Between 705 & 1200 SQ/FT A Garage Decades in the Making

[isonic]

I've never seen conduit inside the walls before. Looks extra safe! Garage is coming along nicely.

 

[HPRifleman]

Not a huge update but windows have been installed.

 

[jbrentd]

Looking good! Keep the updates coming so I can live vicariously through you!

 

[HPRifleman]

An interesting tidbit that illustrates the state of construction nowadays.

Those windows that you see above were ordered in late spring. At the time the lead-time for delivery was 4 weeks. Yesterday my contractor told me that if he ordered those same windows today, the lead-time would now be 24 weeks!

 

[HPRifleman]

Progress has also been made on the interior. As you may remember, this was the original garage for the house that we are converting to living space.

Here you can see the future mud room. The electricians have roughed in all the conduit and an opening has been created in the far wall that provides access into the house. My wife wanted better flow from the garage into the kitchen. So the best way was to make a doorway where we can bring in groceries from the car and carry them to the kitchen.



Here's a view through the framed wall. Between the windows you can see the framing around the electrical panel as this will be enclosed and out of sight.

 

[rd65]

I was under the impression that you could not hide/cover your panel due to fire/firefighter concerns. They need to be able to find it. I am sure your electrician is keeping everything above board though.
Having to run conduit everywhere has to be an expensive pain in the keester.

 

[loganb]

Just finding this build, awesome work! We left Downers Grove last year and have a definite respect for the fight you had with the zoning board and assorted officials.

Looking forward to following along as you work towards finishing!

 

[HPRifleman]

I was under the impression that you could not hide/cover your panel due to fire/firefighter concerns. They need to be able to find it. I am sure your electrician is keeping everything above board though.
Having to run conduit everywhere has to be an expensive pain in the keester.

Don't worry. The local inspector has been out here several times and has found plenty of ways to increase the cost of the project.

 

[rd65]

Don't worry. The local inspector has been out here several times and has found plenty of ways to increase the cost of the project.

I had it easy. All my electrical inspector said was "I gotta walk all the way out there?" Then proceeded to do his best Tim Conway old man shuffle the 200' out to the shop.

 

[HPRifleman]

Brick has been delivered. Looks like we're about to start work on the exterior. My general contractor seems to have found a brick that is a good match for the existing brick on the house. We'll see how close it gets.

 

[jbrentd]

We went this week to look for brick matches. Matching the mortar color is as important too, IMO.

 

[HPRifleman]

Masons are done. The brick really helps the garage look like it's part of the house.

 

[pickles]

That looks great. I really like a brick garage.

 

[jbrentd]

Ties it in nicely and the match looks pretty good.

 

[Jayman17]

Wow, sooo nice! Love the brick and the center bay bump out. Nice design!

Jay

 

[HPRifleman]

Since brick is so variable, we weren't sure how well the masons would be able to match the existing house. Our contractor brought us a sample board of a brick that he thought would be a good match. We agreed it was real close but you never know when the real product gets put up. It turned out great and we're really happy with how it turned out.

 

[wreckdiver1321]

That looks fantastic! I have a real soft spot for brick. Sadly, brick does not have a soft spot for me.

Sorry, couldn't resist the joke as soon as I typed the first sentence.

 

[HPRifleman]

We're now getting ready for the slab pour and the Pex tubing for the in-floor heat has been installed.

This setup is a little different than many of the builds on here. The actual heating components will be inside the house. There are two areas that are heated, the existing garage that was converted into living space as well as the new garage floor. The heating mechanicals will be supplying heat to both areas.

Larger tubing runs out to the garage to a manifold you might be able to see on the far wall in the first photo. From there, tubing runs out to the floor and makes it's loops. There is a rectangular portion of the floor without tubing as that is potential placement for a future car lift.

 

[Boosted1]

Nice looking garage.

 

[DetachedGarage]

Keep up the great work!

 

[HPRifleman]

The concrete contractor is ready to pour the slab.






I have always been impressed that these guys can take a sloppy slurry and finish it in such a way that it's smooth on the surface. If I did it, it would look as lumpy as an unmade bed.

 

[jbrentd]

Looking good! Congrats on the new pour

 

[nickstar]

Looks great, can not wait to see the finished product. It was mentioned earlier, but bares repeating I have never seen conduit put in the walls before very interesting. Did they require that?

 

[loganb]

It was mentioned earlier, but bares repeating I have never seen conduit put in the walls before very interesting. Did they require that?

Not the OP, but it's a Chicago thing. The city of Chicago has required residential wiring to be metal incased with only a very very few exceptions for roughly the entire existance of residential electricity

We'll avoid the politics of it, but I've always been told(by well educated and practiced folks in the building industry) that it's rooted back to the Great Chicago Fire and significant fears of it repeating so the city has some of the more stringent building codes around fire protection in the US. Although OP doesn't live in Chicago proper he is in the "Chicagoland area" which generally has adopted very similar building codes and practices. The farther outlying areas are starting to allow Romex in certain areas/applications but old practices die hard.

I've never personally seen the data but have read/been told by others that Chicago has some of the lowest residential fire rates/Insurance claims in the US....maybe true...maybe not. For foreigners moving into the area(like I was 7 years ago) it's a bit of an adjustment and it scares off a lot of DIY'ers, but you get used to it and as everyone is required to do it you don't have any other options if the job is permitted so you budget the cost and move on

 

[HPRifleman]

Not the OP, but it's a Chicago thing. The city of Chicago has required residential wiring to be metal incased with only a very very few exceptions for roughly the entire existance of residential electricity

We'll avoid the politics of it, but I've always been told(by well educated and practiced folks in the building industry) that it's rooted back to the Great Chicago Fire and significant fears of it repeating so the city has some of the more stringent building codes around fire protection in the US. Although OP doesn't live in Chicago proper he is in the "Chicagoland area" which generally has adopted very similar building codes and practices. The farther outlying areas are starting to allow Romex in certain areas/applications but old practices die hard.

I've never personally seen the data but have read/been told by others that Chicago has some of the lowest residential fire rates/Insurance claims in the US....maybe true...maybe not. For foreigners moving into the area(like I was 7 years ago) it's a bit of an adjustment and it scares off a lot of DIY'ers, but you get used to it and as everyone is required to do it you don't have any other options if the job is permitted so you budget the cost and move on

Logan has it right regarding living in the Chicagoland area. We are in Kane county which is two counties to the west of Chicago. Conduit is still required here although I heard that certain municipalities have begun to allow cable/Romex.

Growing up in this area and working on my own homes, I'm so used to conduit that seeing pictures of Romex just looks odd to me. The hardest thing for me is getting the offsets right when bending tubing. But I've also seen work by professional electricians that wasn't much better so I guess everyone has difficulties with it. I also think that people unfamiliar with it get intimidated by not having to run an extra ground wire.

 

[HPRifleman]

Exterior trim is now complete. It's actually looking like a part of the house now.



This view shows where the two overhead doors for the old garage used to be. That column of brick in the middle is part of the original wall. The brick under the windows is new brick. You can probably notice a difference in brick if you look very carefully but otherwise I think it's a really good match.

 

[Bennylava]

What if it wasn't a "garage". It was something else. Something that the law doesn't specify can only be 20% of the size of the dwelling. It's a storage building, not a garage. Ok then it's a museum. Ok then it's another house for my relative.

That's what politicians do so I've been known to do it back to them on occasion lol

 

[Jayman17]

I’d call that a very good match to the old brick. If you didn’t tell someone they would never know. I really Iike how your new garage was incorporated onto the existing house, really nice design.

Jay

 

[loganb]

Agree, awesome match on the brick and well done incorporating that into the house so it doesn't stick out as to what was done. This is really progressing and is a beautiful build! Didn't have as many brick buildings where I grew up but was super impressed with the brick and stone work in the Chicago area!

 

[Riley]

That looks great! The height of the garage seems to better match the house with the brick and the covered walk.

 

[nickstar]

Logan has it right regarding living in the Chicagoland area. We are in Kane county which is two counties to the west of Chicago. Conduit is still required here although I heard that certain municipalities have begun to allow cable/Romex.

Growing up in this area and working on my own homes, I'm so used to conduit that seeing pictures of Romex just looks odd to me. The hardest thing for me is getting the offsets right when bending tubing. But I've also seen work by professional electricians that wasn't much better so I guess everyone has difficulties with it. I also think that people unfamiliar with it get intimidated by not having to run an extra ground wire.

You learn something new every day. Where we live in Georgia and where I am from originally (NJ) we use conduit all the time but only for garage / warehouse applications where it is exposed. I was always under the impression it was to protect against critters and to make sure nobody hangs anything on the romex. Im suprised they would not let you use BX cable. Looks great. Here's how I did mine on my home shop, just about two years ago.

 

[HPRifleman]

You learn something new every day. Where we live in Georgia and where I am from originally (NJ) we use conduit all the time but only for garage / warehouse applications where it is exposed. I was always under the impression it was to protect against critters and to make sure nobody hangs anything on the romex. I'm surprised they would not let you use BX cable. Looks great. Here's how I did mine on my home shop, just about two years ago.

BX is used around here but I have mostly seen it in applications where small spaces make it difficult to run rigid conduit. There may also be code limitations as well but I'm not familiar with those details.

 

[GlennSullivan]

My inlaws live in Will County (next south of Cook) and their code is still conduit in the walls on residential.

 

[Boosted1]

Slab and trim look great.

 

[HPRifleman]

Here's another example of building code enforcement increasing the construction price tag.

My original plan was to not finish the interior of the garage. I could do this myself later on and spread the cost over time instead of paying to do it now. So the cost for insulation and drywall was left out and we would deal with it in a few months time.

When the building inspector arrived for the pre-slab inspection, he saw the tubing for the in-floor heat. He said that if we were heating the space, it has to be insulated. And if it was insulated with faced insulation, it had to have some fire-resistant material such as drywall covering it.

My solution was to not connect the in-floor heat and therefore the garage would not be heated. He wouldn't go for that. He said my only other option was to not install the in-floor tubing. There was no way I was getting rid of the heated floor so it looks like we're insulating right away. The joy of government telling me how to spend my money.




R-21 in the walls and R-49 in the ceiling.

 

[86turbodsl]

I like your build and i feel for you on the code inspectors. Its why i live in the middle of nowhere. 7 miles to nearest town. We all have our crosses to bear.

 

[loganb]

In good news it's several months ahead of schedule in being completely finished! ***** it's out of the timeline you had planned but just means you can start filling it up without worrying about having to move things around to insulate and finish.

 

[jimmie jam]

Very nice build!!! I might have done the least on the original garage conversion and then back to garage when you had the new build done and the CC.

 

[HPRifleman]

Very nice build!!! I might have done the least on the original garage conversion and then back to garage when you had the new build done and the CC.

I had thought about doing that but the code for dwelling space dictated a number of things that would make a conversion back to a garage very impractical. At this point we are going to work with what we have and enjoy the new spaces.

 

[bradpac]

Here's another example of building code enforcement increasing the construction price tag.

My original plan was to not finish the interior of the garage. I could do this myself later on and spread the cost over time instead of paying to do it now. So the cost for insulation and drywall was left out and we would deal with it in a few months time.

When the building inspector arrived for the pre-slab inspection, he saw the tubing for the in-floor heat. He said that if we were heating the space, it has to be insulated. And if it was insulated with faced insulation, it had to have some fire-resistant material such as drywall covering it.

I had this issue as well, but in my case air conditioning is a bigger factor than heat and that can be added after the inspectors are long gone. So my plans got changed from a conditioned space to a non-conditioned and everyone was happy again.

It is nice to have it all done at once though, well until you look at the bank account.