Question:
I have recently moved into a new (well, new for me) house that has
a 18x20 detached garage. My plan is to convert the garage into a fancy
workshop or hobby space, including a completely finished and insulated
interior.
There are a number of pieces to the conversion, and I am not
entirely certain about how to approach several of them. Here are the
bits that I could use advice on how to pursue.
Foundation - the garage foundation is a concrete slab about 2
inches thick. The rear portion of the structure is on a slope, and over
time the soil has washed away from one of the corners. The slab is not
cracked, but does have a slight tilt downward in that direction.
I plan on having a foudation engineer come out to look over the
house and garage, but my thinking on correcting the detached garage goes
like this: Somehow jack up the sinking corner (without cracking the slab)
and anchor it to the solid rock layer that is about 2 feet below the
topsoil layer. Build a retaining wall behind the building to keep any
more of the soil from washing away.
Any suggestions on how to jack up the corner without cracking the
slab? Or should I just dig down to the bedrock and put a bunch of rock
under that corner to shore it up in situ?
Roofline - as a utility building, it was constructed without
soffits and rain gutters. Soffits aren't an absolute necessity, I
suppose, but the gutters are (to prevent things like the foundation
problem mentioned above). Is it worthwhile to install soffits on the
building to assist in summertime ventilation, as well as to attach the
gutters? How does one go about this task?
Sole plate - due to the lack of a gutter, over time water has
managed to infiltrate into the base of the walls, and some portions of
the framing sole plate have become questionable. The rest of the framing
members look OK. How does one replace parts of the sole plate without
losing the support of the frame?
At this point my plan is to do all of the work myself, if
possible. I'm not in a great hurry to have it finished, and am looking
forward to learning and doing all of the tasks that will be needed to
convert the building into a custom, comfy place for all of my space
consuming and (sometimes unsightly) hobbies.
Any advice and / or tips will be very welcome.
Answer:
-I would be tempted to tear down the building salvaging as much of the material
as possible. The walls could be taken down as a unit and the repair on them
would be easy using pressure treated lumber. While this is not DIY after the
foundation an floor is professionally done I would round up some buddies to
help put it back up. Its a wonder what some steaks and beer will get ya. This
is not rocket science. The hardest part, framing the walls, is already done.
The soffit and eve problem can be taken care of by using pre-fabed roof
trusses. Look around and you may be able to find an off the shelf size at a
lumber yard that sells garage kits. A lot of the times these are cheaper than
the lumber that goes into them. Lumber salvaged from the old roof can go into
all the shelves and tables you will need.
-I'll toss in my experience:
We bought a house this summer, built in 1925. Detached 2-car garage of the same
vintage, built with *NO FOUNDATION*. Sills resting directly on the ground, with
lots of rot Obviously, this is a serious problem.
Luckily my wife is an architect specializing in preservation of old buildings,
so she has experience with this sort of thing. My wife ending up being the
general contractor for the fix up job, and got in all the subs to do the
necessary work.
House movers came and jacked up the garage clear of the ground. Jacking points
used were basically the top plates of the walls so that the bottom edge was free
to move for straightening. Carpenter sawed off the bottom foot or so of rot,
leaving the garage just sort of swinging in the breeze. Next the masons came,
dug a 4 foot deep trench by hand for a foundation (code in our area), and filled
the trench with concrete. Had to be done by hand because the garage was still
in the way blocking access for a backhoe to dig. It was cheaper that way than
having the movers actually move the garage out of the way so the foundation
could be dug with equipment rather than muscle.
After the concrete set up, two courses of block were laid carefully in line with
the remaining bottoms of the walls. Carpenter added a PT sill, and then the
house movers came back and lowered the garage onto it's new sills, using some
lateral pressure to better line up the walls with the sills. Studs were
toe-nailed to the sills, and then the carpenter patched up some of the cedar
shingle siding, fixed up the garage doors, etc. When that was done, the masons
came back, jackhammered up the old floor, and poured a new slab.
Total cost for what I have described was about $7k, much cheaper than bulldozing
the whole thing and building a new one from scratch, since otherwise the garage
is very nice with cedar shingle siding and Tudor details that match the house.
We did all this because I wanted a good place to work on cars, and I plan on
spending more money improving the garage further. So far I've put in an
electric subpanel, wired with outlets everywhere, put up high-ouput fluorescent
lights (so that they work in cold weather), and done a lot of general
improvements like adding storage for garden tools, etc. I also plan to add
piping for compressed air lines in the future. I never would have done all this
knowing that my garage was slowly sinking into the ground and would eventually
collapse (as one of our neighbor's garages is doing.)
