Hi. There is a v.small stable down the bottom of the garden and I want to convert it into an office type thing. The place is roughly square, about 10 foot by 10 (I think it was used for a couple of Shetland ponies). The roof is kind of modern style corrugated metal of some sort. Walls are concrete blocks and the ground is stone slabs on dirt. It is well over 100m from the house, and about 75 from the detached garage which has a power supply.
My main concern is to make the place insulated, largely bug-free and not smelling of the outdoors. I intend to heat the place with a standalone gas heater and feed some power to it from the garage - not sure how. I am not sure of anything. What I am after are any tips on where to start. I have only basic DIY experience but I want to take it on as a project. Can you suggest somewhere to read up on stuff that would be relevant? Any guidance based on what I have said? I can post photos, give more info etc.
Actually probably easiest to knock it down and start again. Pour a good solid concrete slab on the demolition rubble. Incorportate at least 50mm of polystyrene foam and a damp membrane in the slab which needs to finish at least 6 preferably 8 inches above the ground level. Don't forget to incorporate access for your services up through the floor (underground drain pipe terminal bend works for me). Rebuild walls using either blocks (with dpc) externally with a studding lining with insulation or possibly a celcon inner leaf. Roof to your choice and enjoy.
More work than I expect you want but infinately better in the long run.
Hi. Are you saying that because of the floor? Is stone on dirt really no good, even for a basic kind of office space? I'm not wanting anything with all mod cons, just a place I can write. I have considered knocking down and starting again, BTW, Just interested in your reason. And I assume I would need planning permission to make the dimensions of the replacement structure any bigger?
You have a few options here. If the current building is basically sound, then you can keep it, but as you suggest, insulation and power will be required.
For the walls and the ceiling PIR foam insulating boards are your best bet probably 50 - 75mm boards are very effective (about the same as twice that amount of rock or glass wool). A ply lining would make the room far more pleasant to be in as well. When I did my workshop, I did the walls with 50mm PIR foam boards, and half inch ply. I did not bother battening etc, just screwed the ply to the wall straight through the foam using half a dozen long screws into plugs on each sheet. A coat of emulsion when done makes it bright and light and you have an easy surface to fix shelves to etc.
Your floor will need a bit of thinking about. You could possibly did it out and pour a concrete slab with insulation. Your cheapest "quick fix" assuming its basically level, would be a layer of DPC membrane, 75mm of PIR foam, and then 19mm ply straight on top. Fix in place with a skirting rounds the edge.
More in insulation:
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of how to calculate the heat loss (and hence heating requirements):
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power there can be relatively easy - but its a fairly deep subject, and covered in far more detail here:
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the sounds of it, a SWA cable buried in the ground, and making the outbuilding a TT installation with a small CU of its own would probably be the way to go. Much depends on how much power you expect needing.
Heating for a room that size (once insulated) I would be temped to do with a wall mounted fan heater. It was how I did my previous workshop which was a similar area, and found it effective and quite cheap to run. If you want to get posh, then a heat pump aircon might be good since they are cheaper to run and can cool in the summer.
I'm just in the process of fitting out a 3m x 3m extension to the rear of my garage, which is similar, except I have already run electricty 25m underground to the garage and the roof was replaced about 10 years ago with a felted flat roof that a friend suggested would be strong enough to park the car on top of. I also have a problem in very heavy rain of water running in under the door from the compound outside and flooding the garage. As the concrete slab it was built on has sunk in one corner, the water can be a couple of inches deep at the back.
My choice is damp proof membrane over the existing concrete floor, with
110mm Celotex XR 3000 on that
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top of which I am laying 22mm thick water resiatant tongue and grooved flooring chipboard. At the moment, I step down from the garden into the garage and the thickness I have chosen will make it more or less level, with a few millimitres clearance for the inward opening door. To stop the water running under the new floor when it floods, I am building a blockwork wall across most of the width, with an opening that has a tile on brick step, to match the height of the floor. A door would be inconvenient in this wall, so the opening will be closed with a heavy curtain.
The external walls I plan to line in a very traditional manner, with
12mm plasterboard on timber studding, with a vapour barrier against the wall and the gaps filled with insulation. Expanded polystyene is convenient for me to get, so I will be using that. The North facing wall will get 75mm insulation, the other outside walls 50mm, while I will probably simply stick foam backed plasterboard to the dividing wall, when I get a round tuit. The garage has anti-frost heating, so I only need to plan for a minimum of 4C on the other side of that wall.
The roof has 125mm deep rafters, so those will get filled with mineral wool - it holds itself up better than polystyrene foam. In theory, I will staple a vapour barrier under the foam and overlay that with 9mm plasterboard, although I suspect the plasterboard may take some time to appear.
As I want to use this area as a dry store, it will have tubular electric heaters. If you plan to use a mobile bomb to heat yours, remember it will need a lot of air to avoind killing you with carbon monoxide and will put out significant volumes of water vapour.
If you want any sort of reasonable environment for a office which obviously contains paper then the damp becomes a big issue as everything will soon be mildewy in the winter. Stopping moisture being drawn up from an earth floor is virtually impossible hence the concrete/ polystyrene/dpc suggestion.
Planning is a whole issue on its own - you probably need change of use anyway BUT how visable is it and are the neighbours going to complain. There is always the thirteenth commandment - "thou shalt not get caught" !
I would tend to agree - except that I would make it easier for yourself by going the timber frame route with weatherboarding, insulation, OSB or plasterboard lining.
I would retrieve the roof material, take down the blocks to one or two levels above ground, pour concrete as suggested, membrane strip on the blocks and build up from there with 3 x 2 framing. You can then put the door where you want it and incorporate windows too.
OK, looks like a bit more work than I thought. I see the idea behind rebuilding the whole thing but I have to be realistic - I don't have the skills. I should be able to do the floor fill with concrete, though (with the guidance of a neighbour), so that may be the best option, then insulating the walls as suggested. Bit worried about the roof too, which seems to be wet all over on the inside at the moment (melting snow). I guess it wouldn't be too much to put a new one of the same type on and insulate. These are just thoughts, though, and I am in no way decided! Further thoughts sought if you have any. Or if you know of a website case study type thing where something similar was done.
FYI, there is a pick of the place here. Bit of a hovel, really:
Wood burners might suck cold air in, but the builder I drink with at lunchtime swears by them. He has one in his house, one in his garage and one on his canal boat and each one, he claims, gets the place toasty warm in short order. One trick I have learned is to get as much heat into the room by having as much flu in the room as possible. Looking at you photo, wood burner is at bottom left and the flu exits at top right.
Normally yes, but with single brick walls, water penetration is a problem when it rains, so I'm putting the plastic sheet against the wall. Perhaps I should put it both sides, just in case. It is cheap enough.
No, you want vapour from inside and any moisture from outside to be able to permeate through the structure. The studding should have a notional cavity between it and the wall to prevent moisture and summer condensation tracking across. Vapour barrier should be on the warm side of the insulation.
Thanks for that idea; I'd not thought of a cavity. I was thinking of fixing directly to the wall and protecting the timber from direct water contact. A ventilated cavity would, however, be perfectly possible if I add a few airbricks, stand the framing on a DPC and fix the top to the roof timbers.
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