Wooden garage frame

[ManCave29]

Hi all!

Bought our house just over a year ago and was very happy that it came with an outside garage/workshop space for me!

Unfortunately though the garage is completely timber construction with timber batons around the outside screwed into the concrete floor plate, and the walls screwed onto the batons. As such I have noticed that the doors are starting to develop wet rot at the bottom (as can be seen in the below photos). Initially I was thinking of using a friends jack to gradually lift the whole structure and put it up on 4 courses of bricks or block work. But am starting to think this may be a lot more tricky than initially thought and with the eaves already sat at 2m I'm not sure if lifting the structure onto bricks would break planning regulations.

Wondering if anyone has any suggestions for my best way forward to stop the garage from rotting completley?

Cheers

Nick

 

[MikeG.]

Lovely. This should be a sticky. Some people still insist that building directly onto a concrete base is OK. (That's the sole plate, BTW, and batons are what conductors use ).

It's a hell of a task to jack a building up. I'd certainly be contemplating stripping off the cladding, because that will certainly have been fixed directly to the studs. What is on the roof?

 

[ManCave29]

Hi Mike

Haha apologies for lax terminology!

Yeh jacking up would certainly be a big task, and long too I imagine in order to get 4 courses of bricks underneath!

The roof is pitched corrugated roofing sheets.

Cheers

Nick

 

[MikeG.]

You actually only need 2 courses, but 3 would be best. Four is unnecessary.

I would suggest that you would need 4 jacks at least to do the job (although I don't know the size of the building). It's more difficult than that, though, because the jacks won't fit underneath the frame, obviously, so would need to bear on some temporary structure. Bolting a lump of steel or a huge piece of timber on first will entail taking off some of the cladding anyway. Trying to use Acros at wall plate level could result in pulling the building apart.

Couldn't you take it apart and rebuild it on a plinth? That would be much safer, and a better job.

 

[Doug71]

Working on one section at a time can you remove a couple of rows of cladding, put in a new sole plate maybe 7" above the ground (or whatever 2 courses of bricks equal), remove the old sole plate then brick up under the new one if that makes sense?