The Workshop

So Caterham are nearing my build slot and I'm getting excited. It is probably now the best time to really sort out the garage space. I'd rather do it now than over the winter months as it's never fun creating these spaces in the cold.

That said, we've had a lot of house renovations going on for the last 18 months, and during this time, we had the garage floor screeded, all the walls insulated and plastered, and PVC skirting boards put on, so it is a pretty nice space already. However it needs a floor, and so that's the next part that needs to be done.

After much deliberation over all the types of floor I've settled with the ribbed vented tiles from Tuff Tiles. There are so many pros and cons of all the options but in the long run I think these are the best choice. I was toying with these, duramat (solid non vented), or Swisstrax smooth

The reason for vented was because the garage space is never moisture free, even if it is insulated. So I would rather make sure that the floor doesn't go damp and mouldy underneath a floor that I have laid, so that made the vented choice pretty easy. Secondly vented tiles always look cleaner, as all the grime goes through the gaps and underneath, which is easily cleaned by using a leaf blower and occasionally pulling out the tiles and giving it a scrub. The only main downside I can see is that they are not the best tiles for pulling trolley jacks and engines hoists around.

As I'll be using this space to install an engine I had to consider the engine hoist maneuverability. After watching numerous videos it was clear that a trolley jack will be fine and the engine hoist is probably the part that will struggle most, but still it should be OK. What I have decided though is that when it comes to putting in the engine, I'm actually going to pull up the tiles where the hoist needs to go and install the engine without the floor, using the flat screed to help, giving me a much more precise movement. Once the engine is in, I'll put the tiles back. I was nearly going to go for the swisstrax smooth just to enable smooth rolling of the hoist and jacks, but the finish long term is no where near as good, and they just get dirty.

Duramat was instantly off the cards mainly because it looks a mess if you want to install multiple colours, as it fits together like a jigsaw, so it just looks like a jigsaw puzzle on the floor. That and the fact that they are also non vented! You'll see from my design that I have gone for a few colours to match the car that is coming.

I finally got in contact with Eamon from Tuff Tiles and spoke to him about my needs and he explained the Tuff Tile system to me and then gave me a bit of a discount when I ordered which I couldn't thank him enough for! Head over there and check out some of the designs they have done for people!

This is how the garage space has developed: