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Need garage advice

John A.

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Me and my wife are wanting to build an attached garage. But, I've never had a garage and honestly have no real experience other than what I have seen passing through others.

It's not going to be a finished garage on the inside. Bare 2x4 walls. Maybe a few pegboards for tools. Nothing major.

I'm going to imagine that length width and height should accommodate basically the largest vehicle that you're going to park there. Since I'm not parking a bucket truck in it, I think an 8 or 9 foot tall door would be plenty even for a full size pickup. And I'm thinking 10 feet wide bay door since there is a little bit of an angle to how I have to pull in and out of my driveway to give a little clearance for the opening. I might could go a little wider if I had to, but I'm very limited to the amount of building space that I have due to the road and right of ways and the easement.

But back to the garage subject. I want a regular door too so I don't have to constantly raise and lower the bay door to go in and out.

One other thought, I want the roof to be slanted away from the opening so when snow slides off of the roof it won't block my doors. I'm getting too old to shovel a bunch of snow.

I'm just trying to think this through the best that I can.

But, other than making sure you don't leave your car idling inside for a long time, are there any draw backs to having one?

Anything that I missed that I should add to my wish list?
 
Make it a deep as possible. Being able to park a pickup truck inside and have enough room to get around and work on it is worth it's weight in gold.

I say that as someone who cannot fit his truck in the garage. My garage is flush with the back of the house but inset about 8 feet from the front. It would have been easier to build flush with the front and provide enough room for a shop and to park. It also would have prevented a valley in the roof which is always a weak point.

If you know you are never going to do anything but park in it then stop reading now. But you're a guy so I know you will keep reading .LOL

If I were building the dream garage I would also put a full door at the back or on the side so I could get lawn equipment, etc in and out or things in to the back yard without having to shuffle the cars (I don't have enough space between me and my neighbor to drive into the back yard, I don't think you have that issue)

I would insulate it, including the doors. At some point you ARE going to want or need to work out there on something at it is a lot easier to keep it warm on the winter with even minimal insulation.

Wire it with it's own fuse box if you ever plan on running bigger tools, air compressor, welder, etc.

Lots of lights, you can never have to many lights when you need to work on something.

Put a drain in the floor show will drop off and melt and leave a mess. I've heard of people burying 55 gal drums before the slab went down then drilled the drain down to them after it passed inspection. :quote:

I would go a panel higher than a standard door. My new truck is also to tall to fit. It's not even lifted.

Mount the safety sensors for the garage door opener facing each other on the ceiling. They are a pain in the ass unless you actually have little kids that may wander into the door as it's closing. When I installed my parent opener I put them up high about 6 inches apart. LOL

Install a decent exhaust fan. Smoke and fumes sometimes just happen, nuff said.

Of course I have none of these and make due, but if I were starting fresh.......

Don't install a motion light switch. I did this, it works great when coming and going in the dark but not so good when working in the back corner and the lights shut off every 10 minutes forcing you to throw something at the sensor or stumble back to within range.

I reserve the right to add more as I think of them.....
 
Thanks MikeD.

I won't have to worry about a valley in the roof. It'll have it's own section of roof and will be below the peak of the house. Though I'll have to put flashing along the side of the house where it'll join.

I hadn't thought much about the power. I quickly looked earlier when I was first thinking about it and saw there was plenty of clearance at the weatherhead over the roof, but I didn't think about them reading the meter and I'll give you two guesses where the meter would be. Yep, right inside where the garage would be.

Crap.

I'll have to ask the electric company if I can start reading my own meter. Right now they read the meters and can see if when they drive up the hill (less than 20 feet from the side of the road and a straight shot just by looking out the drivers window They don't even have to get out of the truck.)

I REALLY do not want to have to move my meter. With how the house is built, it would be a ROYAL pain to redo it, and I have a lot of experience in doing that. So, I'm glad you brought it up because it's something that I'll have to look into tomorrow. I bet a nickel they'll say they want the service entrance moved though.

I had planned to put a couple of overhead lights and a few outlets in, but nothing extravagant. I honestly don't really like working on cars, though if it's something that I can do without taking half the engine out to change something, I occasionally will. Wife uses a shop vac on the cars, and just having a few outlets will be plenty for my taste for a radio or whatever.

There is a company that I contacted about having the garage door put in. They'll probably call me back tomorrow. The way they did the shop where I used to work, they didn't have eye sensors. There was a pad on the bottom of the door that if the door made contact with something, it reversed direction so it wouldn't crush anything.

I have a couple of overhead fans that I could mount up in a couple of corners I guess. And for heat, I'd probably use a kerosene heater if I were working out there during the winter. Which again, I don't normally do.
 
Make sure your elec outlets are located around so you can get to them when stuff is stacked up. My only outlets are in the ceiling for the opener and at the back wall, which is inconvenient as hell.

I'm all about accessibility and convenience. I'm tired of stretching ext. cords every time I want to do something and blowing breakers.

Garages are like gun safes, you never realize how much crap you have to put in them until you have one. They are never big enough.
 
Yeah, our basement is like that now. Seems that everything gets stored down there. It's not quite as bad as those hoarder shows, but a lot of stuff needs to be tossed.
 
Y'all touched on most. Id,just reinforce dont forget,ceiling outlet, and outlets around,garage. DEEPER IS SURELY GOODER !!! I would keep the idea of finished at least drywall inside eventually adds to thermal,regulation of,course. In ours no,matter where uve lived the garage had seemed to become a gathering area during company , kinda like women in kitchen men,in garage. So id,just say figure size and go,bigger within budget of,course. As for,opening stick,with common garage door sizes or you'll pay $$$$$ custom. Yes a side door is nice, and I'm fixing to,add a,220 outlet in mine for,welder. As for meter ours is,read remotely from road which is 140 yards away ? Is,that an option with your power company ?
 
My family rule of thumb is that a garage should be as large as you can reasonably afford. Mike D and Djcala hit on the other points pretty well.
 
Couple more and this may seem odd but I would like to have a switch that turns the power off to the opener. Just a little added layer to make me feel a little more secure if I can turn the whole thing off if not around or whatever. Maybe I'm just a little over cautious but i have cars parked out front with openers in them and if one of those gets hit I don't want them to have access to the garage.

And another, no windows!! I covered mine from the inside with black panels and replaced access doors with steel, no windows. No one needs to be able to see in or have an easy access in or out.

Though I do live near one of the most violent cities in America. Near, hell we share the same zip code. LOL.
 
The new opener I installed last year actually has a "lock" button for that exact scenario its usually the last button I touch before retiring to,bedroom @MikeD very good point. I really appreciate that feature.
 
The new opener I installed last year actually has a "lock" button for that exact scenario its usually the last button I touch before retiring to,bedroom @MikeD very good point. I really appreciate that feature.
Nice feature.

My opener is an old craftsman with more metal than my Honda.

But it just keeps working. I do expect it to die any day.

What model did you get? The one I installed for my parents didn't have that feature, and I was disappointed in how flimsy it was compared to the old one they had which appeared to have a cast iron rail and heavy chain drive.
 
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Nice feature.

My opener is an old craftsman with more metal than my Honda.

But it just keeps working. I do expect it to die any day.

What model did you get? The one I installed for my parents didn't have that feature, and I was disappointed in how flimsy it was compared to the old one they had which appeared to have a cast iron rail and heavy chain drive.

Its a Liftmaster , I do know they also sell replacement upgrade control panels that will operate many brands and,have a lock
 

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Djcala, I will have to ask if they have a remote reader for the electric. I'm in the boonies, so technology moves a little slow here sometimes. Heck, there are even some electric poles still standing from WW2 era or slightly after.

But that is one of the things that I'll ask about. Like I said, if there is any way that I can avoid having to redo my meter base and stuff, I'd rather leave it alone. I added a secondary panel in my basement before we moved in. Re-routed most of the circuits that I can use only with the emergency generator. Basically, I separated everything that I would and wouldn't use with the genny's, and all the other circuits that I added in the basement and the new addition in the house. Most of the old panel only goes with the big stuff like the dryer, stove and of course a few oddball outlets that are rarely used. So, the last thing I want to do is move anything or everything.

It would be no problem adding a kill switch to the garage door opener. Just an ordinary light switch breaking the circuit up to the garage door would do that. The only time I could foresee using it though is when I'm out of town overnight or something though.

And there would be no windows. I see no point or need.

The garage door company called a few minutes after 8AM this morning and gave me a quote. It was $1100 for a 10(wide) x9(tall) door, electric chain drive, 2 remotes and installation (they're coming from 2 counties away but they're good) and I know the quality is there in their work.

Now to start screening some contractors to see what it would take to level up and build 3 walls and a roof.
 
Ok, I did some measuring. The largest that I can make it is 21 deep and 13 wide. These are outside measurements.

Maybe 14 wide but that would be really pushing it. 13 feet is more likely.

So, is this a reasonable size to give enough room to open doors and get out of the car or whatever?
 
@John A. At 13' id say thats a good single car garage with plenty room to have some things and move around etc. Momma vehicle is out of weather, you are outdoors still, thats fine happy wife happy life. To compare mine is a double its 25 x 32(has small workshop in back walled off) actual parking is like 25 x 25 thereabouts.
 
Yeah, having a single car is fine with me. I'm more interested in the privacy than I am anything.

But not having to get up early to start the car to defrost windows and keeping the clear coat from fading from the summer sun, and keeping the car out of hail, has other obvious benefits.
 
Are you adding this garage onto your existing house?
I don't know the law there but here you must add a fire wall & fire door with closer between them.
Evidently, lots of houses burned down because cars caught fire in the garage.
Also, the floor must step down at the interface 1" Minimum.
But personally, I would separate the structures if practical. Use privacy screens on a breezeway or something, but make them structurally, thermally, and acoustically independent.

I much prefer a detached garage, for 100 reasons.
 
There would be a step. I am not aware of any local building codes. No inspections either, though I prefer to do anything correctly and properly because I don't do anything half way.

yes, I'd be adding it to my house.

Since I already park the car where the garage would be already, I would only be able to assume that if it would burn my house down with a garage, it would burn it down without one as well. It is sitting about 5 feet away from the exterior wall as I type this.
 
Cadman makes a good point, a friend just added a garage and was required to use fire retardent walboard on the shared wall of the house. I had forgotten about that until I saw it mentioned.
 
I would build a LARGE structure separate from the main house. I guarantee any structure you build you will soon outgrow, so bigger is better. You could always put a covered walkway between them. Steel building kits are comparatively inexpensive compared to stick-built...
 
Thanks for the replies folks.

I looked into some of the steel building kits, but have seen a lot of them collapse due to heavy laying snow in this area, so it's not a good option for us. In a slightly warmer climate I would've probably already had one.
 
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