Talk Morgan Forums Community The Malvern Arms Garage flooring

You're not the only one!

It's a Strongman Tamar, see:

http://sm-t.co.uk/product/tamar-2-8-ton-mobile-scissor-lift/

Costs £1400 + VAT, I collected mine from their base in Warwickshire. It's a heavy bit of kit though, you'll need a decent trailer.

Video of assembly and operation is here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3topr3AcOM

You'll also need a compressor to release the safety catches, but it doesn't need to be very big, you only need 60psi.

It's a smidgeon over 160mm high, so to ensure clearance for the Morgan I have a couple of scaffold planks either side to ensure I don't snag on anything. The lift base is 1m wide and just fits between the tyres of my 4/4, and you don't need to use the movable arms, just put the rubber blocks on the main lift rails. It's so quick and easy to use that I confess I even pick the car up to check the tyre pressures

Was it marked up on the plans as a Heavy Metal Room for the Council?

Ah! I was wondering where all the guitars were!

I must clarify this isn't an immediate thing, but on cold winters days the damp does build up and create condensation - this happens in my neighbours garage also, and many others I have been in. Now when I say condensation I don't mean dripping, but more a light mist (as if you had breathed on it). This seems enough to rust things over time.

I have a sealed garage door (electric), and a Composite site door and yet still it persisted on the cold days, so dehumidifier on and its perfect now.

Quite a modern house, maybe I just live somewhere damp?

My number 1 garage built in the early seventies shows all those characteristics. I don't think dpc's were standard for garages then. The floor gets damp in winter but layers of floor paint and carpet tiles hold it back. The number two garage which was mostly built by me in 1988 is dry as a bone. It has a visqueen membrane under the pit and not a whiff of damp.
But the dehumidifier keeps the condensation at bay after a quick temperature rise in winter.

That is odd Nick.I've never experienced anything like that.

Forgive me if I'm trying to "teach grannie to suck eggs" here. Its an failing. But the capacity of air to hold water vapour in suspension depends on two things - the temperature of that air and the amount of moisture in it. No reason why the temperatures where you are should be any lower than they were when we lived in Yorkshire in the Pennines ( the diesel in the land rover froze solid one year ) so you must have a lot of water in the atmosphere. Or so the logic goes.

Anyway Im sticking my nose in where it doesnt belong here so I'll shut up. "At last" someone is heard to mutter.

Nick,

is the garage integral with the house, or free standing?

Free standing garages, even if attached to the house but not part of it, are not required to have any more than single skin brick walls, are not required to have a DPC and are not required to have any insulation under the roof tiles.

A garage built this way will be likely be damp and need dehumidifying. All the houses we had before this one were so.

This time our garage is part of the house, there is a room above (spare bedroom) and behind (the utility room) and so it has all the insulation, including cavity wall and double glazed window, of a normal dwelling room, including the floor slab. It is bone dry and if I turn on the radiator, as warm as the rest of the house.

I have a 6m x 6m x 2.5 mtr high double free standing garage insulated in the walls and roof with 100mm fiberwool. Insulated roller door. The floor is bone dry laid in 2002 with a DPC.

Enlarged in 2013 with a new section 6m x 6.4m x 4mtr high extension, roof and wall insulated with 150mm fiberwool.

While it does not feel damp during the winter, instruction manuals for stuff will not stay flat and the spanners on the peg board show some minor rust after 6 years.

Even with that insulation and good DPC it is left at times for a few weeks without being heated therefore water will come out the air on a dampish day, end of story!

While Peter advises his garage gets some minor heat from other rooms as it is part of his house, it will be bone dry.

On a cold damp day unless there is some heat in a garage a small amount of dampness will be there.

Due to the insulation on a day with -2 C outside it is at a nice working temperature within say 40 minutes.

Apologies for going a tad off topic but this is all very interesting. I am currently having plans drawn to double the length of my free standing single brick garage and having it widened to attach to the house on its length. Since I instructed the plans, and after reading this thread, I have decided to have it more of a "room to be used as a garage" rather than a "garage to be used as a room", walls insulated with the back of it plumbed in for use as a utility room if required in the future. No room above but a ceiling with sunken lighting and a boarded attic space.

Presumably I will need the plans redrawn to reflect the double skin walls/ceiling etc and the slab will need to be more substantial. Anyone know about planning or have any suggestions? (Father was a builder but it isn't in the genes!).