Workshops at home...

[whm_fab]

Sell the wife , kids and the dog to get that finished . Its worth it

Bob

not married yet, no kids

we're only in the house 9 months, and in fairness to herself, ever spare penny we had has gone into the workshop build rather that re-decorating, furniture or pretty much anything else
we still have no working heating system in the house, so huddle around an open fire, but at least i can look out at the monster ive sunk 20k into life goals lol she sees the big picture thankfully

 

[whm_fab]

When you look at the space you have created to work in and how secure it will be being so close to you it seems cheap when you think how much a place that big would cost to rent over a few years.

yeah i know, when you consider what il have for the money that il own for ever rather than renting, it is money well spent, but its hard to take such a hit after only moving in in february!
hopefully by next summer il have it close to being there.
its frustrating that i cant be working to actually make money back to put into it since all my equipment and everything is 50 miles away.

the next big job is plastering, that i just cannot afford. i got some crazy prices, building has really taken off here again so trying to get guys in on a weekend for cash is very hard

 

[8ob]

we still have no working heating system in the house, so huddle around an open fire, but at least i can look out at the monster ive sunk 20k into life goals lol she sees the big picture thankfully

You have done very well for 20k, you would still be looking at the concrete oversite here with 20k.

Bob

 

[bigegg]

yeah i know, when you consider what il have for the money that il own for ever rather than renting, it is money well spent, but its hard to take such a hit after only moving in in february!
hopefully by next summer il have it close to being there.
its frustrating that i cant be working to actually make money back to put into it since all my equipment and everything is 50 miles away.

the next big job is plastering, that i just cannot afford. i got some crazy prices, building has really taken off here again so trying to get guys in on a weekend for cash is very hard

plastering is not *that* difficult.

 

[Screwdriver]

Here's what my little workshop looked like when it first went up.

At that stage this 4.5 x 6.5 construction cost me just over two grand. Thousand pounds of that was in the roof which the planning office later made me remove.

 

[slim_boy_fat]

not married yet, no kids

we still have no working heating system in the house, so huddle around an open fire

I have seen the future...... , and it's not necessarily all bad

 

[addjunkie]

plastering is not *that* difficult.

Why you plastering a workshop, rendering the outside probably, but inside...paint it white, job done

 

[maz0]

sure no problem.
only happy to help, as i went into this totally green, and found it very hard to get information or help on it so had to work it out as i went.

im doing pretty much all of it myself/help of family friends although i did get a block layer, and i laboured purely for time reasons. while id have 3 blocks laid and be tapping and double measuring those guys would have 30 up! so it was a no brainer.

the ground works and reinforced 35n slab cost 6k - i had a mini digger to do some work, but i got a guy in with a big digger and dumper for the main work.
its 10in deep at the back of the workshop (30x20) where a lift will go, and 6in everywhere else 30x33).
6in deep in the small workshop
blockwork was 2k + at least another 3k, probably more in blocks and material (im not one of those that accounts for every penny, but everytime i went to the builder providers i was dropping 100's ) between blocks bricks, bags of cement, mixer hire, trestle hire, tons of stuff you dont think of.
steel portals and the steel beams above the doors cost 1500 inc a guy in a hiab to come lift them

10x2 timber for the roof on the machine shop was 500

steel Z-purlins were 900

75mm insulated cladded roof - 6 roof lights, inc all gutters and flashings, 8k, and that was alot of bargaining.

windows 100

and probably another grand at least in random crap, bolts, screws, building tools i never had, cutting discs, etc etc etc.

in my head i had the whole thing finished for 20k inc plastering and an insulated roller shutter and epoxy resin floor.
im well over 20k now and that is how it stands at present

Awsom thanks for that. Gives me a great starting point.

 

[whm_fab]

Why you plastering a workshop, rendering the outside probably, but inside...paint it white, job done

sorry thats what i meant!

 

[MCKDAVID]

Why you plastering a workshop, rendering the outside probably, but inside...paint it white, job done

got "plastered" in a workshop a few times, but none involved plaster.....

 

[RWD3M]

I was lucky enough to fall entirely within Permitted Development when I recently built my 800 square foot workshop at the end of my garden (eaves height, ridge height, distance from boundaries and 50% rule - which by the way is 50% of what remains after you remove the area of the original house or the area of the house as it was in 1948, and covers all outbuildings. I got to about 40%).

I've only had one neighbour moan claiming that it has 'ruined the view from her garden' which is a bit of a joke cos I live on an old council estate in the middle of a small town that really doesn't have any views! I did explain that I had deliberately positioned the workshop as far from her boundary as I could and that if she wanted to complain I'd take the whole thing down and move it closer! She shut up after that

 

[Agrismith]

Check out metal prefab buildings on ebay its really surprising what you can get for your money all they require is a slab and bolt them down with chemical fixings about as easy as they can make it just need a mate to help assemble it

 

[Robbie260]

have a look also at Quonset huts they are not as cheap but can be built to just about any size and are frame less so all the internal space is useable no colums or posts in you way. Again all you need is a concrete slab.

 

[Keith 66]

I dont know about other areas but refusal of planning permission often seems to affect ordinary people more than big developers. Brown envelopes seem to have a way of greasing the process!

 

[addjunkie]

I dont know about other areas but refusal of planning permission often seems to affect ordinary people more than big developers. Brown envelopes seem to have a way of greasing the process!

Yes and no, it is often that they use a planning guru, who knows how to jump through the hoops and tick the right boxes.

 

[slimjim]

Yes and no, it is often that they use a planning guru, who knows how to jump through the hoops and tick the right boxes.

They employ someone who is more qualified than the planners, so the planners can’t play god and bull them with planning speak.

 

[Agrismith]

They employ someone who is more qualified than the planners, so the planners can’t play god and bull them with planning speak.

There are bribes aswell not necessarily beown envelopes but on big developments they now have to build amenities so they offer to build a slightly bigger school or they offer a couple of houses as social housing or or they just do something for the local community that saves the local council money and would make them look bad denying it

 

[8ob]

I dont know about other areas but refusal of planning permission often seems to affect ordinary people more than big developers. Brown envelopes seem to have a way of greasing the process!

The councils always refuse big developments, its quite rare for large scale developments to go straight through planning at the council level. Its when the appeal process takes over that all the "sweetners" are to play for and the council get to milk the situation, thats when you will see developers offering to build schools and leisure centers for the community. The councils own housing/developments policies are normally so far behind schedule and quotas that the appeal officer can easily rubber stamp developments.

Bob

 

[Stueeee]

I found the "threatened eyesore" approach seemed to be effective with the planners here. I needed another garage on the opposite side of my garden at my house. The planners weren't keen as they thought my existing garage/workshop (in the background of the first pic) should be more than big enough for anyone.

When the planning officer visited because as along with a host of other 'don't like thats' they thought the eaves height I wanted was way too high. I pointed to the 4 post lift in the garden, and said that being older and not as good at crawling under cars for my hobby as I used to be, I needed a lift and the height to use it. If I didn't get planning for the "in keeping" garage in my application, the lift would just have to be installed out in the open in my driveway so I could continue with my hobby. I got the permission a few weeks later.

 

[Nomad]

An engineeer in our village works from home.
From the street it looks like a normal semi with an attatched single garage at the side.

The Garage has no back wall, so you go through that into the 2nd (1.5 width ) garage / workshop.
That has no back wall and is the start of the 3rd (double width) garage machine shop.

All very low-key from the outside, and a bit of a Tardis feel when you go into it