Need help planning my crawl to garage conversion...

[Steve91T]

Hey guys! I bought my house 1 1/2 years ago. It's just what I was looking for, nice size, great location, and a private wooded lot. Just one problem, there's no room for a separate detached shop. The attached 2 car garage just isn't going to cut it.

So I've been doing a lot of reading about people who have dug out their crawls and I've also talked to a few structural engineers. Next week I've got a structural engineer coming to the house to tell me exactly how feasible it is.

The driveway will be two strips of pavers that'll hug the side of the house, go under the deck, and the garage door will be cut out of the back wall.



See the lattice that's coming down on right side of the pic? That's where the driveway will enter. Obviously I need to reinforce the deck with LDL's to be able to remove some of the 4x4's. Also the dirt under the deck would be pulled back from the house and leveled and I'd lay a patio. The garage door will be this side of the fireplace. It'd be as large as the structural engineer feels safe.

Here's the crawl.



That's the whole back of the house. 15'x60' with no piers. The ceiling height ranges from about 4' to about 7'. It's about 3' at the front of the house.

This is from the back, looking forward at the piers.


There is a ton of space down here, and there's a way to get a car down there. The problem is obviously reinforcing the foundation to allow as much space as possible. Idealy I'd love 8' ceilings, as many windows possible, and the piers under the center of the house replaced with half as many steel poles.

So I've got a structural engineer coming out next week. I'd like to educate myself as much as possible before he gets here.

I figure once they cut the garage door, they'll be able to use a skid steer to do the digging. That'll save a bunch in labor costs. I'd have them do everything to give me an unfinished garage with a cement floor and I'd finish the rest.

That's where you guys come in. What are some questions you'd have? Looking at the pictures, does anything jump out that'll be a problem?

My concern is the far wall that only has a 4' ceiling. Basically they'll have to reinforce the side and entire back wall. I hope there's a way to do that.

Anyway any opinions will be appreciated.

 

[pstnbly]

Looks doable, I hope you have deep pockets.

 

[Chris705]

How deep are the footings for the wall? If grade slopes from 4' to 7' I doubt that the builder dug down 7+ feet the entire length. You may want to explore before the engineer shows up. Interior pier footings can be rebuilt deeper as needed and steel posts added. Also where you want a new OH door cut in footings will need to be below frost depth (probably not too deep in NC). If planned right this could be phased so you can do as budget allows, having plan will keep goal in sight.

 

[ard]

I hope there's a way to do that.
.

There is a way to do anything....

we're just bickering about the price, as they say

 

[Richard Cranium]

I know a guy in Portland Oregon, who his home is built on a hill side, He had a huge crawlspace under 1/2 of his home. He framed a man door and made all the area for extra storage.

 

[Steve91T]

Think it'll cost more than building a detached garage with similar sq footag?

 

[ndm]

This is gonna be expensive. I just have a feeling.

Depending on the price, you ever thought about renting out a space somewhere close?

I remember researching my crawl space expansion. The 13 X 20 space would have gone down to 11 X19 and would have been in the $75K to $100K area. I would just sell my home and upgrade to a place that better suited my needs at that rate.

If you do go forward with this....I am on board for the build thread though!

 

[hoho98925]

That's gonna be a project. Hope it works out for you, excited to watch this one

 

[ard]

Think it'll cost more than building a detached garage with similar sq footag?

Absolutely.

The only reason you go what you are proposing is that (1) you dont want to move, (2) there is no other possible location on the lot, and (3) you have the money.

Not sure what your lot constraints are, but Id have the structural engineer cast his gaze around a bit.....

 

[Firebrick43]

Growing up, I had some neighbors. They were a retired couple about 70. In the window well access they built a little windlass that pulled a bucket up a chute. The old man would have coffee and then spend about 20 mins or so digging. The wife would crank the 2 buckets he dug up the chute and put them in a garden cart. She would push it out to the yard and spread out the dirt.

He would dig a small section about 4' wide about 18" in from the oringinal foundation wall. He would dig several sections in seperate areas and then put up form and shuttering. He would higher some guys to come in and pump concrete into the forms using a line pump. I belive it was five seperate pours. And then one floor pour. Anyways it only took a little over a year plugging away and if I recall about a thousand a pour.(of course more now) The wall came up about 6' then a shelf to the original crawl space wall.

In this area nearly all the old farm houses had full basement installed later on by digging a hole and excavating mostly with horses and slip scoop up a ramp. A field stone and mortar wall was constructing as a section was excavated. It a dry proper basement for living space but a place to put the new fangled coal furnaces.

I personally don't see how anyone could quote 75k for such a small space. That could be dug by hand and completed in a few weeks

 

[driftpin]

You should look at the market for homes around you that give you what you want without having to spend the $$$ this is going to run. "Move in" is better than 'spend $$$ above what you already spent." That's assuming there is no pre-payment penalty on your current mortgage.

 

[padroo]

I worked for a remodeling contractor many years ago as a masons laborer. We had the job of putting a half basement under a 200 year old two story log home. The house had a stone foundation and we knocked holes in it big enough to pull I Beams under the house and jacked it up enough to take the weight off the stone foundation. A bulldozer came in and removed all the dirt then we formed up and poured footers and laid block up under the round logs and then set the house down on the new foundation. It is almost like moving a house without the move.

Something similar could be done by house movers. I saw a house near me moved and the procedure was almost identical to what I described. What you want done would be cheaper than an actual move. This is not a do it yourself job.

 

[RWorth]

I think you are going to find that it will be cheaper to jack up the house, remove the foundation, dig and pour a new foundation and set the house back on it. companies that move houses are actually pretty cheap to come over and set it on stands.

 

[Tobymonster]

I would get a real estate agent over as well, see how much the house would go up in value. If you're spending $150k plus on getting two extra car spaces and the house only increases by >50k then is it worth it?

What's the deal with the attached garage - what would that become? Would it be the stable for the daily drivers, or would it be better suited to be converted to more living space in the house and therefore give more house value. Is it too small for a shop so you're hoping that with 8 foot ceiling you would get a lift in down there and then be the garage too. What if everybody says it can be done, it's financially worth while but the then the diggers come in and find rock?

I hate putting values on things, I would love to have a place for my cars and a separate place for the toys but bank managers don't, unfortunately.




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[Orionrising]

some of your piers appear not very vertical.... and what is that on the right? it appears the shortened some of the joists and put in a plywood ramp with no joists under it or something?

 

[jackson1701]

and what is that on the right? it appears the shortened some of the joists and put in a plywood ramp with no joists under it or something?

to me, that looks like the underside of a fireplace. I have seen many builders do this to have the hearth extend into the living area.

 

[Kaizen]

private wooded lot but no room for a detached? extend off the back of the existing 2 car garage.
first thing a structural eng would say is dig some test holes to see where the bottom of the foundations are. so you can do that before he comes. also guessing you're better off not doing this. just not worth the money.

 

[Steve91T]

Here's the back yard, most of it anyway. I absolutely don't want to stick a garage in the back yard. Plus it would ruin my neighbors view. It would be a **** move, I'm not doing that. And the attached 2 car backs up to the master. I thought about bumping the side out and making it a 3 car, but the set backs won't allow me to get more than a few feet.

I'm on a col de sac so the property is pie shaped, kinda makes things difficult.

Moving isn't out of the question, but it's not likely. There were some really cool properties out in the sticks, but nothing anywhere did want to live.

One consideration is finding a second property that I could build a shop on. There was one that I saw that would have been perfect. It was a farm house with a barn for horse and a 4 stall repair shop. I could have rented the house and barn, kept the shop for me, and probably made money every month. I would have basically had a free shop. That's still a possibility, I'm still keeping my eyes open. But having my shop where I live is worth a lot of me. It's much more convenient.

I know enough about real estate to know that converting the crawl to a garage won't add much value. It would be something just for me.

Now, let's say jacking up the house and digging out the whole space is a possibility, then I could add another bedroom, full bath and a living space along with my garage. Now I'm adding heated sq/ft. That would definitely add some value, probably quite a bit. I can't help but wonder if they are already pouring new footers and digging out a garage with a skid steer, how much more would it add to just do the whole thing?

About the depth of the footers...I'm paying this dude $250 to give me estimates and ideas of what is possible, isn't that something that he would do?

Another thing I want to add. The house has some settlement issues. All of these houses on this street do. Also the joists are so bouncy. When my 30 lb 2.75 year old little girl runs, it rattles things on the counter. My neighbors, with a similar floor plan, needed to reinforce the floor to install granite. There are lots of decent cracks in the drywall around some big picture windows and around a few door jams. And you walk uphill in a corner of the kitchen. I talked to the previous owners and my neighbors and it seems these houses settled a long time ago, but it doesn't seem they are moving anymore. That being said, while its minor, I eventually need to address the foundation. Sooooooo, why not dig out a basement at the same time?!? See what's I did there?

Here's the deal, if it's going to cost $150k just to dig out the crawl and everything that goes along with it and leave it unfinished, then forget it. I still can't believe it'll cost much more than building a detached garage of similar size.

Btw, yes some of the piers are leaning and that piece of plywood is under the wood burning fireplace.

 

[Steve91T]

Now, there is one more possibility...expanding the deck and making the space under the deck a garage. It's a big deck, but because of the shape, it's not ideal. We were planning on adding to one side, but we could just square the whole thing off. Right now, at its widest and deepest, it measures 16x34. If I bump it out to 18' and square it off, that'll give me over 600 sq/ft of garage. But the ceiling height is only 5 to 6 1/2 feet, so there might still be issues with digging dirt away from the back wall of the house.

 

[Homerr]

Using a post hole digger immediately next to the exterior foundation wall down to the top of the concrete footing will give the engineer and a contractor some vital information. I'd suggest on the right side under the fireplace and at the far end of the photo under the foundation vent. Without something to look at, depth-wise, it's going to be all guessing and wild dollar ranges for any estimating.

Edit upon seeing your new pics and idea:

I like this better, it looks like you can stay out of the root area of the trees. Less disruptive to the home, although the rear wall will still need reinforcing.

The deck will need to be waterproof, out here in the west we pretty much only do 2'x2' concrete pavers on pedestals on a waterproof deck on nicer homes. This could be an upgrade over a wood deck and increase the value of your home. Maybe an easier sell to the wife too.

Still dig down to the top of the footing on the rear wall to help on decision making.

Is this new space definitely for a car project? Woodshop? Other?

http://appianwaysystem.com/

 

[joes169]

The "thing" circled on the right is indeed a cantilevered hearth for a fireplace.

In my experinece, building a 2 or 3 car detached garage is going to be much cheaper and easier. It's going to depend on a few factors, with the most important being how experienced your engineer and contractor are with these. In most areas, contractors that do underpinning are relatively expensive, for no other reason than they can because no one else wants to touch them.

I think you best bet is your last though, tear the deck off and build a garage under the new deck. 60 mil rubber roofing, flashed and terminated correctly, with a sleep system deck over the top is a little more conventional approach than the underpinning.

 

[ard]

What about jacking up the two car garage, and pouring a garage UNDER that? Extend it out the back if your want more space. Top it with a structural concrete roof/floor- place the garage back down. Shop noise then only impacts the garage section- you dont worry about disrupting life while the garage is out of commission.

Didnt see pics of the garage and how 'attached' it is...

I worked for a remodeling contractor many years ago as a masons laborer. We had the job of putting a half basement under a 200 year old two story log home. The house had a stone foundation and we knocked holes in it big enough to pull I Beams under the house and jacked it up enough to take the weight off the stone foundation. A bulldozer came in and removed all the dirt then we formed up and poured footers and laid block up under the round logs and then set the house down on the new foundation. It is almost like moving a house without the move.

Something similar could be done by house movers. I saw a house near me moved and the procedure was almost identical to what I described. What you want done would be cheaper than an actual move. This is not a do it yourself job.

Not sure anyone has seen./heard this, but there are up to 30,000 homes in Connecticut that were poured using concrete that inadvertently included a mineral that- now 20+ years later- is leading to concrete failure. Concrete is just crumbling. ONLY solution is this above- jack house, remove old, pour new. Insurance not covering any of this...an absolute nightmare....

http://www.courant.com/community/ki...rumbling-foundations-1222-20161220-story.html

 

[Steve91T]

What about jacking up the two car garage, and pouring a garage UNDER that? Extend it out the back if your want more space. Top it with a structural concrete roof/floor- place the garage back down. Shop noise then only impacts the garage section- you dont worry about disrupting life while the garage is out of commission.

Didnt see pics of the garage and how 'attached' it is...




Not sure anyone has seen./heard this, but there are up to 30,000 homes in Connecticut that were poured using concrete that inadvertently included a mineral that- now 20+ years later- is leading to concrete failure. Concrete is just crumbling. ONLY solution is this above- jack house, remove old, pour new. Insurance not covering any of this...an absolute nightmare....

http://www.courant.com/community/ki...rumbling-foundations-1222-20161220-story.html

There's a room over the garage...it's pretty buried in the house.

That story sound awful. How does insurance not cover that?

 

[Steve91T]

Ok new idea. Moving piers isn't really an issue, right? The center "backbone" or whatever it's called can be replace with LDL's or I beams and the current piers can be replaced with at least half as many metal piers, right? Well instead of making the garage be under the back half of the garage, have it enter through the rear wall as planned, this time, the garage extends toward the front of the house. More dirt to move and piers and air handlers to deal with, but I wouldn't be messing with the perimeter walls. Thoughts?

 

[Orionrising]

correct, what they would do excavate, probably by hand, footers for a steal beam to replace the pillars, put a couple temporary beams on stacked wood either side of the pillars, remove pillars, slide beam in and place on posts in the excavated holes. then , excavate temporary footers for a temp post inside the wall, again temp beam, pull foundation, excavate, place footer, poor new walls.

replace th porch idea with a garage if allowed by space and zoning would be cheaper by an order of magnitude.

Unless you want to do all the labor yourself by hand, or they can find a way to get a skidsteer in there, or you do it yourself by hand, you can see various videos of that on youtube.

 

[theoldwizard1]

This used to be common around here and was frequently called a "Michigan Basement". Probably no longer common because of the cost.

First you need a "bench" foundation around the outer foundation. Basically come in about 4' and start digging. This will only work only if you have well compacted, firm (non-sandy) soil. Dig below where you want you floor to be leaving that 4' of undisturbed soiland pour a footer. Once it it cured, put up a form on the inside. Install deadmen into the soil and pour concrete into the space (at least 12") between the form and the soil. Repeat all the way around. Then remove the soil in the middle

 

[ndm]

Now, there is one more possibility...expanding the deck and making the space under the deck a garage. It's a big deck, but because of the shape, it's not ideal. We were planning on adding to one side, but we could just square the whole thing off. Right now, at its widest and deepest, it measures 16x34. If I bump it out to 18' and square it off, that'll give me over 600 sq/ft of garage. But the ceiling height is only 5 to 6 1/2 feet, so there might still be issues with digging dirt away from the back wall of the house.

I vote for garage under the deck but also sealing the crawl space with concrete like I ended up doing and putting access to the new garage for more storage.

600 square foot aint just a tiny addition to the space. I am currently trying to get the measly 400 square foot extra that will bring me to the max 720 that my municipality allows per home. That is 720 total whether attached or detached or combined.

 

[Steve91T]

The cool thing is my wife is totally excited about this proeject. We spent some time talking about it last night and when I told her that most likely the new plan is to expand the deck and just make the space below the garage. She found some pics online of garages under the decks and it didn't look as cool as I thought it would. Some look decent, others looked awful. What we really want is the garage under the house with a nice patio under the deck and that be a really cool outdoor space. Obviously we love being outside.

It's so funny that because of the lack of piers running down the back of the house, that's all I was focused on. Now that I know that moving piers really isn't an issue, and and the house probably needs to be leveled and reinforced anyway, I'm thinking it might actually be reasonable.

So the deck will come off regardless because I want to build a bigger, badder deck.

The garage door will still be this side of the fireplace. Again, Im still unsure about how expensive it will be to have that reinforced. The bigger the garage door, the better.




This is the inside of that same wall.



Standing at the "garage door" looking towards the front of the house.





So from what you guys have said, removing dirt within that 3 or 4' space near the perimeter walls is very expensive. If the piers are mostly removed, I'll have all the room in the world under there, even with leaving that 3 or 4' shelf against the foundation.

So I would hire someone to get rid of as many piers as possible, replace what piers they need with metal poles, reinforce the rear wall and cut the garage door opening. Then I'll rent a bobcat and do the excavating, obviously being carful to stay within whatever distance from the foundation that someone smarter than myself tells me. I would dig as much if the basement as possible. My 99 F250 can haul 2000 lbs easily. So I can remove the dirt myself. Then I'd have pros come in and do the cement work. Depending on what kind of space I end up with, I might be able to add another bedroom and bathroom in addition to the garage.

Having a full basement with a decent shop in it and an outdoor loving space under a massive deck would damn near make this the perfect house for us.

But if it's still outrageous, then plan B will be to focus on just making the space under the deck the garage.

 

[Steve91T]

My wife is more obsessed than I am. She measured our interior bottom level as best she could then used an app to make the crawl. Then she brought the interior walls in 3' to show where the foundation shelf will be. This rendition has stairs coming down from the living area, a small TV room with a pull out couch and a full bathroom. The stairs take up a ton of space, I don't know if pull down stairs would be an option, but that would really help. The living space takes up a lot of space also, but it is pretty cool to have another place to hang out.

Another option is to just make a full garage. No stairs, no little TV room. That can always be added later for resale pourposes. The full bathroom would actually be nice.

 

[Firebrick43]

The cool thing is my wife is totally excited about this proeject. We spent some time talking about it last night and when I told her that most likely the new plan is to expand the deck and just make the space below the garage. She found some pics online of garages under the decks and it didn't look as cool as I thought it would. Some look decent, others looked awful. What we really want is the garage under the house with a nice patio under the deck and that be a really cool outdoor space. Obviously we love being outside.

It's so funny that because of the lack of piers running down the back of the house, that's all I was focused on. Now that I know that moving piers really isn't an issue, and and the house probably needs to be leveled and reinforced anyway, I'm thinking it might actually be reasonable.

So the deck will come off regardless because I want to build a bigger, badder deck.

The garage door will still be this side of the fireplace. Again, Im still unsure about how expensive it will be to have that reinforced. The bigger the garage door, the better.




This is the inside of that same wall.



Standing at the "garage door" looking towards the front of the house.





So from what you guys have said, removing dirt within that 3 or 4' space near the perimeter walls is very expensive. If the piers are mostly removed, I'll have all the room in the world under there, even with leaving that 3 or 4' shelf against the foundation.

So I would hire someone to get rid of as many piers as possible, replace what piers they need with metal poles, reinforce the rear wall and cut the garage door opening. Then I'll rent a bobcat and do the excavating, obviously being carful to stay within whatever distance from the foundation that someone smarter than myself tells me. I would dig as much if the basement as possible. My 99 F250 can haul 2000 lbs easily. So I can remove the dirt myself. Then I'd have pros come in and do the cement work. Depending on what kind of space I end up with, I might be able to add another bedroom and bathroom in addition to the garage.

Having a full basement with a decent shop in it and an outdoor loving space under a massive deck would damn near make this the perfect house for us.

But if it's still outrageous, then plan B will be to focus on just making the space under the deck the garage.

First, renting a bobcat to do this kind of work is highly discouraged. A wheeled skid steer ***** at digging, ***** in tight quarters, is jerky, and has lousy visabilty They were designed to clean concrete pads and load piles out, not dig and grade dirt. A really really good operator can but I doubt your that if you are considering renting.

A tracked compact loader (rubber tracks) actually is much better at digging and maintaining grade. But still is lousy due to size and lack of visabilty.

I would suggest something like a toro dingo or boxer on tracks. Also, buy a used one (have it checked out). Now is the time to as the market is down this time of year. Use the equipment for the project then sell the following spring. If you are patient you can make money or at least pay nothing for the use of the machine other than basic maintenance. You will need to excavate in sections which means long rental times.

Also I would not use a pickup to haul dirt unless it has a dump bed. You will tear it up and they are the worst to unload. The dump inserts are pretty lousy for dirt/stone as well. Find a dump trailer, preferably a gooseneck. Or pile the dirt to the side and have a dump truck come haul it away

 

[Steve91T]

^^^thank you, I'll look into that.