Leza,
Hi I have an old flat roof garage which I think its roof going to fall
anytime. The roof has 2 big hols and it is too old. The center wood
bar that goes horizontally to hold the roof is broken and I managed to
put some other wood to hold it meanwhile. I am thinking to demolish
this garage and not to build a new one
Does your garage have a good concrete foundation/floor? Are the walls in
good shape?
If so, I would just take the flat roof off and build a sloped roof to
replace it. There's no reason to demolish the entire building if it just
has a bad roof. Even if you don't use it for your car, outbuildings make
great storage, workshops, etc. That extra space will be very valuable to
future owners, even if you don't want it.
What i want is to put half concrete half wire type of fence like
these:
http://www.siffordsojournal.com/uplo..._area_fencing_
012-140406.jpg
or
http://www.abbeylawn.net/wp-content/...a-file-078-150
x150.jpg
why I want half concrete, because the neighbor in the north of my
house, its land is higher than mine and the garage side right now is
working to block the rain water from coming to my house directly, that
is why I need to build the base of the fence from concrete blocks.
You really have two seperate issues you need to handle.
First, you need to build a retaining wall to hold back the slope from your
neighbors property. Be sure to install drainage pipe behind the wall, and
route it where it can drain away from your house. The easiest solution
would be something like precast concrete wall blocks, but there are many
other options for retaining walls. It depends on the look you want and how
high it needs to be. Here's some photos of the retaining walls I built for
our property (I'm just getting ready to build another section this summer):
http://www.watsondiy.com/2008wall.htm
http://www.watsondiy.com/2009wall.htm
Second, you can build whatever kind of fence you want above the retaining
wall. If you build post supports into your retaining wall, you could even
put the fence directly on top of the wall. Personally, I would set it back
from the wall a bit, but that's just me.
Anthony Watson
www.mountainsoftware.com
www.watsondiy.com