at the prices for one car log cabin garages I thought I could buy the timber and fitting for far cheaper and make it a double garage, 

I found the timber called  Dung walling/boards



so I settled for this Dung walling, on their website they were selling them at £33.52 per 6.1M I chatted to them (while in Italy) and asking all kinds of questions about the product, the sad part was I live in north Cambridgeshire and their nearest branch that stocked this timber was in Bridgewater Somerset, so I put a hold on it till I got back to the UK

first week back I made plans where I was going to erect my timber garage,

years ago we had a couple of large dogs and had a concrete pad and fencing made for them, by now they had been long gone so I was going to use this as my garage base

a couple of issues  our conifer trees at the side of our garden were rather large and encroaching on to the concrete pad so I hired a scaffold and up I went to trim them down



















I got in some guys to take the cut timber away







till they couldn't get anymore on their pickup



now the job of clearing up the pad



the issue I had with the pad was when I had it laid, I had it with a slope not to have standing water on it for the dogs,  





how I thought I was going to over come the issue



I bought myself one of those laser levels





I cleaned up the area the garage was going to cover



red line marks the area



then late November I looked around and if I wanted to build my own to my own spec then Bridgewater was going to be where I was going to be picking up this dung walling from, one nice surprise was they had a sale and the price per board was now £25 (approx.)

so I spent the following week or so arranging hiring a 5M trailer and a 6 wheeler transit pickup both on a 24 hour hiring, so both needed to be picked up between 4pm and 5pm, the two places that had both items for hire on the same day was having to pick up the transit pickup from Corby approx. 24 miles from me, then drive back towards my home with the transit pickup 6  or 7 miles from my home to pick up the trailer then head back towards where I came from to head  to Bridgwater,, this all arranged  late December I set off

I got to the Bridgewater Depot around midnight, the road leading to the depot was a dead end road with no street lights or footpaths, I thought I'd turn around in this tight road so I was ready to drive in the yard first thing when it opened up in the morning, what could possible go wrong

Driving up to their entrance I found I didn't have enough room to make the reverse possible (I'm sure a pro lorry driver could but not me) I got the trailer in a position that I couldn't go any further forward and if I went back I would lock myself even further

 I had this brain wave, if I un hooked the trailer I might be able to swing it around so all I had to do is reverse the transit pickup, I could do that well it was midnight, cold and I had this transit pickup that had a trailer behind it that blocked a dead end road,  and nothing to lose

I un hooked the trailer, and then found out the weight of the trailer meant I wasn't going to be pushing it anywhere,  looking around there was no one in sight, cold damp and blocking one of the entrances to the yard, and I still had another 8 hours wait in the transit for the gates to open


To be continued. . . .  

PS apologies if the odd error crept in

 

[Ethel]

Wondered where this was going after reading log cabin 'n seeing the tree felling piccies. 

[mollydog]

@..is NOT a girl!

I am so easily sent off track as you'll see as I add to this thread    

 

It's a long story and there were lots of twists and turns and changing directions along the way which I hope to tell, the essence of the story is I built a timber garage and right at the start we had Covid which prolonged the build no end

 My wife once reminded me I could of got a pre made log garage and it would of been up and finished, but saying that she has been supportive in all my projects and that includes this garage build

I think the story was in the journey it took me to get to the finish line if there is ever a finish line in any project, and I think (hope) others here on this forum might find this thread entertaining, maybe also informative 

The full story while I was building the timber garage has already been posted on a couple of other forums I belong to, live (so to speak) as I was building it over the five years, with me asking lost and lots of questions along the way

With this thread on here that I hope to continue posting till I've told the hole story is a recap of that journey, but feel free to ask any questions why I did something one way not the other or why I didn't do something (more often than not because I didn't know better)

so please do ask questions as I am sure on much of the build I could of done something a different or better way

PS English is not my first language so there will be a few (many) spelling and grammar errors along the way, if something isn't clear please ask