Double car garage - door width

[AdrianD]

Are you using a directed fan - like this?

Or just an overall exhaust fan for the whole space? You'd need more cfm for the overall fan than a directed one.

And this may be based on requirements for your location, but it looks like a lot of your wiring is going through the slab? I don't typically see that done unless necessary - like for the outlets in the pit.

And around here a pit would be an issue with insurance. They typically don't like them because CO and explosive gases can sink into them an cause you issues. Then you get into explosion-proof ventilation fans and such.

Fan will be on the back wall and I plan to get a system similar to that.

Everyone here is running wires on the slab, in the insulation below the screed. There will be 5 inches of insulation so that the hydronic heating won't heat up the slab.

Open garage door?

Works well in the summer only :(


PVC pipe for air hose is done.

 

[AdrianD]

Yeah, elecchicken!

Still need to run a few more wires: garage door opener motor, photocells, lift photocells (so I don't squeeze my car) and lighting, tie down everything but that's about it, should be done tomorrow.
Hopefully the guy who's supposed to mud the walls won't flake out.

I'm going to hide the scissor lift pump and motor between the lift legs and just run wiring to a panel on the wall. Window blinds switches have nice up and down symbols and are momentary.

 

[AdrianD]

Shitty pic, it was cloudy outside and I had to bump up the exposure:

Sometimes this week I have to glue the wood on, install is planned for next week:

 

[AdrianD]

Since the screed has to be done by September, what are the thoughts on Epoxy vs Racedeck (or Swisstrax) vented tiles?
The choice will affect the final thickness of the screed.
There will be hydronic heating in the screed, so the slab will be floating, which means no moisture problems to delaminate the epoxy.

I'm leaning towards epoxy simply because of how easy it is to clean. This is not a detailing garage and my Jeep gets muddy, so I imagine all the dirt falling off will just fill up the vents in the tiles and give me trouble cleaning.

Epoxy will not survive grinding and welding...which is why I thought about the tiles...

 

[GLTHFJ60]

To offer a third option; burnished bare concrete. Will stand up to fab work, will only chip if you drop something super heavy on it (that would damage tiles or ruin epoxy anyway) and looks better imo. Have a friend who built out his shop a number of years ago and went with burnished concrete, and I've got to say, I'm a fan.

Burnished Concrete - Types, Uses and Benefits - The Constructor

🕑 Reading time: 1 minute Burnished concrete is conventional concrete trowelled more than twice to make the concrete surface hard-wearing with a durable finish and a great surface lustre. It is majorly used in residential and commercial buildings. Fig 1: Burnished concrete in residential floor...

theconstructor.org

 

[AdrianD]

That's actually a great idea.

It looks a lot like what we have in the underground garage where we're living now. Time to bug the architect for details as I don't know where to start looking for people who burnish concrete (language barrier) :D

As far as I talked with the contractor for the screed, they pour it (not plain concrete, some mix of stuff because of the hydronic heating), level it and run a trowel.

 

[AdrianD]

Thanks google and facebook, I found a local guy that does burnishing.

About $2 / square foot for the burnishing. And it requires concrete, not screed, so I can get the contractor who built the house to pour it.

The concrete needs to dry for 21-28 days before burnishing so I will fill up the garage with the stuff from the left-over building, demolish that and only burnish the garage once the rest of the ground floor is painted and flooring is done.

 

[aczlan]

The concrete needs to dry for 21-28 days before burnishing so I will fill up the garage with the stuff from the left-over building, demolish that and only burnish the garage once the rest of the ground floor is painted and flooring is done

Don't do it... Unless the old garage HAS to come down ASAP my experience is that it's better to get new one finished first, otherwise you'll never get it back to the "completely empty" state and you'll regret not doing it first, at least that's how it worked for me when we built ours.

Aaron Z

 

[AdrianD]

I'm not a fan of not doing it either but we've got the windows waiting to get installed. Maybe I'm lucky and we have a hot august and the concrete dries sooner :D Or I can continue to push back the window installation.

The old building is 3 feet away from the most expensive window in the house, I don't want it to get hit by something during demolition. I could board up the window though.

 

[AdrianD]

Almost 24 hours of curing and seems like epoxy directly on the painted surface is a winner.

Sika claims 18N / square millimeter adherence to steel. 4 pieces of wood weigh 18N.

The rest gets glued tomorrow :)

Bank loan is signed and they already paid for the attic windows. Full speed ahead!

 

[AdrianD]

Floor insulation is laid out, heating is laid out. Now I just need some rebar and then we can pour the garage floor.

EDIT: forgot the pic:

 

[bdkw1]

Neat! It's interesting to see how shit gets built in other parts of the world.

 

[PAToyota]

Neat! It's interesting to see how shit gets built in other parts of the world.

Definitely! I'm curious where the OP is - what country?

The building blocks are interesting. Seem to be clay blocks? Curiously, it looks like there is mortar between the horizontal joints but not the vertical? Are they filled?

 

[aczlan]

Definitely! I'm curious where the OP is - what country?

The building blocks are interesting. Seem to be clay blocks? Curiously, it looks like there is mortar between the horizontal joints but not the vertical? Are they filled?

They look like the ones I used to see in argentina, they used to be common here (till the 50s?), but not so much anymore.
They are a red clay tile, not structural so you have to have concrete posts or pillars to support the weight and a header across the top, but they get used to fill in the wall and then they get a coat of stucco type cement over them, usually with paths chiseled out in it to run conduit for your power, water, etc in.

Structural Terra Cotta

AKA structural tile, hollow tile block, hollow building tile, structural clay tile and structural clay load-bearing wall tile.

historicbldgs.com

Aaron Z

 

[PAToyota]

That looks similar to what AdrianD has in his photos - and I see the pillars and beams as well as the stucco finish coat. Yours has mortar on all four sides, though. Not sure if there is a difference with AdrianD's that there isn't any vertical mortar?

 

[aczlan]

That looks similar to what AdrianD has in his photos - and I see the pillars and beams as well as the stucco finish coat. Yours has mortar on all four sides, though. Not sure if there is a difference with AdrianD's that there isn't any vertical mortar?

My only guess would be that the mortar is just in the interlocking inset piece on the ends and the stucco will provide the rest of the support.
You can see in a couple of the pictures that there were holes that got filled in where there was a larger gap from a piece of the end of the tile breaking off.
Beyond that, your guess is as good as mine.

Aaron Z

 

[AdrianD]

I'm in Romania.
They are bricks with some structure inside to help with insulation and with a slot for mortar between them. They are actually structural members, the concrete pillars also contribute to the structure.

This is how the bricks for the exterior walls look like:

The bricks for the interior walls have larger gaps inside (and are cheaper).

Real estate developers here in my city are building like crazy but not using high quality stuff, so a higher quality brick like this one meant I had to search around and I was lucky to buy it in February with the 2021 price. To put it into perspective, in 2021, a pallet of the bricks above cost as much as a pallet of the cheaper stuff now in august

Bent rebar is now at $3 / lb approximately and I bought mine in March at $2 / lb.

Autoclaved aerated concrete blocks are also used for buildings, which is like a concrete foam block, they insulate better and are cheaper but can't carry loads as well as bricks. I actually wanted those first but the architect and structural designer said no.

 

[AdrianD]

They look like the ones I used to see in argentina, they used to be common here (till the 50s?), but not so much anymore.
They are a red clay tile, not structural so you have to have concrete posts or pillars to support the weight and a header across the top, but they get used to fill in the wall and then they get a coat of stucco type cement over them, usually with paths chiseled out in it to run conduit for your power, water, etc in.

Structural Terra Cotta

AKA structural tile, hollow tile block, hollow building tile, structural clay tile and structural clay load-bearing wall tile.

historicbldgs.com

Aaron Z

If that picture is not turned 90 degrees, they are using the bricks wrong, they have little structural strength laid out on their side.

 

[aczlan]

If that picture is not turned 90 degrees, they are using the bricks wrong, they have little structural strength laid out on their side.

Not sure, that was the first picture I found of extruded clay blocks like that, there are a couple buildings at work that were built out of those. Structurally they are post and beam with clay tile blocks very similar to that run horizontally between them to fill the spaces.
When I was down in Argentina they built the same way, concrete pillars and headers with clay tiles run horizontally between them to make up the walls.

Aaron Z

 

[PAToyota]

I'm in Romania.
They are bricks with some structure inside to help with insulation and with a slot for mortar between them. They are actually structural members, the concrete pillars also contribute to the structure.

This is how the bricks for the exterior walls look like:

Interesting! I haven't seen anything like that locally (Pennsylvania) here in the US.

 

[aczlan]

Interesting! I haven't seen anything like that locally (Pennsylvania) here in the US.

From what I can find, they were replaced by cinder blocks or CMUs in the US for most construction after the 1950s, the buildings we have at work that were built in with them were previous to that.

Aaron Z

 

[PAToyota]

I'm familiar with structural clay block, but the "cellular" interior of those blocks is not something I've ever seen. The clay blocks I've seen are more like our CMU with fewer and larger voids.

 

[GLTHFJ60]

Check out this YouTube series to see how those blocks are used in (what appears to be) typical European residential construction. Super interesting process.

 

[AdrianD]

Last 24 hours were quite hectic, we finished all the stuff for the pour at 1AM last night and at 8AM today the contractor calls me that the concrete station scheduled for 9AM.

Jeep's water pump grenaded yesterday and that messed up all logistics. Good thing the concrete station, is close to the house and to where I live now...

Anyway, the garage floor is poured, it's level enough to make me happy. Once the concrete sets I will cut the walls of the pits to the correct level.

Sadly I won't be able to wait 21-28 days before moving all the stuff in as the windows are scheduled for the end of the month, so the old kitchen and garage need to come down asap. It is what it is, a wee bit more work moving stuff around.

 

[PAToyota]

Check out this YouTube series to see how those blocks are used in (what appears to be) typical European residential construction. Super interesting process.

The second vid actually has the blocks:

 

[AdrianD]

And the door is installed. Motor works, the seams I left between the wood panels are too small, no problem I just bought a battery powered 6 inch saw and whenever I feel like it, I'll cut wider seams.

The space left on the perimeter will get cladding once I insulate and install the wood cladding on the walls. Until way later, the door will get covered up with plastic foil for protection.

 

[AdrianD]

The work pit is full of stuff, the lift pit is full of stuff, the shed is almost full to the ceiling and I'm trying to keep the hand tools and power tools handy. Only one word to describe this...chaos...

(most stuff got piled in after taking the photo)

 

[AdrianD]

8 months later, the garage looks even worse:

And that was after moving the boiler and 2000lbs of tiles

Pushing had to move, so I only keep it sort of clean and tidy around the work bench.

 

[Lbhsbz]

8 months later, the garage looks even worse:

And that was after moving the boiler and 2000lbs of tiles

Pushing had to move, so I only keep it sort of clean and tidy around the work bench.

Looks about right.

I still have about 10 boxes in the garage full of parts/garage shit that I haven't unpacked since I move here 5 years ago...no place to put the stuff

 

[AdrianD]

I badly need a break from construction work.
Last year, since July or even June: wiring, plumbing, under-screed insulation, hydronic heating, wood framing for insulation (16-18 inches of cellulose on the ceiling).
This year since early January: studs for drywall ceiling, drywall install, cutting the stairs, polishing some high spots in the screed, hidden toilet reservoirs.

Good thing I contracted the plastering and sanding of the walls, I hate plastering and sanding.

I figured I saved at least $20k for doing the work above myself but I feel beat. I still have tiles, flooring, painting and some minimal furniture before moving, then at least I won't be paying rent anymore.

Tile work is going to be tricky, the interior designer asked for 48"x48" (only 12 pieces though) and 24"x48" tiles. It was quite a shock seeing how big they are. To make things easier I bought a tile cutting machine at an auction to help things: 14" blade and I'm now extending the table and rail to accommodate 48" tiles.
Cost of machine + shipping + new blade was the same cost as renting one for a week. Once I'm done with tiling, I can make it pretty and sell it.