Laying a GARAGE BASE.

[Lankytim]

The wife is on at me to get this concrete garage built, so far I've managed to get one quote for £1900 to have the base laid and no other contractor has been interested. I'm considering having a crack at it myself. The dimensions of the base are 11ft x 17ft.

 

In my mind as an absolute novice all I need to do is hire a mini digger for £80 or so, dig the area out to a depth of 12 inches, insert shuttering, lob a load of broken slabs and bricks in and get a MINIMICKS lorry to dump a load of concrete in the hole (I may have to barrow the concrete from the lorry to the hole)

 

Tamp it all down with a long piece of wood and leave a few days to set- Hi 5's all round and a cup of tea.

 

A concrete calculator suggests the concrete is going to cost approx £250, digger hire for the day, £80, skip hire, £80 so  for £410ish I should have the garage base of my dreams.

 

Is this a correct assumption?

[UltraWomble]

Laying a base isnt rocket science - what you say is pretty much it, whether or not you want to put a DPM in place or not is up to you.

 

Beware dips in the base and of course trying to keep the local wildlife off it until it sets is an arse - we used a catnic lintel as a straight edge when we did the garage floor, still managed to get a dip in it about 2/3 the way along.

[dieselassist]

what you describe sounds workable/doable; it depends on how much heavy work you want to do in the garage; the base might crack if the concrete aint that deep, n its foundation isn't supported by a course of blockwork.... if it were me id scrounge a bit of heavey mesh off a builder groundworker mate - it can be 'small offcuts' of reinforcing mesh, overlaid n bound together with migwire - reinforcing mesh keeps the base together, basically... you need to have it raised up a bit during the pour....you could do this by rasing up the mesh with the bits of broken up slabs....

 

if you can borrow a whacker, to whack down the gravel inside the shuttering, before laying down the bits of slabs/ reinforcing mesh, it will ensure the longevity of the base, n avoid it cracking or splitting....

 

the main part of the slab obviously needs to be as level as you can get it - Ive seen DIY jobs where during heavey rain the water stayed in the built garage n flooded the floor - if its raised up enough, it wont be an issue, but this means more concrete/higher shuttering....

 

...if you set up your shuttering all level on the top edge, n well secured n backed up, you can Tamp down to that with a long 2x4, with an extra pair of hands 'working together'...

[andrew e]

Lankytim you have the right idea, thats whey I've done in the past, but with one difference. Rent a wacker plater (£40 day) to tamp the rubble down, and chuck some rebar steel in too. I would take the soil to the tip though, rather than pay for a skip. (Says the man who had 13 muck away trucks last year....)

[andrew e]

Ha! Great minds!

[fraser.innes.3]

Budget for at least 2 skips. Earth is heavy and you can't fill a skip to the top with it without overloading the skip. If you go for 2 then arrange a time with the skip company to swap.

 

I built an extension to my house a couple of years ago. 3 of us, 2 digging by hand and one on the barrows, filled the skip in a couple of hours. I called the skip guys, but they couldn't swap it over til then next day. We ended up having to lay a tarp on the rest of the drive and dumping another few tons on it.

[Timewaster]

Edit: apologies for the repetition, it's taken 10 minutes to get this bloody post to load.....

 

I had a local guy do mine about 4 years ago. 10x22 pad.

He did what you said pretty much but he put type 2 over the rubble and went over it with a wacker and put in a grid of reinforcing bars.

 

The lorry that came mixed to order so there was no waste.

 

They used a power float to get it smooth and came back after about 6 hours and did it again.

It's not marble smooth but pretty good.

 

Tamping it with a plank trends to leave a rough surface. Ok for drives or a shed base but not ideal for a garage floor.

 

£1300 springs to mind but he did some other jobs too so that might not be right.

 

Who are you asking? Builders?

This guy was a block drive/paving specialist and he did our patio too.

 

 

As for skips? Sod that. By a shite transit.

[dieselassist]

....you can negate a bit of the skip hire for the dug out spoil by enquiring round the neighbours/advertising on Gumtree for 'free top soil - needs collecting' - suit someone trying to level up a garden'....

[Sheefag]

Top Tip.

Tie string around your ankles, fill your trouser legs with soil and discreetly dump the soil into local flower beds.

[taxi paul]

Or dig a hole and put the soil from the garage base into it. Simple.

[Bren]

My conservatory is 9" x11" .

I filled an 8 tonne skip digging 450 mm deep.

 

A whacker plate and rebar (mesh) will help.

[Honey Badger]

A lot of the money should go in the base to be honest, just rubble isn't enough as a sub base, you need at least a couple of inches of compacted type 2 hardcore, whacker it, blind it off with sharp sand and then get some damp membrane down before your pour the concrete. Last thing you want is moisture coming up through the floor help everything get damp.

 

 

You're going to need some reinforcing mesh in the slab as well, paving expert is a really good site to explain all of this stuff, you will need a knee at the garage entrance as well (double depth slap with more mesh to take the weight of the car as it enters the garage).

 

http://www.pavingexpert.com/reinfrc1.htm

 

http://www.pavingexpert.com/concrete.htm

 

Don't  try to use a powerfloat if you haven't been trained to use them, they can be quite painful if they dig in, and can throw a 17 year old 6 foot apprentice quite a distance, apparently......

[Bucketeer]

It's one of the easiest jobs you can do, defo worth doing yourself. As already mentioned, whacker plate before pouring and some rebar laid in the concrete are advisable. For the pre-concrete base, I was taught that road scalpings were the best, and cheapest, back when I used to do this sort of thing.

[garbaldy]

You do not need to fuck about with rebar anymore as you can get redimix that is mixed with fibers.

It's what they use in farm sheds and garages nowadays quick and easy.

[stripped fred]

I would definitely do it yourself. Check out some YouTube videos too.

[Sheefag]

Another Top Tip.

 

Ask around friends, relations and workmates, this is a great time to dispose of a body or two and they may be willing to share some of the costs.

[Tamworthbay]

Hardcore is cheap, about £30 a bag when we had the conservatory done a couple of months back, budget for at least 4 bags for that size. And as for concrete thickness, ours is 8" thick and will take anything. My mate had one done and the corner cracked when we put a v8 on it!, turned out it was barely 3" thick with a crap base under it. We relaid it but getting the concrete up was a back breaker.

[purplebargeken]

Great advice but I was mostly in awe of this little snippet of info:

 

'The wife is on at me to get this concrete garage built'

 

20/10 win on this alone!!!!

[drum]

Great excuse to buy some plant.

I recommend a hymac.

 

I'm thinking about how much work I can do myself too. My shed is 18m x 9m so getting the base level before laying the concrete is the bit I'm not sure about. Don't want to waste lots of concrete.

[Guest Hooli]

Great advice but I was mostly in awe of this little snippet of info:

 

'The wife is on at me to get this concrete garage built'

 

20/10 win on this alone!!!!

 

That means she wants to fill it with shite like pushbikes & kids garden toys.

[UltraWomble]

Another Top Tip.

 

Ask around friends, relations and workmates, this is a great time to dispose of a body or two and they may be willing to share some of the costs.

Concrete actually preserves bodies quite well so its not the best medium to dispose of them in from a forensic point of view.

At least 4 foot down in quicklime is better.

 

Apparently.

[dave21478]

Most plant hire places will also hire a proper site laser, tripod and stripey stick so getting the hole level is much easier than pissing around with a spirit level taped to a plank of wood or something like that.

[sierraman]

Another Top Tip.

 

Ask around friends, relations and workmates, this is a great time to dispose of a body or two and they may be willing to share some of the costs.

PM sent

[Sheefag]

Concrete actually preserves bodies quite well so its not the best medium to dispose of them in from a forensic point of view.

At least 4 foot down in quicklime is better.

 

Apparently.

Strike another one up for experience.

[stripped fred]

There's also the 'feel good' factor of working something out yourself and the finished job when done. Also, not having to rely on builders who don't turn up, don't do the job to your satisfaction etc.

[hennabm]

On both the garages I've built I have put in a 6" thick base with rebar so I know the floor will hold when I'm jacking up etc.

 

If it's just for parking space a 4" base will be OK.

 

I have used DPC on both and always had a dry floor.

 

The first I had to go down about 5ft to get to the hard but the last one I only needed about a 6" scrape to find the hard.

The first one took 10 tonnes of hardcore to get it back to the level I needed.

 

There is a good smile factor when the place is complete.

[simmo]

Mine from my last house.  We did my base, the house that backs on to mine's extension's foundations and next door's shed base in one weekend,

Mini digger and whacker (for tonne and half of MOT 1) made it a lot easier. 

 

 

 

[meshking]

Yee gads! Your planners must be blind to let that hip to gable end conversion take place! Nice garage base though

[Tickman]

Is there room to get to the site of the garage with a full size JCB?

If there is then the next question is:

Are there any local road works happening?

If so then have a word about getting the base cleared by them for cash and maybe even doing the poor of the concrete.

 

For your slab being 6 inches thick you are looking for 3 cubic meters of concrete and as has been said above no need for mesh with concrete technology as it is, just get fibre in it.

There are plenty of people who do this for a living who would do it on the side for cash, my dad did this sort of stuff for years, it is not difficult but a lot of work if you are not used to it.

[chodweaver]

Tim - I'll have a bunch of your topsoil away, though it'll be limited to however many trips I can be bothered to do with the Voyager or more likely a rented Transit tipper - my garden yearns for something to cover up the clay and fill in the ill fated hot tub hole (NOT my idea...)