New Railway Room

As my first thread, this will be a story of a journey in creating a room to house my planned layout and workbenches. If you are prepared for a saga, please read on.

March 2019 I decided to merge my embryonic layout/workbench from the spare room with the contents of my 12’ x 8’ workshop into a bespoke timber framed 9m x 4.5m Railway Room. A bit like a ‘granny 'annexe’ in the garden. A bold move was required, as I seemed to be caught in my own Bermuda triangle, between the spare room, workshop, and garage – constantly walking between them all for tools and moving stuff about.

Plans.png

This new room would house a much-enlarged layout with no compromise with regard to scale lengths of the prototype I am planning to model. It would also have enough space for workbenches along one long wall.

The building required both planning permission and building regulations due to: A tree preservation order on trees in my garden. The proximity of the build to neighbouring property. Planned height and a floor area exceeding the permitted development limits.

Having commissioned a tree survey required for planning permission, the survey recommended hand-dug concrete pads and a reinforced concrete raft foundation so as to minimise damage to tree roots.

The next job was to specify the pad and raft foundations. I felt I should engage a structural engineer to make sure the building would satisfy Building Regulations inspections. A structural engineer was engaged to produce a design. I approached several groundworks contractors with the foundation design. Either they thought the job was too small, or just didn’t reply to messages and e-mails.

July 2019 Came-and-went with no groundworks quotes forthcoming. I even stalked/followed a groundwork van to a local building site to ask if they would quote, to no avail. Finally just one company in Essex replied with a jaw-dropping £11k estimate. That was the last straw, I was on the point of giving up….

Then the builder I had engaged, said he had seen ground screw foundations used on recreational buildings and sent me the link. The UK’s Leading Ground Screw Foundation Company - Great British Ground Screw Co.

I checked with the local authority building officer, who was aware of ground screws but never used on a build. I checked with the structural engineer who had specified the concrete pad and raft if he could re-calculate for ground screws? Specifications for a timber ring-beam underframe to replicate conventional foundations were drawn up. More fees…

October 2019 Work commenced with installation of ground screws.

Ground_Screw_Install.jpg

Ground_Screws_Installed.jpg

A timber ring-beam was fabricated and bolted to the build plates on the ground screws. The build has started!

Ring_Beam_and_Joists.jpg

My builder was now only working for me odd days each week. As my job now had to fit in with a couple of barn conversions he’d taken on. He was under pressure to get the barn conversion roof completed by end of October, as there were a colony of bats in the barns and they had to have their winter home restored before hibernation. The bats were better off than me, at least they had a home for the winter. I’m not a protected species.

November 2019 The basic studwork walls were up.

Walls_up.jpg

To be continued…..

Mike
 
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Jim,
Not many people in the UK seem to know about the ground screw system. I believe it may be more common in Europe.

This system does have the benefit of being far less intrusive to tree roots than even hand-dug foundations. In my case, there was one large root just below the surface in one corner, so the installers just put a screw either side of the offending root, so there were now two screws on that corner, rather than one.

I think it's a great system and should be more widely known.
 

adrian

Flying Squad
Not many people in the UK seem to know about the ground screw system. I believe it may be more common in Europe.
I must admit when I first saw it I thought that was some pretty good photoshopping! However on due consideration I can see the advantages for it. They are doing something similar with all the house building around by us. They no longer seem to dig out and lay foundations but instead just seem to pile drive multiple concrete pillars into the ground and then cut them all off at the level. Then lay concrete joists and floor fillers between them and the entire house is then built on these concrete stilts.
 

Osgood

Western Thunderer
So, jumping between your threads, let me get this right - deep pile is the carpet tiles, shallow pile is the mini screwed foundation piles?

A very neat system Mike - don't suppose you have a photo of the machine that wound in the screws by any chance?

As an aside, I once drilled 20 or so 8" dia holes through a worked out sand pit, that had been backfilled over the years with oversite / soil, in order to find the base of the workings as it was being developed for housing and they needed to establish the length of driven concrete piles required for foundations to anchor into virgin ground.
Some 50m from the boundary and 4 metres down the auger drive head suddenly dropped a metre.
I stood there scratching my head when I noticed an old boy waving his cap at me from his garden fence.
I wandered over and got talking to him, explaining what had happened.
He replied "Yep, I thought to myself you're right on top of Jimmy Caine's Morris Traveller, I helped him push it in there"!
 
Hi Tony,
I appreciate why you are confused between my shallow pile carpet tiles in the Railway Room and the deep pile screw foundations. Or is it the other way round??? ;)

If you take a look at the second picture in the GBGS company Gallery - Gallery - Great British Ground Screw Co. you will see the machine they used. It's basically a big electric drill with a gearbox having two torque/speed settings.

My site is a very shallow layer of light topsoil over solid chalk. Chalk is well draining and very hard when dry. The installers drilled a pilot hole for each screw, probably 50mm diameter, but they managed to shear one ground screw before they decided to puddle each pilot hole with water to form a slurry of the chalk before screwing them in.

Like your boring story. :)
 
The new Railway Room build story continues.

November 2019 OSB (Sterling Board) fitted to the stud-work walls. Scaffolding was erected on all four sides to allow fitting of roof trusses and roofing material.

All the timber framing was constructed on-site. However, the roof trusses were made by a company in my village.

Wall_OSB_Trusses.jpg

Additional timber ties, longitudinally and diagonally, were fitted to the roof trusses as they were erected. They came as part of the ‘kit’ including the gable ladder-end timbers.

Cats_Cradle.jpg

December 2019 I opted for Cambrian 60% recycled Welsh slate roofing material from Redland.

Slate_Detail.jpg

Slates_Overlap.jpg

Slates fitted and scaffolding removed. Getting there.

Slates_fitted.jpg

uPVC Double glazed Windows and door were now fitted. Starting to look like a proper building.
If you've been following closely, you may notice the door is now on the side rather than the gable end as originally planned. This is due to the difference of level between the garden where the building is sited and the footpath level around my house, being about 1m. This would result in steps being too steep in the space available. It is hoped to have a series of steps from the patio level near the house, to the Railway Room door. It's a bit further to walk, but you won't need to be a mountain goat.

Door_Windows_Fitted.jpg

The building was now virtually wind and watertight at this stage. It was time for flooring and insulation to go in.

Battens were fitted to the bottom of either side of each floor joist then plywood was dropped in between the joists to support 100mm Celotex Floor insulation. A membrane was laid over the Celotex and joists, the chipboard flooring was secured by screws and polyurethane glue to the joints.

Flooring.jpg

That’s it for 2019 progress, see you in the next installment.

To be continued…
 

Eastsidepilot

Western Thunderer
I see your roof tiles came complete with free rain Mike:D......you can bet your life that when ever you work on a roof the weather will poke a finger at you, when putting the three metre lengths of sheet metal on my roof it decided to blow a bloody gale :rolleyes:.

Col.
 
Yes Col, I agree... I think the three days in early December the roofer was laying the slates, it wasn't rain, it was heavy frosts each morning which took until nearly lunchtime to go off. So not only was everything wet, but cold as well. The scaffold planks were iced over too I seem to recall, as I took him up several cups of tea (& biscuits) naturally. ;)
 
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January 2020 Having laid the insulated floor, it was time for the remaining insulation: Roof insulation comprised two layers of 150mm Rockwool laid at right angles in the roof space. Walls were filled with 150mm Rockwool, laid between the studwork. OSB over studwork and finally 25mm Celotex sheet overall.

Plasterboard was fitted to ceiling and walls. The rear wall had fire resistant plasterboard (Building Regs.) as it was adjacent to a boundary fence.

Ceiling and walls were then plastered. (No photo at this stage – strange!)

February 2020 Once the plaster had dried, it was primed (watered down emulsion) then emulsioned {emulsioned is that a verb?}. My friend Steve @SteveSopwith kindly offered to assist with this task.

Walls_painted.jpg

Painting complete, we fitted 10 LED lighting battens to the ceiling – these were temporarily rigged on an extension lead from the garage through two open windows until the underground armoured cable was connected.

I’ll briefly mention a spell of BPPV I had at this stage, caused by painting and electrical wiring on the ceiling. I’ll leave you to look it up if you don’t already know of this condition.

Steve and I fitted skirting boards – using grab adhesive and screws to be sure. Naturally all this hard labour involved copious tea breaks, lunch and one or two trips to the pub! ;-)

Skirting_Fitted.jpg

Using various online heating calculators, I installed two 2kW electric wall panel heaters to provide suitable heating for the volume of the room. Although with the insulation used, I doubt they will be on much of the time. Perhaps on the colder winter nights?
These 2kW Ener-J WiFi Smart heaters are 'smart' as they can controlled locally by the front touch panel, or a remote control, or phone app, or Amazon Alexa/Google Home devices. My preferred method at the moment is the phone app.

Panel_Heaters.jpg

March 2020 The remaining electrics were professionally installed, with me acting as labourer. All the electrics are surface mounted; a 50x50 square trunking around the top of all four walls, with 20mm round conduit drops to 13A outlets, switch or connection point. The underground cable was connected to the building just before Coronavirus lockdown. - - - - - My builder declared he wouldn’t work under lockdown.

But I now had a usable building with a proper electricity supply just requiring external cladding and finishing-off.

Electrics_done.jpg

April 2020 Lockdown gave me the opportunity to make a set of baseboard leg supports. I plan to document the baseboard construction and leg supports construction in a new thread under Layouts.

Leg_Supprts_1.jpg

May 2020 – 18th - out of lockdown. Builder has just returned to socially distant working. Could be a problem for the next phase, as the external cladding is a two man lift. Things are hopefully starting to get back to a new normal.

Carpet tiles were fitted to make the environment a touch more homely, while still a working environment. These were not loose laid, but once the plastic protective film was removed from the chipboard flooring, the tiles were laid on a polyester adhesive, a tackifier. This remains tacky, so that tiles are held in place, but can be removed easily if any require replacement.

Carpet_Tiles_Down.jpg

To be continued…..
 

Eastsidepilot

Western Thunderer
Yes Col, I agree... I think the three days in early December the roofer was laying the slates, it wasn't rain, it was heavy frosts each morning which took until nearly lunchtime to go off. So not only was everything wet, but cold as well. The scaffold planks were iced over too I seem to recall, as I took him up several cups of tea (& biscuits) naturally. ;)

The trick with scaffold boards when they are frozen over is to turn them over :thumbs:

Col.
 

oldravendale

Western Thunderer
My previous workshop was fitted out with a kitchen sink and WC. I insisted on a sink and water heater in the one built after our latest move, otherwise everything would have to come in to the kitchen to be washed every 30 minutes or so. I just don't think that's practical.

Brian
 
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