Oak Framed Garden Building (not garage)

[flyingjase]

Does anyone have any experience of building using Oak? I have done a search and found something on garage kits and standard timber framed but nothing specifically on oak.

I'm looking to build an oak framed building in my garden to act as a games room, probably 20' x 40'. Lots of exposed wood and brick veneer.

I was wondering the most economic route to do this and rough costs? I would build it via Permitted Development

I haven't had any quotes yet but my previous experience of getting quotes on oak framed buildings wasn't positive. To build a double garage with room above - £58k!! Seems expensive, or is this just because oak is expensive?

[Shaolin]

Nothing personally but a friend built a massive extension on his house with lots of internal exposed huge oak beams. He bought them in France where he goes quite often and brought them over as they were much cheaper.

This may of course be of no use to you at all.

[ncs]

Fresh sawn (aka Green Oak) isnt cheap but its money well spent, lovely to work with as its soft when its just been cut but will dry out to be as hard as concrete.

If you want to buy the timber & arrange the fabrication yourself I could price it if you drop me a line with what you need.

Nick

[Henry-F]

We built an oak framed building for a hot tub around 7 metres by 4 metres (the building not the hot tub !!). We also built on open fronted car storage area a while ago.

For the open fronted car storage area we had the front made in oak and scratch built the rest of the building. For the hot tub gazebo we had the lower frame (up to the wall top plate) built for us in oak and scratch built the roof. The oak company also supplied the outside cladding. We sourced our own internal cladding. From memory the bill from the oak company was around £4k. Obviously by the time you've put tiles on top, cast a slab and so on costs rise.

With the hot tub we used new tiles, with the car port previously enjoyed tiles.











You won't need to be spending £60k but things do mount up. £1,500 for the slab, some brickwork, your oak, roof timber work, a couple of days and a digger / forks to put the frame up (you end up jiggling them around a bit). Roofing, cladding, interior finish and services, etc. As a rough guess I'd say £30k give or take depending on how much labour you want to provide yourself.

There are any number of oak frame companies who will scratch build the frame for you with knees and beams to suit your needs.

Hope that helps.

Henry

[russ_a]

Is your Mrs naked in that shot?

[PGM]

Henry-F said:

We built an oak framed building for a hot tub around 7 metres by 4 metres (the building not the hot tub !!). We also built on open fronted car storage area a while ago.

For the open fronted car storage area we had the front made in oak and scratch built the rest of the building. For the hot tub gazebo we had the lower frame (up to the wall top plate) built for us in oak and scratch built the roof. The oak company also supplied the outside cladding. We sourced our own internal cladding. From memory the bill from the oak company was around £4k. Obviously by the time you've put tiles on top, cast a slab and so on costs rise.

With the hot tub we used new tiles, with the car port previously enjoyed tiles.





You won't need to be spending £60k but things do mount up. £1,500 for the slab, some brickwork, your oak, roof timber work, a couple of days and a digger / forks to put the frame up (you end up jiggling them around a bit). Roofing, cladding, interior finish and services, etc. As a rough guess I'd say £30k give or take depending on how much labour you want to provide yourself.

There are any number of oak frame companies who will scratch build the frame for you with knees and beams to suit your needs.

Hope that helps.

Henry

Henry

I've got plans for a similar open front car storage, although only two bays wide and building it along the same sort of lines as yourself with regard to where the oak/normal timbers are used and sourcing myself also.

What sort of foundations did you put down ? Was it a full perimeter trench fill or just concrete directly under each support at the front?

Thanks
Paul

Edited by PGM on Wednesday 19th January 16:23

[Henry-F]

Hi there Russ. Yes she's a bugger for doing that. I can't get the camera out of the bag before she's got her kit off !! It's a cross I have to bear (or should that be bare!).

In terms of foundations you have a number of options. Probably the best thing to do is cast a slab and go a bit thicker where the brickwork for the wall goes and where the oak post hits the slab. The problem with using strip foundations for the wall and a block for the oak post is that nothing is tied together. You still need to create a surface for the cars to stand on so a reinforced slab is the obvious answer. We've done it on 2 buildings here and it works a treat.

You might argue it uses a couple of hundred quids worth of concrete extra but for the peace of mind in knowing you're belt and braces it's a no brainer. In terms of what you order in Oak and what you build in softwood you can see we took different approaches with the 2 buildings and it makes a big difference to final costs. Full oak is nicer and it's easier to build because you're not supporting bits of oak whilst you build the frame up on site (as opposed to errecting a pre made kit). Do be prepared to modify the oak frame a bit once it's on site and you're errecting it to make stuff fit.

We're pleased with the end result of the hot tub building. Now it's got a bit of furniture and some heaters in there it's lovely and gets used a lot. If you ever need a hot tub I can't recommend Hydropool from East Grinstead highly enough. A good bit of kit and they were great with the install. Did a pre-delivery site survey, arrived on time, nothing was a problem for them and good back up should you need it (not that anything's gone wrong). Not connected etc. just happy with the service. Speak to Jonathan, tell him Henry sent you and you'll get treated like a king (or queen)!! Actually probably best you don't tell him I sent you, he always moans I was too tight when I see them at the boat show


Good luck

Henry

[PGM]

Thanks for that Henry, very useful information, the foundation you describe is a raft and sounds the most sensible approach. I'm going to be doing this later in the year hopefully as we are converting our existing garage into a games and cinema room.

Thanks
Paul

[russ_a]

Mine hasn't been naked since 1986 !!