Oh, I had to dismantle part of the kitchen and unbolt the electric cooker bolted to the Aga.
I discovered where they are getting in. I haven't seen any this year
.Try cheese...
I is not impossible, as my loft actually is proof against almost everything - the vents are fitted with grilles, but there are cable/pipe runs that allow access from rooms inside the house.
Many ways are possible. Put joists between the steel before insulating. Glue battens to the steel with gorilla glue or car body filler - worth it as those joists will be a 'cold bridge' anyway...glue the plasterboard up there with dot and dabs od something appropriate..again gorilla glue or car body filler
This isn't an exam. There is no correct answer. This is real life.
I do see a lot of planning applications locally about making a garage into a habitable room, which I assume means blocking up where the entrance is and maybe fitting a door instead.
So if major changes are made you might find planners down on your head. I know this as over the back from me, Garages built for 1960s cars won't fit the current ones for width, and hence many people are making them into rooms. Cannot say it would be my idea of luxury, as they are not actually on the same property, quite often, but each to their own I suppose. Brian
I've had some success using chocolate spread/sauce!
Mine always responded well to cheap cheddar
We've used Nutella - works better than cheese.
For single-skin garage walls, probably making into cavity walls with insulation, maybe raising floor level for internal door.
There is a correct answer.
There aren't many of them, but there are "roofing consultants" in the phone book.
They should not be affiliated with a roofing company, nor promote only one company as "capable of doing the work".
They are an intermediate intellect. Architects are pretty picky about what projects they choose. They don't want mundane stuff like roofing fixes, for their project portfolio.
Part of the job of a roofing consultant, is preparing a plan which "any competent roofer can implement". Consequently, the plan is conservative enough, you don't need NASA scientists to build it. You also don't need the services of a "specific company" to implement. Simple carpenters and trades, should be able to implement the plan.
Theo pointed out there are warm roof and cold roof designs, and that's the first part of your adventure.
This project is limited by a couple of things:
1) Limit of building height for a "garage". It's unlikely to tolerate construction of a gable roof over top, due to height limits. 2) The interior space of the man cave, will be compromised by the thickness of the finish solutions. The final "room" might be too small. The height of the building was designed assuming a "paper thin roof".Paul
Wall cladding: plasterboard is most common. 12mm is a good bit more robust than 9mm. If you want stronger, to be able to hang modestly heavy things on, better to go with plywood. Ply is a lot more money, so if you go with pb just use many fixing points, and for anything real heavy fix through into the brick. Plywoods are mostly not water tolerant, including what's now sold as WBP. MDF I can't see any upside for, it's heavier, weaker, doesn't like water, behaves worse with screws and costs more. It's main reason for existence is a fine finish & dimensional stability, neither of which are useful in a garage. PB: the bigger the sheet, the less total it will cost.
Battens: wait until you have the pb/ply before putting these up, and put the 2 things up together so you don't lose alignment. As mentioned battenless insulation sheet is also an option. One option not mentioned yet is polystyrene insulation sheet, much cheaper than PIR. Also much weaker, so would warrant at least battens up the edges of the ply/pb. You can use assorted scrap for battens to trim cost, just cut/attach them together to get the same thickness. Battens are best 2" or 1.5" wide.
Ceiling: thin pb is fine up there. You can get 6mm iirc. Large sheets will prove a big pain to put up. A dead man really helps get pb ceiling up - that's a stick of 2xhalf timber a tiny bit longer. Bend it to put it in place supporting the new pb.
PB edge profiles: just use whatever pb is cheapest, it doesn't matter in this case. Square edge is best if not skimming, if the price is the same.
Fixing ceiling pb: You can create a new timber frame to fix it to, or can get self drilling screws and go into the existing steel beams.
PB finish: No finish is needed, if you don't mind the seams showing. Gummed paper tape was often used in garages to cover the seams. Skimming is OTT but if you're determined to learn to skim, the garage is the right place to learn!
Wiring: I'd put any new wires on the surface so you can see to avoid them, and/or pencil mark where any run under the surface. Trunking is not necessary, unless you expect mechanical damage risk.
If you are planning to paint the walls, then shuttering ply is a cheaper option - still WBP, just less pretty.
Also OSB is another more cost effective option. The surface texture is less appealing, but under paint in garage / workshop etc it would be acceptable IMHO.
I did board vertical in front of 50mm rigid insulation boards, and found
6 to 8 fixings into the blockwork was adequate. With the board edge resting on the floor the fixings carry little load in reality.MRMDF would be an option - and a nice flat face. But pricey.
Finding a place that does "seconds" insulation can make a huge difference to the cost. Alas our local place has closed, but when I did my workshop I ordered a long wheel base hitop van load for about £300 - enough to do four walls and both roof slopes in a 17x12' space.
Or taper edge - and fill the edges - also quite quick and easy and no visible joins.
Are you seriously advocating employing a roofing consultant or architect before proceeding with a DIY boarding out exercise on an existing garage that is probably just about large enough to house a medium size UK/European car ?
Look here for cheap insulation boards:
Either you do the research yourself to learn about moisture control, what warm and cold roof designs are, or you get help. Your choice.
What I'm telling you, is you can't phone "Joes Tar and Gravel Roof" and get Joe to design it. Trades are no good on advice. I have the burn marks as proof of that. Joe know how to mop tar on. That's it.
Lots of people bodge roof design, there is actually some level of moisture up there, and they'll be telling you what a wonderful job they did. Then, when the sheathing collapses, they'll just pretend it was one of those things.
Some roof design types are more "tolerant" of DIY, and they're definitely going to work, and they can last fifty years easily. Just renew whatever outer layer faces weather and environment -- the inner parts don't need service, because they've stayed dry the whole time. The house back home is like that. I've checked the inside of the roof, to see what condition it's in. It's perfect. Dry as a bone.
The roof on my house is not good, because it relies on heuristic moisture control. On a damp day, moisture condenses inside the roof. On a dry day, the moisture leaves (it's because the roof is ventilated, soffit vents). Small changes in design conditions, affect how bad this is. That would be an example of a roof type you would not want to DIY, because you'd do it wrong. The last roofer did not realize what conditions he was changing.
Anything which requires excessively tight "sealing" to work, is not good. The false ceiling they installed at work, which allowed icicles to form on the underside of some sort of steel roofing, that design was ruined because the interior room ceiling was not a vapour barrier. When a roof design fails, in some cases, you don't have to be a genius to figure out why. We could have had water dripping from the false ceiling, except the material up there retained it.
You will be converting this roof, into one of the two basic roof types. Which will it be ? No, just spraying open cell foam on the bottom of the existing roof, is not roof design. There are many bits of advice you will see on the side of spray cans, that are not right.
When I had my first re-roof job done here, the installer said "here, let me randomly install some paper-backed fiberglass batts in this section". I trusted him. He expressed no particular concern about moisture control. Well the paper on the batts ended up getting so wet, it collapsed and fell off where it had been fastened. All of it fell down. Not that it really matters.
Since this isn't a regular living area, it's a great place to experiment. And if something goes wrong, won't cost as much as fixing a whole house roof.
I just want to make sure the OP is not of a mind to "just keep slapping layers of stuff on it". Roofing doesn't work that way. Roofers have done the experiments, where they attempt to make monolithic 3D slabs of material as roofing, and the material ages and air gaps form. And as time passes, the roof performance changes, and it is then not as good as the day you put it up. You have to understand where your vapour barrier is, and whether you've got the warm and cold in the right places to avoid condensation. If you're building a ventilated roof, the air channel has to be deep enough for the airflow to work.
The reason the garage works now, is because it is an unheated space, with no humans living in it. No heater running at night, with a cold roof overhead. And the building is unlikely to be airtight (ventilated by gap under garage door).
Once the humans get in there, they will:
1) Finish walls and ceiling with a finish layer and paint. Expecting the materials to stay in mint condition. 2) Install a heater. 3) Put the kettle on. 4) Dry knickers on the drying rack.Which all dramatically change the humidity conditions inside the enclosure.
Paul
Thanks again to everyone for contributing, this is all excellent stuff.
Just to reiterate the reasons for me doing this:
It's not the intention that this will form a room that will be habited. This is an outbuilding. It will have a workshop and probably a "gym" type area. With that in mind, I will be trying my best to insulate it properly based on the feedback given, but no human is going to be in there for any period for more than a few hours. I'm certainly no expert but I'd imagine I don't need the finish of a room inside a house.
Lastly, I don't want to be spending money that I don't have to, I want this to be as DIY as I can and where I can use a cheaper material for the job, so long as it's appropriate I think I will do that.
Based on your excellent replies, I think I have enough to get me started on making a plan for insulating and boarding the inside.
My new and more immediate issue is that the roof is leaking in a few places. Nothing major just visible damp patches and half a dozen drips in the apex where the water looks to be coming through the bolt holes. See this picture for what I mean:
Thanks, Steve
There might be a torch-on membrane. But the material the roof is made of, would need to be something the membrane can work with. It seems to work well over a wood surface. You can apply two layers of it (one vertical, one horizontal), and if done properly, it won't sag or deform. I've also seen pictures of some earlier product, which didn't seem to be dimensionally stable (They may have tried to do two lapped horizontal applications of it.)
You roll it out and it has to "relax" first. The torch used has a pretty decent gas flow -- you also have to be careful about flammable materials near the roof (I had to put out two small fires).
The price might scare you away :-)
Maybe someone can think of another membrane type. Maybe there is a material which is a bit cheaper. It's not particularly fancy stuff. And you should not work over top of it on hands and knees and breath the torch fumes, as the fumes can make you sick to your stomach. It's fine if you stand up and work over it. The hope is, it "causes less cancer" than tar products. The claim I heard, is for the most part, they weren't doing tar and tar paper any more, because of the health implications. (Commercial roof jobs are still getting tar and gravel.) Yet, I have not heard any themed stories indicating the level of risk from tar. A lot of the crew used to smoke while mopping on tar. I went up on the roof after the first day of a tar job, and a worker had tossed a cigarette into felt (another little fire to put out -- the crew had gone home). Sometimes a tar pot catches fire, but that is carelessness by the crew (overheating the pot).
The slope of a roof, is a complicating factor. No one has discussed "low-rise" and "flat" roof as factors. There can be damming and pooling of water, which damage fabrics on low rise. For example, slope-inconsistency, the tendency for the roof to sag in certain areas, can lead to pooling and a preferential location for failures.
I think they used to put coal tar on an absolutely flat roof. My grandmother had a section of roof like that -- not a pleasant design choice. When there was a water leak, the water could go, like, 25 feet before it came through into the interior. Then, you might not have a clue where the leak was. Your roof isn't a 45 degree angle, but the slope is low enough, there might be a few materials that would be ruled out as choices. I don't think the membrane would appreciate pooling, so a little slope would help. And nailing some solution to the current metal wouldn't be a good idea.
Some commercial buildings have a different kind of membrane on them, and those might be flat. It's a different colour of material. And I couldn't tell you how it is fastened/ballasted. And like all the roof choices, you still need to flash around details (chimney).
Putting a membrane on it, isn't changing the properties of the roof. The membrane is a vapour barrier, I would guess. It's not permeable. When doing two layers, the edges meet flush and the membrane "melts" and fluid fills the gap between roll edges. I would guess the two layers are bonded to one another as well. And that stuff is pretty rugged (I've shoveled snow off it -- CAREFULLY). The tiny stone finish, is supposed to reflect sunlight.
Paul
Try simply munging a heavy duty mastic into the dodgy areas. Frankly a roof like that is either worth spending as little as possible on, or totally replacing with something like tiles or a modern equivalent to whatever it is
It may not be asbestos but it looks enough like it to panic any potential buyers so getting rid of it probably would add to the house value as would making it, if not 'habitable' , at least a bit more comfortable to work (out) in.
In message snipped-for-privacy@googlegroups.com, Steve Senior snipped-for-privacy@googlemail.com writes
Those hook bolts have a plastic seal under the nut. Probably degraded by age/sun. Replacements available but unsupported crawling on old asbestos cement is inadvisable.
Hmm. Nice picture but it seems to ignore existing roof fixings. For that level of effort you could replace with a modern insulated steel roof.
Snip
Pre-1995 or so that has to be Asbestos cement. Not dangerous if left alone but creating and breathing dust from it is not good.
>
You and I and the OP know that - a potential buyer may not.
shuttering is water tolerant but a rough finish.
Grade 3 osb is water tolerant, grade 1 not.
Yup. You can do it cheaper still. I didn't really address skinflint options but it can be done for no insulation cost if necessary.
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