ᐅ Shell Construction – Wall Structure Between House and Garage

Hello everyone,

The shell construction will start soon, and I would like to gather collective experience and feedback, however you want to call it.
Situation:
The garage is connected to a single-family house (urban villa) with their plans adjacent to each other, and the wall assembly would be as follows.
House made of calcium silicate bricks plus external thermal insulation system (24cm + 16cm (10 inches + 6 inches))
Garage made of aerated concrete blocks (24cm (10 inches))

To avoid having calcium silicate bricks + external thermal insulation + aerated concrete in the area between house and garage, my idea is to use only 40cm (16 inches) aerated concrete there.

What would be your pros and cons?

You want to use the exterior wall of the house as the garage wall at the same time? Not a good idea. We saved on the brick wall in the garage area and instead built the garage wall directly from calcium silicate blocks, but I don’t see much further potential for savings, especially since the house wall will usually be higher than the garage wall, and the garage ceiling needs to rest on something.

Why don’t you build the garage entirely from calcium silicate blocks as well? That would probably save about 20cm (8 inches) in width.

Does the thermal separation between the house and garage extend down to the foundation slab? If so, then there are essentially two detached foundation slabs, which will likely make it structurally challenging to connect the two building sections.

We have a very similar situation and have decided to keep everything separate.

Stephan— schrieb:

To avoid using sand-lime bricks plus external thermal insulation composite system (ETICS) plus aerated concrete in the house garage area, I am considering using only 40cm (16 inches) aerated concrete there.

That doesn’t make sense, simply because it doesn’t.
(See previous posts.)

Ask your designer what might be possible, such as:
- identical foundations?
- thermal separation?
- how should it work above the garage ceiling?
- …?

PS: I would move into the garage instead, there’s more space. 😀

Stephan— schrieb:

The garage is connected to the single-family house (town villa) (plans are adjacent) and the wall construction would be as follows.
House made of calcium silicate brick + ETICS (24 + 16 cm (9.5 + 6.3 inches))
Garage made of aerated concrete (24 cm (9.5 inches))

Is the garage and house being built by the same contractor? If the garage is constructed "elsewhere on site" (separately from the main contractor), then you will have problems. In that case, they will actually be two independent building elements that will need to be sealed from each other afterwards. In my opinion, finishing the dividing wall “with or without” plaster will not be feasible either.

The idea to build the garage using aerated concrete comes from the desire to achieve better insulation compared to cold sand-lime brick without external thermal insulation composite systems (ETICS/plaster insulation), hence the preference. The planner/structural engineer already indicated over the phone that it might be difficult to use just one type of masonry unit that meets the functional requirements for both buildings.

The house is thermally separated from the garage down to the foundation slab.

The structural builder is supposed to construct both structures to avoid any later “add-ons” or attachments.

I don’t find the house too small at all. For example, in my family, 50m² (538 sq ft) is not enough, and two proper wooden sheds were added to the garden. I’d rather avoid that and simply oversize the garage from the start. ;-)