Fence Up Garage Next :)

Well my plans for extending the garage are about to kick off as I have now finished putting up the new rear fence. The fence needed replacing as it was practically falling over, it also needed to go up before the garage. So with the fence done, I'm now at the stage where I'm ready to go full steam ahead with the garage.

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Plans

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One of the first things to do with building a garage is to submit plans to council for approval, this appies to any building and applies to my proposed garage extension. Having already done the phone around to find out prices, I found that all companies require a deposit of some sort before they will supply you with the plans for you to submit to council, all apart from one that is...

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DIY

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i recently helped a mate put up his garage and was surprised at how easy it was to do. Admittedly everything was already cut to fit, but equally surprising was the amount of holes that were not drilled at the factory and that needed doing on site. The only real parts that were bolt together were the six main supports and roof trusses, everything else needed to be drilled and bolted to suit - this included all of the girts and purlins - the main steel work that the roof and walls are screwed to, and all wall panels + roof panels + flashing

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We decided that it would probably be a lot cheaper to build the whole thing yourself, as making up the prefabricated bits would only involve cutting the roof trusses and welding flange plates to them so that they could bolt to the upprights, this is even easier of you have the plans...

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Remember the plans?

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So, with a free set of plans fabricating the garage really is simple - all you really need is a welder and a chop saw to cut the RHS up with for the roof trusses. the rest of the material can be bought in pre-cut lengths. All of this is detailed in the plans. But the best thing about getting plans from a vendor is that they have generally already been approved. They are a standard design that already includes all information such as wind loadings, assembly details, steel sizes etc and they have probably already been submitted to your council hundreds of times - this means that building approval should be a non-issue. All you need to do is to build it exactly as per the drawings to avoid any future issues. 

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Submitting your own design, or that of an architect usually invites scrutiny of the calculations and this can be a long drawn out process, using 'off the shelf' plans avoids this.

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Unscroupulous?

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I'm not sure that this is completely ethical, but the savings are huge - I was quoted abot $4000 to supply the garage for me to erect myself. Pricing it up to build it myself, it will cost me less than half that (plus my time). Technically the company that gives away the free plans does exactly that - they give thier plans away for free. There's no contract to sign, just rock up and get the plans to suit your size / style of garage - no commitment at all.

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Now I need to decided if it is a worthwhile exercise, saving money is one thing but time is also a very precious commodity as well.