We have a garage in our 80 yr old Tudor home which is semi detached from the house through a 10' breezeway. We wish to finish the breezeway and also finish the garage to turn it into a second kitchen and a family great room. Have you ever seen this done? The garage is on a concrete slab and has water, no heating and no apparent drainage.
Answer:
This is done relatvively often and if you pay close attention to installing the floor, the rest of it is a simple matter of cutting rough openings for windows and doors and then its a regular interior renovations job. Here is a system I recently explained on the Home Focus Radio Show as a special feature: When installing a floor over a garage concrete slab floor, about the best results will come after the concrete has been covered with 6mm poly and then 2X4s or 2X? are used as joists under what will eventually be the sub-flooring. This framework of 2” stock has to be raised off the concrete and poly an inch or a bit more so that warm air blown in will be able to migrate to all of the joist cavities. The best way to accomplish this is with 2X2 blocks no longer than six inches every two feet or so under each joist. Shimming can be done as necessary to get things level. The perimeter of this ‘crawl space’ is now heavily insulated and vapour barriered before sub-flooring is fastened down. Somewhere near one end of this crawlspace a warm air duct blows air in and as far away as possible on the same wall, another opening permits this same air to escape into the return air plenum of the furnace. This will make the floor comfortably warm and there is no other way I know of that will do that at equal or better cost. Depending on the size of the new floor area, one might have to provide more warm air inlets. Also, make sure you have all the necessary plumbing, heating and electrical in place before laying in the sub-flooring. You'll probably need a building permit for this too.
In the interests of retaining credibility and in fairness to all, I cannot recommend prices, people nor companies for various projects. Courtesy of Ren Molnar, Construction Consultant at HomeFocus.com. I can also be reached at (613) 748-3003 and Home Focus – The Radio Show is broadcast live 8 to 10 A.M. (Ottawa, Ont. time) on Saturdays on www.cfra.com.
Remember, even if you don’t do your own work around the house have to hire someone, you put yourself at a great advantage when you can intelligently discuss a project with the various trades people.
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