My DIY oak garage build which looks a bit like a barn - Build Thread

[Bullet-Proof_Biscuit]

Hello

My parents have a few acres in France and I've ran out of activities to do outside of drinking the local wine - its Lot-et-Garrone region which is all thick full bodied Bordeaux style and I can't handle it any more.

So they also have an oak forest intruding onto the property meaning there is plenty of 10+"diameter x 40 foot oaks ion the garden, and most of them are nicely straight & true.

So I decided to make something from oak, something like a gable end garage a bit like this:



As usual with any of my projects I set about doing the whole thing completely free, as, being an engineer, I refuse to pay for engineering services by others.. (mostly)

Did some working out of materials and sizes:


Decided the joints where 3-4 beams converge was not practical with my skill, so figured out a work around using simple steel designs


Bit more detail design;

Thinking all the steel will be premade in UK and shipped over, so figured just make one size of strapping and pack the smaller beams to suit


Basically decided to copy the roman wash house down the road because it looks nice. We are also near a 14th century church and to comply with / and achieve any kind of consent, any new building needs to look like it basically, and as I will be building a 'wood store' first (no walls), then go down the retrospective planning route and asking for permission to wall it in, as we assume the local council will actually be impressed by it..



After reading in to what's easiest and/or best to do for foundations (strip or raft), I decided to go for pad foundations... As I decided the frame will be made of 8" square oak pillars and 6" square beams, and a proper tile roof, I settled on 2 foot cube pads per pillar - 6,nr.

So, much digging though nothing but completely lovely top soil -




Then I came up with a design for a reinforcing cage made from 6mm and tied with metal gardening twine / cable ties:


Made a one off:


And fired up the xmas gin


Then made a production line, all hand bend over the stone wall outside (wheey)



Finished them quite late, was wobbly by this point



So made coq au vin, properly wobbly by this point

 

[Bullet-Proof_Biscuit]

Fired up the quality china French mixing gear we bought for such activities




Decided the genny was too close for comfort when drinking beer / mixing, so had to French up the Uk extension I found:




Well that took ages - 2x full mixes of that big capacity mixerizer in one hole!



Burned loads of time getting everything to sit square!

I would definitely next time make a timber frame to hold each steel bracket square and true, as they all went wonky as soon as I poured....
(But had no spare [square] timber and it is in the middle of nowhere)



Did not realise how sloped the site was until I levelled the strings



Have to make some serious shuttering for this



This would definitely be described as 'improvised'



Build quality steadily declined as the day passed to the square of the beer volume consumed:

 

[Bullet-Proof_Biscuit]

First productive trip finished and happy with the result, only went for a week and only worked about 4h per day on the project as this was over xmas and there was wine to drink etc



Note the top soil kicking about, I'm slowly piling up the dirt around the footings to level it off so the grass regrows and hides the protruding concrete,

it will be castained at a later date, joining the rest of the yet to be built drive.

 

[Bullet-Proof_Biscuit]

Skip forward to my next visit, all we have is a chain saw and unlimited Bordeaux red @ 70c/ litre, so we had to get creative to saw mill all these oak trees without having any kind of saw mill..





Came out pretty well:



Here's actually one we made earlier to prove it was possible, can't find any pictures of the Alaskan sawmill we made from mothers chopping board and some lengths of allthread welded onto the chainsaw bar, but will post some later.



Chain drilled & chiselled out the bottom of that mortise, chainsawed the long cuts:



Ramped up production:

 

[Bullet-Proof_Biscuit]

Got back to france for December 2017 and started to get things erected;



Quite happy with how it's all in proportion, it's 3.5 x 5m beam centres I went for in the end, beams are 2.5m high, +200mm steel feet/brackets.



This pillar was a gnarly shape but I liked how it looked so I cut around the knots and installed this pillar beam at front and centre of the wall facing the house - Will need to square up that top end to suit adjoining beams, when sober because chainsaw.




I do love how it looks though:



And that's about it for that last trip, ran out of wood cut down and needed to wait for the next season, for the sap to fall and allow more tree felling,


Made some more coq au vin



And that brings us up to speed as at 7/2/18. return to holiday/site in march, so I've started collecting the next batch of materials including a proper 197s Ryobi (when they were still good) chain mortiser:



And I'm currently waiting for some steels to turn up which will tie in the rafters to the 'ground floor' timber,

 

[Bullet-Proof_Biscuit]

To make it look nicer I decided on a queen post truss design, and underslung ridge board (how will I tie these together? Big coach bolts?), all due to the thought process of making it simple as possible to build and assemble, yet be more interesting than anything else likely to be built nearby..

I also thought I could extend the ridge board out front and have a block & tackle assembly, on a sliding gantry type arrangement, to allow lifting things into high level storage in the loft, and/or engine crane duties..

 

[Bullet-Proof_Biscuit]

Word just in from the front line and the reclaimed tiles have arrived! So it looks like there's going to be some serious weight on this roof,

All good condition roman style, c/w moss patina so the building will seem legit as soon as it's erected.

Quick tile count - There may or may not be enough.

All free also! Thanks Alain!

Woo!

 

[Bullet-Proof_Biscuit]

Update asat 15/3/17, flights to return to site this 17/3/18;

After pouring the foundations and letting it harden for 6 months it seemed like a good idea to complete the design of the structural fixing elements...

Drawings made for the metalwork needed, all lasered from 10mm thick 304SS plate. Total came to £630.

14,nr of the long steel straps which will tie the trusses into the 'ground floor' level structural beams.

The square plates are for 'knife plate' mortise connections, this means we just need to cut mortises in all the beams to be connected with our chain mortiser, insert plate, then mark and drill for SS m12 studding and fit nuts/washers - much easier than hand chiselling a tenon for every connection. And because we like SS..

£92 to Fed-Ex fully insured to Lot-et-Garrone just in time for our arrival.

Updates to follow after next week's productivity.

Beers!

 

[Ian H]

Everything looks great except that cock o vin