Lean-to carport next to steep hill

[drboom]

Thank you in advance for the advice.

We now have more cars in use than we have garage capacity for which creates a problem when we get a plowable snowstorm here in NH. Our best idea to solve this economically is to build a lean-to carport next to our existing garage. However, we have only about 10' width for the carport before a steep dropoff which has me concerned about how to build the parking pad. I've put a few pictures below to help make it more clear. The existing garage is 34' deep and there is 10' between the garage and the dropoff near the driveway which narrows a bit to 9' near the rear of the garage. We know we need space for 1 vehicle and anticipate a 2nd is likely.

My current thought is to construct a gravel pad from where the driveway ends all the way down the side of the garage. The lean-to could be a metal kit or traditional framed construction. I haven't yet spoken with the town to see if they treat the structure differently if the lean-to is stand-alone or with the high-side attached to the existing structure. Note that the roof is 18' up and with a high pitch so I'm not so sure we can get a metal kit that will be close to the existing roof height. I'm concerned that sliding snow/ice from the garage roof will free fall a few feet and damage the lean-to roof if we don't get the roof lines close to each other.

(For those wondering why there is a garage door near the back pointing at the hill - I have no idea what they were thinking but it's sometimes useful for bringing projects out as the back half of the garage is the workshop).

Oh great minds of GJ, how would you construct an economical lean-to parking area here? What ideas do you have to make the parking pad stable against the hill?

Of course, the ideal solution is to extend the existing garage out over the hill, make a sublevel where the hill currently is and maybe an apartment above. That's never going to happen though in our high cost of living area. I was even thinking about trying to dig a 40' shipping container into the hill to make a wider base to work with for the parking pad. I have to imagine that will also be an expensive prospect but I welcome ideas.

(now that spring is approaching, we'll deal with the growth on the siding soon)

Taken from the driveway:


Looking back towards the driveway with our odd 3rd garage door.

 

[no704]

Going to need a civil engineer on that one!

 

[Bert_]

I don't see anything happening there without a lot of fill. You would really want minimum 12' wide to be able to open doors and have room to walk around the sides.

If you had a few more feet of flat ground I could see putting some posts fairly deep and putting a board to hold your gravel. But with on 9-10 feet I don't think that's practical.

 

[Shocker]

So what you could do is take out the trees, dig out a bit and place some eco blocks along the bottom of the hillside. Double stack or whatever is needed then fill in the gaps.

It will allow you to place the carport with little issue. Now, I would use a free standing carport in that space instead of building a lean to. The lean to will most likely require a permit and then you need to deal with setbacks from the drop off etc. With a free standing carport, you can just drop it in place.

 

[PCustoms]

Taken from the driveway:

Where is the property line in this pic?

 

[drboom]

Where is the property line in this pic?

Far away, no property line issues.

 

[drboom]

So what you could do is take out the trees, dig out a bit and place some eco blocks along the bottom of the hillside. Double stack or whatever is needed then fill in the gaps.

It will allow you to place the carport with little issue. Now, I would use a free standing carport in that space instead of building a lean to. The lean to will most likely require a permit and then you need to deal with setbacks from the drop off etc. With a free standing carport, you can just drop it in place.

I haven't spoken with the town but one option is a free standing lean-to. The roof pitch for the carport needs to drop the snow away from the house so I think we need a lean-to style roof. By that, I mean, a high pitch roof with the high side near the existing roof line in case there is some better way to describe a lean-to that is free standing and not directly connected to the existing structure.

Given the scale, I expect any sort of retaining wall in the hill will be so costly as to make the project impractical.

 

[PCustoms]

Far away, not property line issues.

Then start filling.

If you dump and compact fill, properly sloped, you won't need a retaining wall.

 

[drboom]

I don't see anything happening there without a lot of fill. You would really want minimum 12' wide to be able to open doors and have room to walk around the sides.

If you had a few more feet of flat ground I could see putting some posts fairly deep and putting a board to hold your gravel. But with on 9-10 feet I don't think that's practical.

I know 10' will be tight. Having the passenger doors inaccessible when in the carport is acceptable given the options. But, I'll still need the teenage drivers to be able to drive in/out of the carport and squeeze out of the drivers door.

 

[CraigStu]

I agree w/ PCustoms. Look for fill. I see a lot of this stuff around here because there are so many hills it is hard to find a flat large enough for a house. Inevitably, the I see the inexpensive diy half way jobs slowly sliding away down the slope. I have never bought fill so don't know details but I believe there are different graduations of fill. I think that you could dump the cheap ugly stuff first and then cover it w/ the better stuff so you can grow grass.

 

[drboom]

The space at the bottom of the hill was forested when we bought the property and we spend a large amount of $ clearing, filling and leveling it to make a yard for the kids. We can restart the process but the last time we checked, we were talking multiple $10ks for fill "fix" the hill. Note that we are all on septic & well here so we also need to be careful with what gets dumped.

 

[Jay H 237]

I would look into doing 3 or 4 walls there in a terraced application. Less fill needed and would look good with plantings between the lower wall sections. 2-3' high dry stacked garden walls.

 

[NUTTSGT]

I'd also say to add fill. Either make it wide enough that you don't need a wall or use some bin or M-blocks.

 

[PCustoms]

Note that we are all on septic & well here so we also need to be careful with what gets dumped.

Where is your leach field?

 

[drboom]

Where is your leach field?

Around the back of the house, not close to this proposed project. Although, the septic pump hose is run through where the carport should go. Whatever we do, we need to make sure a septic hose and at least something the size of a bobcat can still pass around the garage to the back.

 

[drboom]

I would look into doing 3 or 4 walls there in a terraced application. Less fill needed and would look good with plantings between the lower wall sections. 2-3' high dry stacked garden walls.

It would look nice. We're talking almost 40' lengths though which is going to get real expensive real quick. I'm starting to line up contractors to look and am hoping that some of the ideas and things to avoid in this thread will help make a more successful conversation.

 

[Jagmandave]

I'm not sure this is going to work at all without spending some serious coin, and if I were going to do that I would make it an actual part of the garage, so when the kids move out or go to college, I would have a bigger garage, not just a carport!

 

[Bert_]

I know 10' will be tight. Having the passenger doors inaccessible when in the carport is acceptable given the options. But, I'll still need the teenage drivers to be able to drive in/out of the carport and squeeze out of the drivers door.

I think you have room to build about 6' wide the way it sits currently.

 

[PCustoms]

Thank you in advance for the advice.

We now have more cars in use than we have garage capacity for which creates a problem when we get a plowable snowstorm here in NH. Our best idea to solve this economically is to

Went back and re-read OP after a few comments regarding potential cost.

I remember growing up we had 2 cars, both parked outside. When I got a car it got parked outside, and in addition to cleaning the driveway before school I'd also brush off at least 1 car besides my own.

I vote for leave it be and buy the kid(s) a nice snow brush.

 

[Rst277]

Went back and re-read OP after a few comments regarding potential cost.

I remember growing up we had 2 cars, both parked outside. When I got a car it got parked outside, and in addition to cleaning the driveway before school I'd also brush off at least 1 car besides my own.

I vote for leave it be and buy the kid(s) a nice snow brush.

Best advice yet. Narrow parking area, steep drop off and teenage drivers are a recipe for disaster. The kids can help shovel or plow their parking area. If they don't want to shovel out their own cars, I guess they don't want to drive where they need to go. Teenagers are wanting to be grown ups, well that means you take the good (having a car) with the bad (having to shovel a parking spot).

 

[kwb]

Freestanding (prefab) unit will dump water right up against the house- I wouldn't do that.

 

[drboom]

Best advice yet. Narrow parking area, steep drop off and teenage drivers are a recipe for disaster. The kids can help shovel or plow their parking area. If they don't want to shovel out their own cars, I guess they don't want to drive where they need to go. Teenagers are wanting to be grown ups, well that means you take the good (having a car) with the bad (having to shovel a parking spot).

While I appreciate the sentiment; it's missing that the garage needs to be plowed out for the big people during times the kids are not available to assist. I travel for work and my spouse can't manage clearing the driveway. We have to get the kids car out of the way for the plow to clear the driveway.

 

[drboom]

Freestanding (prefab) unit will dump water right up against the house- I wouldn't do that.

That's why I'm looking at lean-to style so that the water and snow are dumped on the hill.

 

[Shocker]

I haven't spoken with the town but one option is a free standing lean-to. The roof pitch for the carport needs to drop the snow away from the house so I think we need a lean-to style roof. By that, I mean, a high pitch roof with the high side near the existing roof line in case there is some better way to describe a lean-to that is free standing and not directly connected to the existing structure.

Given the scale, I expect any sort of retaining wall in the hill will be so costly as to make the project impractical.

Well I did a 2 stack eco block wall that is about 25 feet wide. The eco blocks were $25 each and I hired a backhoe guy with a 5ton dump to dig it out and drop them in place. Cost about $1200 or so all in.

You didn't really state a budget but I would see what eco blocks are locally and talk to a guy who might be able to place them. I bet you get that 40' section done for under 6k. Even using the eco blocks with the decorative face. It is worth asking.

 

[PCustoms]

While I appreciate the sentiment; it's missing that the garage needs to be plowed out for the big people during times the kids are not available to assist. I travel for work and my spouse can't manage clearing the driveway. We have to get the kids car out of the way for the plow to clear the driveway.

It seems your choices are to spend thousands or deal with a slight inconvenience at times.

I'd deal with it and push the responsibility on the kids as much as possible. I'm sure there are a few legit times they aren't there to move the car, but I'm sure you can work out the few times that happens over a few months a year. How long are your kids going to have a car there anyways?

 

[no704]

Might be better off going the other way where that minivan is parked?

 

[PCustoms]

Might be better off going the other way where that minivan is parked?

Looks like something buried off that side of the driveway

 

[no704]

Looks like something buried off that side of the driveway

Looks like A stump.

 

[Jim_No_Garage]

That's a tough site with that amount of drop off and degree of slope. Getting the width you want there for additional parking is going to take a LOT of fill/compaction or wall engineering.

A terraced approach as suggested above would reduce the fill needed but would increase the engineering requirements. You'd likely need geo-grid fabric built in to connect the walls to the grade. I've built several walls using CST Versalock wall stones without geo-grid fabric which were dry stacked and pinned together with fiberglass pins. CST has some drawings online for terraced walls for parking online. Permits needed?

Cheers

Jim

 

[PCustoms]

Looks like A stump.

Maybe, now that I look again. When I first saw it it looked like a green pull box cover or maybe riser for buried propane.

 

[drboom]

Maybe, now that I look again. When I first saw it it looked like a green pull box cover or maybe riser for buried propane.

That's a sprinkler box for sprinklers we don't use. We can move the sprinklers if needed. There are no utilities on this side of the house.

 

[Pluribus]

Extra deep garage in NH with a door on the side says "snowmobile" to me (or snow machine; don't know what the current regional argument winner is there.) Maybe they didn't quite have the grade figured out when it was designed.

As for the carport, I'm in the camp of it requiring some sort of fill and/or wall, possibly a combination with terracing. I suspect there's already some fill there, and putting the weight of moving vehicles on it coupled with freeze/thaw cycles might make it start moving in very undesirable ways. Oh yeah, the other thing I see that's concerning is putting a carport there requires cutting a corner to a narrow opening. I see damaged passenger sides of vehicles and building corner trim/downspout carnage on that future timeline.

Shipping container partially buried against hillside is a no-go for many reasons, mainly that they **** at bearing weight anywhere but the floor and the four corner posts. Side loads (or top loads) of dirt is a big nope.

If you started at the street or close to it on your driveway, is it feasible to have a 2nd driveway running parallel to the existing one toward the back yard? More expense to build and another thing to plow, but then you could use a standard, detached tubular structure to fit two cars side by side instead of some custom, super-tall structure next to the house. You COULD build a detached shop there too Guessing that's not quite in the budget though.

 

[Skooterj]

Around the back of the house, not close to this proposed project. Although, the septic pump hose is run through where the carport should go. Whatever we do, we need to make sure a septic hose and at least something the size of a bobcat can still pass around the garage to the back.

For the bobcat, if doing an open lean-to, leave both ends open and the bobcat can drive right through the new parking spot. If you enclose it, put a door on each end. Just move the car if you need access through into the back yard. Fill dirt is $10-12 a yard around here. You need a bunch, but that has got to be cheaper than building a block wall. Any good concrete guy should be able to dump fill, grade it out and pour a pad with just enough fall. I would personally tie the roof and house together, but a free standing lean-to would be my second choice. I would stay away from a free standing carport and all the water that it will dump next to the house.

Or extend the houses roof and add a bunch of storage space above your new garage expansion.

 

[The Bean]

Build a retaining wall out of railroad ties with perpendicular buttresses.

 

[Joemctag]

I think you have room to build about 6' wide the way it sits currently.

People I know who have carports, whether single-width or double, find that there’s a place they canpark and stil open doors. Run the roof generously over the outer, hill-side colums and beams so that you can get out withiut rain running off on you. Not a bad idea to ductape some padding where those doors could contact your posts. Good luck.

 

[Milton Shaw]

Nobody else has mentioned this, but is that an orange extension cord out of the bottom of the snow pile in the first picture. Also one of the pictures shows a nice flat area below the hill and proposed parking lot. Looks like a perfect place for a 20x40 shop, everyone need one, or a car port and slab.

 

[The Bean]

Not extension cord. Stick for marking edge of driveway maybe. Note another lying against bldg.

 

[ATC]

Nobody else has mentioned this, but is that an orange extension cord out of the bottom of the snow pile in the first picture.

Fiberglass markers. You stick them in the ground so the plow guy knows where to plow and where NOT to plow...

 

[ATC]

If I were in your shoes, I'd extend in front of the car enough for a 22x24 enclosed carport. Build a block wall, backfill it, and install the carport on top of the wall anchored into it...
I'm going to borrow a picture from another thread on here:

 

[drboom]

thanks to all for the replies. we're beginning to solicit bids for a retaining wall to widen that side area. I'm not optimistic that the cost will be within what the project is worth to us but I hope to be wrong.
The other concept I haven't explored on the assumption that the cost is out of control is to build the parking surface on piers set into the hill. I'm guessing that the related construction costs will rapidly exceed the wall costs but I welcome feedback that might open options.

And, those that posted about the fiberglass driveway markers are of course correct. We always lose a few to the plow each year and had not yet cleaned up the pieces when I took those pictures.