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z50

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Sorry, first time using this picture application. I think that’s a picture of the space.
 
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z50

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I’ll get better pictures. I also understand the four post lifts can be installed with castor wheels that can be raised. They say you can put a car on it and then push the whole thing out of the way I mostly want a lift so I can stack two cars in one spot somebody said it’s way too tight for two lifts that’s fine But does anyone have experience with those four poster lifts and particularly the ones with the wheels?
 

OccupantRJ

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May 15, 2009
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Eastern North Carolina
Relative to air, here is what I did on each side of my shop. By having this along with the air hose near the door, it allows me to easily use air anywhere around the outside. One setup goes to feed my storage barn, has a QD, and can be shut off with a quarter turn valve. The other has both a quick disconnect and a Chicago fitting to allow the air system to be back fed with a portable road compressor that I once had, or used as a sandblaster outlet. The handle style plug keeps critters out. I am a big believer in infrastructure improvements and gaining two for one. There are also two runs of hard wired internet in one of the small conduits, with a water faucet nearby. Another conduit feeds lights and receptacle in the storage building.
 

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JohnX14

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Boston 'burbs
Yes, a lift in a 20 x 20 garage. I’m sorry I don’t have farm land like some people here. I’m literally in the city of boston one of the most congested and expensive places to live in the whole planet so I am thrilled with 20 x 20 for now did you wanna add any constructive information to this or just judgmental?
Where in Boston? I'm 45 minutes outside of Boston. I was lucky to be able to fit a 24x24 detached on my property. While 20x20 is obviously smaller, I understand your enthusiasm/ satisfaction. I had to get a variance for this one. My previous house had a 28x28, and If I had a choice I'd have gone larger than that this time, but I was thrilled to be able to get what I did with the 24x24. You'll make the best of the 20x20, I'm sure. I've seen a lot of efficient uses of smaller spaces on this site. Congrats.
 

dave*99

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Coastal NJ
I’ll get better pictures. I also understand the four post lifts can be installed with castor wheels that can be raised. They say you can put a car on it and then push the whole thing out of the way I mostly want a lift so I can stack two cars in one spot somebody said it’s way too tight for two lifts that’s fine But does anyone have experience with those four poster lifts and particularly the ones with the wheels?
There are lots of options. Narrow bay lifts, etc. Also there are double wide lifts that hold 2 cars side by side. What is the available area of your floor? It is actually 20x20 inside the block stem wall? What size garage door(s)? What size cars will you be working with? All this feeds into good decision making. Are you using high lift garage door tracks?
 
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z50

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Where in Boston? I'm 45 minutes outside of Boston. I was lucky to be able to fit a 24x24 detached on my property. While 20x20 is obviously smaller, I understand your enthusiasm/ satisfaction. I had to get a variance for this one. My previous house had a 28x28, and If I had a choice I'd have gone larger than that this time, but I was thrilled to be able to get what I did with the 24x24. You'll make the best of the 20x20, I'm sure. I've seen a lot of efficient uses of smaller spaces on this site. Congrats.
Just about 3 miles south of downtown Boston I am my garage is actually 18 wide by 21 deep but I got the extra high ceilings so even if I stack two cars on one side and then have some open space for motorcycles and a little work area it would be fine, but I can definitely squeeze two side-by-side with one on the left if I need
 
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z50

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So guys, you’ve all been very very helpful. I really appreciate it. I plan on using this resource. I got kicked off for a few days. I had no idea about the rule that I couldn’t mention anything about politics and I did I 100% understand how that can be polarizing and could hijack the whole place. That’s why I hear in Boston. We don’t talk politics or religion in the bar room. It gets too heated. Anyway I apologize for that. I’ll try not to do it again.

Anything that anybody could add for ideas before I start closing these walls up is much appreciated. I saw one guy on YouTube that was showing a whole bunch of different 240 V adapters and pigtails. He was using an EV car charger port with an adapter for his welding machine
 

dave*99

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Coastal NJ
So guys, you’ve all been very very helpful. I really appreciate it. I plan on using this resource. I got kicked off for a few days. I had no idea about the rule that I couldn’t mention anything about politics and I did I 100% understand how that can be polarizing and could hijack the whole place. That’s why I hear in Boston. We don’t talk politics or religion in the bar room. It gets too heated. Anyway I apologize for that. I’ll try not to do it again.

Anything that anybody could add for ideas before I start closing these walls up is much appreciated. I saw one guy on YouTube that was showing a whole bunch of different 240 V adapters and pigtails. He was using an EV car charger port with an adapter for his welding machine
We don't discuss Yankees/Red Sox here either o_O
But we do argue the virtues of 2 vs 4 post lifts every chance we get.
And yes on the EV receptacle (Use a high quality one rated for EV use like the Hubbell 9450A) and you can adapt to a welder easily.

1746017989344.png
 
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z50

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If the Yankees or the Red Sox, wanna pay my bills, I’ll gladly yell out than any other fan until then I’m a fan of me :) good heads up on the Plug. I’m going to send that to my Electrition. I can kill two birds with one stone there also I wonder if the sand plug will work for the Two or four poster left as far as picking which one I need I need to get in the space it’s a tight swing to get in. I may need the setback to be able to swing in and back up so I might have to put a two post but I understand they make a four poster lift that has wheels on it that you can actually put a car on and then move it anybody have any experience with these?
 
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z50

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There are lots of options. Narrow bay lifts, etc. Also there are double wide lifts that hold 2 cars side by side. What is the available area of your floor? It is actually 20x20 inside the block stem wall? What size garage door(s)? What size cars will you be working with? All this feeds into good decision making. Are you using high lift garage door tracks?
A double bay lift really is not an option for me because I still want to have the rest of the space to move around a little bit. I basically want to stack two cars on the right I thought I could get two lifts in there, but I doubt it Also the garage door is 10 feet high 16 feet wide
 

dcg9381

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Jun 20, 2018
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Austin, TX
Those are all great points. I did miss out on putting conduit in the floor. I was away when they poured the slab, but I figured I could put a 220 plug on the wall close to where the lift is going, maybe I could use that same plug for a welder extra lighting that’s huge. I forgot to tell the electrician that but my little shop now I’m forever plugging in lights and trying to see! As I stated, I am doing a row of receptacles down low all the way around the perimeter one up about 6 feet high all the way around and another set of receptacles around the top rim of the space this way I can plug in 4 foot LEDs wherever I want them and run them, low medium, and high all the way around
If you're not doing this work yourself, get a sub-panel (~60A feed) on the other side of the garage. This kinda future proofs it if you're going to do surface mount. 2 panels on opposite sides would be what I'm going for, then you can arrange / re-arrange it however in the future at a reasonable cost and workload.

This is my setup:
I run the same "manual mixer" setup with 1/2" PEX valves to provide hot/cold/warm water to a spigot too. Some concerns in Boston about being able to drain the lines (or whole building) if you're not going to heat the building full time. You need a way to blow out the lines or low point drain.
 

dave*99

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May 5, 2009
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Location
Coastal NJ
If the Yankees or the Red Sox, wanna pay my bills, I’ll gladly yell out than any other fan until then I’m a fan of me :) good heads up on the Plug. I’m going to send that to my Electrition. I can kill two birds with one stone there also I wonder if the sand plug will work for the Two or four poster left as far as picking which one I need I need to get in the space it’s a tight swing to get in. I may need the setback to be able to swing in and back up so I might have to put a two post but I understand they make a four poster lift that has wheels on it that you can actually put a car on and then move it anybody have any experience with these?
Start reading the owners manuals of candidate lifts you might use. My lift did not come with a plug. Just a junction box. And I hardwired it through a disconnect on a dedicated 240V 30A circuit.....BUT I could have put a cord and plug on it and matched it to whatever receptacle was in my garage.

Could I put a plug on it to match a 50A EV receptacle? Yes. Would the lift operate? Yes. Have others done this? Yes. But when I built my garage, I put the properly sized circuits in for the equipment I own or planned to own. Look at post #53. Give the subpanel idea some thought. If your floor plan is still undecided, the subpanel will allow you the needed flexibility.
 
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z50

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May 21, 2012
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Boston
Yes, great idea. The electrician said the same thing let’s put a sub panel in here and from that you can make a couple of different options but honestly, I’d rather just use one circuit for the EV charger and a possible welder and compressor if I could I never use the stuff at the same time and I probably won’t use an EV charger for a long time if ever.
 

mike93lx

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Dec 9, 2013
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37,864
Location
Richmond, VA
Yes, great idea. The electrician said the same thing let’s put a sub panel in here and from that you can make a couple of different options but honestly, I’d rather just use one circuit for the EV charger and a possible welder and compressor if I could I never use the stuff at the same time and I probably won’t use an EV charger for a long time if ever.
If the wiring is easy to access, make it easy to use. Sharing plugs for that stuff is a pain in the ***.

Hardwire the evse, hardwire the compressor, have a plug for the welder and one for the lift but only if it is mobile. If it is stationary it should be hard wired
 
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z50

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Messages
42
Location
Boston
If you're not doing this work yourself, get a sub-panel (~60A feed) on the other side of the garage. This kinda future proofs it if you're going to do surface mount. 2 panels on opposite sides would be what I'm going for, then you can arrange / re-arrange it however in the future at a reasonable cost and workload.


I run the same "manual mixer" setup with 1/2" PEX valves to provide hot/cold/warm water to a spigot too. Some concerns in Boston about being able to drain the lines (or whole building) if you're not going to heat the building full time. You need a way to blow out the lines or low point drain.
Yes, thought about freezing. I have hot and cold. No burst like exterior hose bibs that go from the garage wall into a heated area from there. They will do hot and cold packs across the wall and down into some sink faucets that the water enters from the top of the faucet I can shut off the hose bibs open the faucets, and they should drain down into the sink for the winter time. Also, I can screw another connection onto those hot and cold and run a hose outside if I wanna wash a car or spray out to floor mats. It’s possible I saw that hot and cold mixing deal here a while back and put it in my memory banks. OK where do I go to talk about lifts or should I do that right here? I apologize guys. I’ve waited my whole life for a proper garage. I actually took a grand foundation out of an apartment building down the street and I drive cars right underneath just to have storage it super tight but it’s a godsend to store vehicles in the winter or to do a little tinkering my point is I finally am going to have a ground level high ceiling well lit modern insulated heated air conditioned place so I want to try and set it up properly thanks in advance
 

kngelv

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Joined
May 25, 2011
Messages
2,231
Location
Detroit, MI
A couple of questions. What is the deal with the pipes coming through the ceiling? What kind of vehicles are you planning to put on the lift? One of the pipes looks like it will be in the path of the lift. You might have an issue depending on your vehicles. You will never get two lifts in there even if you had wanted. I would get a lift as soon as possible. The tarriffs have caused large price increases and it will only go higher. I have a Backyard Buddy which was assembled in the USA. It's up $1500.00 since I bought it last May. Nearly every other 4-post is made in China and getting harder to find. Good luck.

James
 
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Codyboy

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Jan 31, 2019
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S.E. TEXAS
Again, run the specialty circuits later.

You won't really know where things go in a new space until you start using it, and get the equipment.

Been using my shop for 12 years now, and think I might finally have the layout sorted.
That right there is one reason I hate enclosing walls on a shop or garage.

Even at 12 years, you get a new machine and it's like wtf?

My garage has been open walled for 20 years and will stay that way.

The new shop will probably never have enclosed walls on the inside. Although it looks really nice it would be a pain to pull a new circuit for this one new toy.
 
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z50

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May 21, 2012
Messages
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Location
Boston
A couple of questions. What is the deal with the pipes coming through the ceiling? What kind of vehicles are you planning to put on the lift? One of the pipes looks like it will be in the path of the lift. You might have an issue depending on your vehicles. You will never get two lifts in there even if you had wanted. I would get a lift as soon as possible. The tarriffs have caused large price increases and it will only go higher. I have a Backyard Buddy which was assembled in the USA. It's up $1500.00 since I bought it last May. Nearly every other 4-post is made in China and getting harder to find. Good luck.

James
The pipe is for plumbing above there is an Arther Fonzerelli apartment above this garage. I love it. We don’t do them in Boston ever but I brought the idea back from Florida and had my architect draw it so the garage door with a side mount motor will be 12 inches off the ceiling of a 12.5 ceiling so I will have about 11 feet or 11 and a few inches of height for two cars which is enough in that pipe in the back should be far enough away where it shouldn’t affect lifting a car. Does anybody here have any experience with those four post lifts that are on cast or wheels? It seems like a great idea but I’m wondering how well they actually work something like that I could get a car up on it and then push it out of the way so I can swing a second car in to answer. The other question I have a few cars I could choose what ones I put on the lift, I have an old 86 Pontiac Parisian I have a Wrangler as you see I have a couple of trucks that I wouldn’t bother putting in there I don’t think.
 

sadinnkn5

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Joined
Jul 7, 2026
Messages
1
Considering your welder, plasma cutter, and future tools, definitely map out specific 220V circuits and enough 110V dedicated ones. For lighting, think about task-specific needs. When I planned my setup, having a pro review everything was invaluable for the sub-panel and interlock. You really want someone thorough. I actually did work with an EMA LEW from mrelectrician.sg.
 
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Norcal

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Mar 16, 2008
Messages
13,769
I thought years ago you could put a GFCI on the first receptacle and then two or three down the line could be run from that that’s how we used to do it. Maybe it’s changed if that was the case I could put one that I could reset at high level and that could go up and feed the ones on the ceiling? Maybe it’s changed.
Massachusetts adopts the latest edition of the NEC very quickly after the release of a new code edition, & one GFCI can protect the downstream outlets on a circuit, which is also how they should be done.
 
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