UK v US English

[RelentlessOnanism]

I have a question: Do Americans use the term 'lock up garage'? Or do they have another term they use?

 

[yukonnights]

I've never heard that phrase. Is it referring to a residential car garage? Perhaps put it in context with a sentance on how you use it?

 

[KeithD]

Sounds like what someone in the United States would call a storage garage or, to make it specific to automobiles, a car storage unit.

If your version, though, needs a hyphen: lock-up garage.

 

[RelentlessOnanism]

It's a place to store a car (or whatever else you may have), usually away from the home. There will usually be a row of them, each one owned or rented to different people. Sometimes they'll be under the arches of a railway bridge.

 

[Lori_the_Hoosier]

I've never heard that phrase. Is it referring to a residential car garage? Perhaps put it in context with a sentance on how you use it?

A lot of homes in the UK, usually older residential streets of terraced houses, don't have a garage or off-street parking, and on-street parking can be difficult because the roads are so narrow, so parking on them might cause an obstruction, but people can often rent a garage from the municipal council, usually one of a block of purpose-built, single car garages, somewhere reasonably close to their home. It's a lock & leave arrangement.

 

[yukonnights]

I've learned something new. Never lived in a high density population area, or a place with roads/streets built before the advent of more automobiles. Not sure my new knowledge will ever help me — probably forget it before I ever do need it

 

[NotWise]

A lot of homes in the UK, usually older residential streets of terraced houses, don't have a garage or off-street parking, and on-street parking can be difficult because the roads are so narrow, so parking on them might cause an obstruction, but people can often rent a garage from the municipal council, usually one of a block of purpose-built, single car garages, somewhere reasonably close to their home. It's a lock & leave arrangement.

I don't know of anything like that in the US, which doesn't mean they aren't here. From the name I might have guessed that "lock up garage" referred to a tow-away impoundment.

 

[KeithD]

We have apartment complexes in the states too that include banks of exterior garages where a garage can be rented separately from the rent on the apartment.

 

[Voboy]

I think Americans would simply call that a "garage."

 

[SimonDoom]

We have apartment complexes in the states too that include banks of exterior garages where a garage can be rented separately from the rent on the apartment.

Same thing with town home complexes. But I'm not familiar with what RO described, and have never heard that term before.

It's always nice to learn something new from the folks across the water. On either side.

 

[Lori_the_Hoosier]

Same thing with town home complexes. But I'm not familiar with what RO described, and have never heard that term before.

It's always nice to learn something new from the folks across the water. On either side.

What a lot of the well-heeled are doing in Central London, where parking is almost impossible, is actually excavating under their houses in order to give themselves a below-ground garage, usually to the great annoyance of their neighbors, who complain that underpinning the house and mining under it is causing the own foundations to move; I remember one idiot started doing it before the structural engineer's report had been issued, and his house and the house next door both collapsed because they'd dislodged the not very stable Victorian footings. I understand Westminster Council has now put a moratorium on constructing below-ground garages under existing structures because the soil in most of Westminster is not very stable and the makeup of the substrate is not well documented.

 

[oggbashan]

What a lot of the well-heeled are doing in Central London, where parking is almost impossible, is actually excavating under their houses in order to give themselves a below-ground garage, usually to the great annoyance of their neighbors, who complain that underpinning the house and mining under it is causing the own foundations to move; I remember one idiot started doing it before the structural engineer's report had been issued, and his house and the house next door both collapsed because they'd dislodged the not very stable Victorian footings. I understand Westminster Council has now put a moratorium on constructing below-ground garages under existing structures because the soil in most of Westminster is not very stable and the makeup of the substrate is not well documented.

Westminster - the Royal Palace of - that is now the Houses of Parliament was built on a marshy island surrounded by swamp. Most of the rest of what is now Westminster was the swamp.

 

[SimonDoom]

In America, we love our garages -- the kind connected to the house. For many, a garage is a place you fill to the brim with crap so you can park your car on the driveway outside.

 

[ElectricBlue]

In America, we love our garages -- the kind connected to the house. For many, a garage is a place you fill to the brim with crap so you can park your car on the driveway outside.

That's the suburban Australian approach. Inner city garages are more as Lori and Ogg describe, especially Sydney and Melbourne, which started building in the nineteenth century. Out in the country you just have a shed or two. Or three.

 

[KeithD]

In America, we love our garages -- the kind connected to the house. For many, a garage is a place you fill to the brim with crap so you can park your car on the driveway outside.

We occasionally have people say they came by to visit us and our cars weren't on our parking apron so they assumed we weren't home. We are among those strange people, though, who park our cars in our garage.

 

[PennameWombat]

It's a place to store a car (or whatever else you may have), usually away from the home. There will usually be a row of them, each one owned or rented to different people. Sometimes they'll be under the arches of a railway bridge.

Such storage is very, very rare in the US, even in cities. But if someone does have such storage it'd be a "garage." Someone said "car storage unit" since Americans call lock-ups "storage units" (the TV show, "Storage Wars") but I never heard that term used. I've seen these on plenty of British movies and TV shows.

Most US cities have regulations that apartment buildings, condos, etc., need to provide onsite car parking in some ratio to the number of units. Many such use underground garages in the buildings' basements. I used to live in Jersey City and would sometimes go to planning commission meetings, a developer had proposed to raze an old warehouse and put in apartments but wanted to not put in the parking, which required either changing the law or special dispensation. Arguing went on for months and we'd left the area before I ever heard the final decision. Our condo complex had two surface parking lots and basement parking under each of the four buildings. A parking spot cost US$10,000 to purchase... You were allowed to sublet it if you didn't have a car. We didn't have a car so didn't buy a spot.

And yes, these regulations are under fire, activists want cities to drop them to force denser population and get rid of cars. My experience in Jersey City (across the river from Manhattan) was people just fought harder for street parking...

 

[KeithD]

Such storage is very, very rare in the US, even in cities. But if someone does have such storage it'd be a "garage." Someone said "car storage unit" since Americans call lock-ups "storage units" (the TV show, "Storage Wars") but I never heard that term used. I've seen these on plenty of British movies and TV shows.

My son-in-law collects show cars, which he keeps in rental storage units designed specifically for cars at one of these storage unit complexes you find all over the United States.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

Usually referred to as a 'lock-up' in London, especially by hard-boiled detectives in The Bill (police procedural drama set in fictional south London). Often used for small businesses such as car repairs or selling second-hand goods of dubious provenance.

Putting my American hat on, I'd guess 'storage unit'? Or unit?How would the sentence 'He rents a storage unit under the elevated 1 section near 125th St' sound?

 

[SimonDoom]

We occasionally have people say they came by to visit us and our cars weren't on our parking apron so they assumed we weren't home. We are among those strange people, though, who park our cars in our garage.

I'm going to take a wild guess that you have no cars sitting up on cinderblocks in your front yard, either.

That's a surprisingly common thing. I've never understood why one would want that to be a thing.

 

[ChloeTzang]

Lookup www.publicstorage.com - that’s how we do it, Ogg. Industrial scale storage and they come all sizes. Really useful. But not quite lockup garages like you’re describing. I’d never heard of anything like that.

 

[RelentlessOnanism]

Well, as George Bernard Shaw (may have) said about Britain and the United States, we are two countries divided by a common language.

 

[oggbashan]

My rural relations have garages on their property. Whether they have cars in them?

Sometimes. One niece and her husband have extensive outbuildings. The garage has become a man cave and workshop because it has electric light, power and heating. The cars live in the tractor shed. They have the eight-horse stable block and the unused dairy.

My brother had a four-car garage that housed his classic MGB but behind the garage he had his artist's studio with North light. The garage and studio had a larger floor area than his house.

In his previous house had had ample room indoors. He renovated it and by the time he had finished he had nine large bedrooms and five bathrooms. He converted the former dairy temporarily into a one-bedroom house for his eldest daughter when she separated from her partner. The new owners are using that for their au-pair. Neither my brother nor the new owners have done anything to the medieval listed barn. It would be expensive to get permission to adapt it in any way.

Our first house had a garage in a block at the end of our garden. Like many of our neighbours we found it a nuisance. Because it wasn't adjacent to our property we couldn't run electricity to it. We couldn't work on a car in it because it was too dark even in daylight. It was just somewhere to store the car or outgrown toys.

 

[Lori_the_Hoosier]

Westminster - the Royal Palace of - that is now the Houses of Parliament was built on a marshy island surrounded by swamp. Most of the rest of what is now Westminster was the swamp.

And the Palace of Westminster is now beginning to lean, a consequence of sinking into the London alluvial clay it was built on being aggravated by the fact they undermined it when they built the Jubilee Line Extension and dug out most of the substrate, substituting instead huge cross-braced pillars which you can see when you travel on the escalators in Westminster Station.

Hubby's friend is a Structural Engineering Project Manager with Wates, part of the partnership-consortium formed to restore and rescue the palace, and he and Will would have long conversations about how he and his colleagues are currently investigating ways to jack the entire building up so the Elizabeth Tower (Big Ben) moves back into true again so they can begin renovating the stonework; it's currently leaning 0.5m (about 19") out of true, and increasing imperceptibly every day, causing the foundations to crack and move correspondingly. The estimated cost of the restoration is £6bn

 

[Handley_Page]

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Hubby's friend is a Structural Engineering Project Manager with Wates, part of the partnership-consortium formed to restore and rescue the palace, and he and Will would have long conversations about how he and his colleagues are currently investigating ways to jack the entire building up so the Elizabeth Tower (Big Ben) moves back into true again so they can begin renovating the stonework; it's currently leaning 0.5m (about 19") out of true, and increasing imperceptibly every day, causing the foundations to crack and move correspondingly. The estimated cost of the restoration is £6bn

Some English Engineers are trying to straighten the Tower in Pisa; Any go with their work ?

 

[oggbashan]

Some English Engineers are trying to straighten the Tower in Pisa; Any go with their work ?

They have already stabilised it and reduced the lean. They could have straightened it up but then it wouldn't be leaning.

British engineers have also stopped Egypt's largest pyramid from internal collapse.