The Start Of My Fishhouse

[mark7616]

Right I have the go ahead for converting the garage into a fish house. The plan is for at the minute 1 large tank 1 5x30x24 and 2 racks of 4 4fts but that’s later down the line. As you can see from the pics I have alot of work to be cracking on with and if anybody with any knowledge of building a fish house has any tips please feel free to share. The garage is 18x9 so I have a bit of space for bits and bobs. I’m looking at 2 tanks I need to decide on which one will fit best Its either going to be 9x6x30 or 10x5x30 I want the 10ft but not sure if its going to be ok as it will be running down the side of the garage and ill only be 4ft away to view it.

Jobs I need to do:
Fill some drilled holes in the walls.
Insulate what’s the best type to use and from where.
Paint floor
Electrics there is no power in there yet.
And board the ceiling.

Now in what order should I do the above should I do the electrics then insulate or visa versa. What’s the best thing to do with the garage door as I still want it to open? And what should I use to do the ceiling with?

Here is a few pics im off out to clear it all up now I will still need to use it for storage until I put a shed down the garden so I will need to work around it.

As you can see it’s a bit of a mess lol

This is the roof water tight but needs boarding I think?

Side entrance to garage need to deal with this as it leaks from somewhere.

Front of garage from outside

 

[Miss Wiggle]

from my limited building knowledge (other half is a builder, currently renovating our house, also work in an engineering consultancy so i know the construction industry fairly well although i'm rubbish at DIY!)

here's what i'd do

run the electrics but leave the socket boxes and so on just on the floor next th where they need to go, just wire the ring together (hook it up to the fuse box and test, then un hook it from fuse box while you finish working) and make sure you have plenty of slack, then put up stud work all over the walls, insulate with that wadding/foamy stuff between the studs, then board over all the walls cos when you board over you can cut holes for your socket boxes and slot them in place easily. Then board the ceiling, then hook up the electrics to the fuse box permanently.

then paint the floor after you've finished making a right old mess of everything!!

 

[paul_219]

Nice starting.

 

[mark7616]

Right cleared garage marked out where I want it and unearthed a few hopefully minor points.

This is where the tank will sit as you can see by the wood on the floor thats where it will be.

Now I have water coming in through this shoddy bodge job on my door so need to fix this.

As you can see here I have a crack in the floor does this need fixing or will it be ok as I will be making the stand from concrete. Also you can see the corner is damp is this another problem

Same problem here wet corner will it be ok to just insulate and leave it as the stand is concrete or do I need to fix it if so any ideas???

 

[ox5477]

As you can see here I have a crack in the floor does this need fixing or will it be ok as I will be making the stand from concrete. Also you can see the corner is damp is this another problem

Most likely a crack in the foundation/wall and an issue with grading with the yard. It should slope away from the garage walls so if it doesn't, try adding a couple cubic yards (meters, or however you guys measure it..) of dirt along the back wall of the garage to increase the grade away from the garage. Also try using some concrete lock that can help stop water infiltration.

If you leave this water problem untreated, especially if you plan on keeping the whole room 75-80F, then you will see large mold colonies forming and be in for more problems than you would ever want.

 

[andywg]

From memory of working on CFC's fish house, the walls and roof were insulated first and all the electrics were put on afterwards. The lectrics were just tapped into the insulation. We commented that it might have looked nicer if we had run electrics behind the insulation, but then fixing any problems becomes a royal pain.

CFC knows the best type of insulation to use. If you can get hold of what he used then you should be ok. Essentially, heating will become one of the main costs, so insulation is a huge thing. For that reason I would be wary of the garage door. If you could change it to side hinged doors that open outwards then you could put a false stud wall in behind and insulate that very well with a decent fitted door.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

From memory of working on CFC's fish house, the walls and roof were insulated first and all the electrics were put on afterwards. The lectrics were just tapped into the insulation. We commented that it might have looked nicer if we had run electrics behind the insulation, but then fixing any problems becomes a royal pain.

CFC knows the best type of insulation to use. If you can get hold of what he used then you should be ok. Essentially, heating will become one of the main costs, so insulation is a huge thing. For that reason I would be wary of the garage door. If you could change it to side hinged doors that open outwards then you could put a false stud wall in behind and insulate that very well with a decent fitted door.

that's why i'd put stud walls all round, effectivley creating a cavity behind them which you can insulate and the plasterboard also insulates to an extent.

 

[andywg]

that's why i'd put stud walls all round, effectivley creating a cavity behind them which you can insulate and the plasterboard also insulates to an extent.

The problem is making sure that the insulation can cope with the huge amount of moisture in the air. Until CFC had heated the air in his room the walls were literally dripping.

Stud walls aren't massively necessary, just fixing decent insulation to the walls with screws worked very well in CFC's. This also keeps a valuable few more inches for tank space

 

[Miss Wiggle]

fairy snuff

i do like to imagine i understand building sometimes.........

with the plasterboard on you could plaster or just coat it with water proofing bonding glue stuff or something like that so it's completely water tight. aye, you will loose an inch or two, seems like there's still plenty of space in there though!

 

[mark7616]

Yeah I dont think I need to worry about stud walls just good insulation. My only problems that im not sure about are:
1. The crack in the floor is it going to cause a problem or will it be ok as I just level the stand that I build.
2. The damp walls will the be ok once painted and insulated seeing as the tank will be raised of the ground is this a problem?
3. Keeping the room warm I still need to use it for storage so I have just been out to have a look at splitting it in half but that foes not leave much space between the tank and fake wall and I need to keep the door as a garage door so not sure what I can do here to make sure I dont loose heat out of it?

 

[Miss Wiggle]

if you've already got damp, and then you put loads of water and heating into the room the damps gonna get a whole lot worse.
while it may not affect the tank, you may bugger the walls up and end up needing to do serious work to the garage to fix it. so i'd get the damp sorted out before you add the tank.

might sound daft, but just put a curtain rail behind the garage door, then use big thick curtains to cover it. obviously it's not gonna stop everything but it will make a good difference to it and (obviously) they can easily be pulled out of the way so you can use the garage door as normal.

 

[mark7616]

might sound daft, but just put a curtain rail behind the garage door, then use big thick curtains to cover it. obviously it's not gonna stop everything but it will make a good difference to it and (obviously) they can easily be pulled out of the way so you can use the garage door as normal.

That actually sounds like a good idea lol.

Now how do I fix damp. Andy wanna come round and help me lol.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

might sound daft, but just put a curtain rail behind the garage door, then use big thick curtains to cover it. obviously it's not gonna stop everything but it will make a good difference to it and (obviously) they can easily be pulled out of the way so you can use the garage door as normal.

That actually sounds like a good idea lol.

thats a woman's solution... no over engineering needed

 

[CFC]

If you are intending on keeping the garage door then you are going to be losing masses of heat through it, personally unless absolutely nessesary id board it up from the inside with a stud wall.

The crack in the floor is a bad sign, it means the concrete probably isnt re enforced and most likely not that thick either. I'd dig out that area of concrete and relay it 6 inches thick with re enforcing set into it before sticking a tank that weighs 3 or 4 tonnes full of moving water onto it.

Remember you will need space down the side of the tank to run pipes for the filtration so leave yourself enough space down at least one side of the tank between the wall, also the insulation will bring in the sides of the walls by at least 45mm each side.

Without seeing the building its difficult to advise on the damp, as its not an inhabited building and appears to not be connnected to the house it is probably just a single thickness brick with no DPC in which case damp is just par for the course and there is little you can do about it, although i'd check the guttering around the roof as it could just be rain water run off is dripping down in that corner outside. Also soil build up along the outside walls can allow damp to breach the DPC if there is one so check along the bottom of the walls and remove any soil build up

The door is easy to fix, just get a couple of cans of expanding foam and fill it in with that, job done, water proof and insulated.

 

[SJ2K]

I cant offer any advice just want to say, cant wait to see the progress monster tanks are always great to read about!