Building a Garage, debating the size?

[747mopar]

there is an idea! maby 30x60 with the gable end facing forward?

The downside to this is it being on the hillside that's 60 of digging to clear out a level spot meaning a taller retaining wall! I'll try and get a pic of the location tonight so you guys can see it. I'm trying to squeeze the garge in between 2 huge boulders on a hillside close to the house haha. If I accomplishe my goal you would almost be able to step off of the one boulder onto the roof!

 

[Hemirunner]

40x60 for sure!!!!
will let you park a 19' car and be able to have a workbench/lift and walk around comfortably on both ends, nothing more of a pain in the a$$ than to be trying to work in front or behind a car and not having enough room to set a bumper or windshield down without having to squeeze around the side to set it down.
it may seem like that's a lot more room than is needed but take into consideration
car - 19'
work bench- 4'
space in front of car 5'
space behind car 5'
your already at 33 feet and 5' to have your crap laying plus working on a car is not a TON of room, just my 2c

I sure can't lean over a 4' work bench and I find that big workbenches just become shelves!

 

[super-bee_ski]

My "Buds" man cave and garage
The RV portion is 60 Ft deep with a Lift at the end.

 

[hawkeye]

Build as large as you possible can. Insulate and put in nice roomy loft. Part of the structure should be tall enough to accommodate a lift. The most important is put the heat in the floor. :70s_rule:

 

[Hemirunner]

My "Buds" man cave and garage
The RV portion is 60 Ft deep with a Lift at the end.

HOLY SHMOLY!!! That's a MAN-sion..... not a man cave!

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Build as large as you possible can. Insulate and put in nice roomy loft. Part of the structure should be tall enough to accommodate a lift. The most important is put the heat in the floor. :70s_rule:

Absolutely agree on the heat in the floor. Mine is on right now so the tile can adhere.

 

[HT413]

You may have misunderstood, the 24 deep portion will be parking only (no work, heat or anything else). The section where I'll do my work will be 32 deep.

Ah, well looks like great minds think alike! 32 ft deep is perfect, plenty of room to park a car, work bench and also pull a motor in the same bay.

 

[747mopar]

This pic gives you an idea of where it will be in comparison to the house, far enough away for me to be noisy. It will sit to the left of the rock.



And this shows the spot, I'll clear everything to the left but there's a small spring there that will need some culvert and leveling (not building on it just cleaning up). Also notice the handy location of the electric pole and the easily available spring water tank!



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Man those are some nice shops, I could never have that floor though!

 

[mopar505]

i will keep this simple and short winded..... been there done it. go bigger than your original thoughts. assuming you will have a lift so pour concrete thicker ( min 6" ) in that area of lift. also take in consideration the extra storage of having a car pulled under lift.run water,electric, phone/cable out to pad. plan heat mode( propane ceiling hung heaters are the bomb). lastly but first on list space for fridge to store cold beer in.

 

[747mopar]

i will keep this simple and short winded..... been there done it. go bigger than your original thoughts. assuming you will have a lift so pour concrete thicker ( min 6" ) in that area of lift. also take in consideration the extra storage of having a car pulled under lift.run water,electric, phone/cable out to pad. plan heat mode( propane ceiling hung heaters are the bomb). lastly but first on list space for fridge to store cold beer in.

Rum doesn't require refrigeration! :wtg:

 

[Hemirunner]

i will keep this simple and short winded..... been there done it. go bigger than your original thoughts. assuming you will have a lift so pour concrete thicker ( min 6" ) in that area of lift. also take in consideration the extra storage of having a car pulled under lift.run water,electric, phone/cable out to pad. plan heat mode( propane ceiling hung heaters are the bomb). lastly but first on list space for fridge to store cold beer in.

I agree with the lift and the concrete. I even went so far as to put footings under the lift pads with rebar reinforcement. Storage under lift is good, which means a 4post lift or a 2post with a good ceiling height. I ran a monster natural gas line, direct bury electric and two water lines, one as a spare. I also have a bathroom with waste plumbing that went in. Always plan ahead. I do disagree on the heat. In floor will always be the end all/be all of shop floor heat. You can heat the water any way you wish, propane, natural gas, electric, or even corn pellet burner, but in cold climate, there is nothing better than standing/sitting/kneeling/laying on warm concrete. It's warmer at 2ft above the floor than 6ft above the floor. With any type of forced air or overhead radiant, you are heating from the top down rather than the bottom up and heat rises!!

 

[mopar505]

I agree with the lift and the concrete. I even went so far as to put footings under the lift pads with rebar reinforcement. Storage under lift is good, which means a 4post lift or a 2post with a good ceiling height. I ran a monster natural gas line, direct bury electric and two water lines, one as a spare. I also have a bathroom with waste plumbing that went in. Always plan ahead. I do disagree on the heat. In floor will always be the end all/be all of shop floor heat. You can heat the water any way you wish, propane, natural gas, electric, or even corn pellet burner, but in cold climate, there is nothing better than standing/sitting/kneeling/laying on warm concrete. It's warmer at 2ft above the floor than 6ft above the floor. With any type of forced air or overhead radiant, you are heating from the top down rather than the bottom up and heat rises!!

for sure on the direction of heat. it rises.......i got radiant in the house, oil hot water. from a cost stand point you will be in for more money heating that way. for sure the best and warmest most comfortable heat out there. problem is if you are not a rich guy you will spend lots of money heating that floor weather you are in there or not. there is no shutting it off. takes a day or so to get slab up to temp and get room comfortable. so u pay for not being in there,or shut it down and wait 1.5 days for slab to get up to temp. ill keep my money in the pocket and wait the extra hour to get the lower heated up. its all good. two different points of view and planned usage to consider

 

[Brandy]

I built a 24 x 30 garage in Georgia back in 1998. I had a 1965 Impala and a 1968 442 Olds in there and it was tight front and back. I had restrictions though. My garage bay now leaves me about 2 feet at the back and 10 to 11 feet at the front. The sides are enough to open both doors full wide. I hate that it is an 8 foot ceiling, has an apartment above, and I cant put a lift in. Next summer i intend to add a room to the rear for storage about 8 x 12 and a small closet sort of room about 6 x 4 to place the compressor in. That will allow me to build a nicer work bench, put in some cabinets/shelving and and get all of the parts and clutter off of the floor around the walls. I built a 26x26 two story barn and put in 1800 feet of fencing and gates, and a new mud room this summer and last fall. We just replaced all of the windows in the log cabin. So the next big expenditure is for me. I do all of the construction myself so all i need are the materials. I also need better lighting in the garage too. I have been toying with the idea of building my big garage out on the property using logs from the property as I have tons of hardwoods. There are two saw mills nearby that can saw them up for me. I have a neighbor a couple of miles up the mountain that has TracHoe's and dump trucks, trailers and stuff so i can get him to help me get the trees to the mill. I can use the cleared land to build the garage on. My expenditures would be mostly hardware, concrete, metal roofing, insulation, windows, electrical wire up and hook up, Heat . Also the road from the main road to the building. I could get a solar panel set up for power pretty easily too just have to orient the roof to the south. One of the mills has great prices on rough cut lumber too, need to check on that, might be cheaper to buy the lumber than cut, haul, mill, and haul again.

 

[Hemirunner]

I did my system myself and on the cheap. You are right about heating it even when you're not there, but I'm paying to heat the house too and I'm usually not there either!!

 

[65NUTCASE]

big enoough never

[I had mine built 30 x 50 with doors on the 30 side. I can put 1 car on the lift another under it and one behind it with enough room to walk around them. and I still have the other side..

 

[ckessel]

And make damn sure that you don't end up storing chick or kids stuff. Thats what trash cans are for.

 

[747mopar]

And make damn sure that you don't end up storing chick or kids stuff. Thats what trash cans are for.

Hell no!!!!! I don't tolerate storing trash!

 

[jakepup]

i really agree with the floor heat option, my dad put it in his 30x32 shop and also hung a reznor in the corner, in north Dakota on a -30 below night he has the floor heat set at 52 degrees and walks around out there in his slippers. since he built the shop he has NEVER turned on the reznor in 6 years. I should note that it is spray foamed which helps and he doesn't open the doors much otherwise the reznor would run once and a while. like stated above you can heat the boiler any way you want. he also added 3 skylights and that sure makes a difference having the natural light

 

[747mopar]

I actually talked to a salesmen last night about an outside woodburner (boiler) and about the option of heating the floor. I'm looking at about $11,000 for a unit plus plumbing etc to heat the house and garage. They've done away with the old style boilers and the new ones won't let you burn green lumber but are 95% efficient compared to the 45-55% of the old ones so that's a plus. He said the same as what you guys are saying except he wouldn't recommend it unless I was going to heat it all the time. Got some thinking to do seeing how I mostly just spend the weekends out there, I'll likely do it though. I figure I can set the temp around 50 and have an additional coil to bump it up quickly while I'm out there. This would be a huge help with bodywork being able to maintain a decent temp and not having to warm all that metal up.

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I should add that adding the boiler has been on the table for heating the house anyways so this is just a reason to go through with it. I was putting it off because I didn't want to have to deal with the firewood but do to some recent changes at work I'll likely be staying at the mill for good so firewood is not a concern.

 

[Hemirunner]

That's quite expensive. I'm using a tankless water heater and a grundfos pump. I use a load style 110v thermostat to trigger the pump. The flow triggers the water heater. I have less than $1000 in all of it with the exception of the pex. I installed that when I poured the floor. I planned on heating all through the winters regardless of whether or not I'm there as I don't want the heat/cool cycles that contribute to rusting. Propane heat ran on weekends will rust everything quickly. I didn't want that.

 

[747mopar]

That's quite expensive. I'm using a tankless water heater and a grundfos pump. I use a load style 110v thermostat to trigger the pump. The flow triggers the water heater. I have less than $1000 in all of it with the exception of the pex. I installed that when I poured the floor. I planned on heating all through the winters regardless of whether or not I'm there as I don't want the heat/cool cycles that contribute to rusting. Propane heat ran on weekends will rust everything quickly. I didn't want that.

I'd like to hear more about your setup and the operating cost.. pics to if you have them. It is expensive but they are really nice, most people that have them (the old style) only load them twice a day but I'm open to other ideas. For me burning wood is free fuel, I work at a sawmill where they give away the junk timber so I can grab a load after work or pay a logger $200 to drop off a whole knuckle boom load that last better than a year.