Building a garage (with a house on top)

Badluck · Aug 16, 2019

Building a garage (with a house on top)

Hi all,

I'm currently in the lucky situation of being able to build my dream garage in a couple of months. :bounce:

We're doing this with the help of an architect, but as I don't have any experience in this and don't know if my ideas make sense, I think I need your help as well.

Here's the gist:

We (wife, two little kids and me), are building a house and the ground floor will house a large garage (at least for our neighbourhood) and some cellars (see attached plan). On top of that will be the living quarters, two floors.
Size of the garage will be roughly 12x8meters (39x26ft), this may still vary slightly as we're in the early stages of planning.
-ceiling height will be around 3,50m (11.50ft).

Also, I'm located in Luxembourg/Europe (hence the measurements in meters

)

What we need:
-space for 6 cars (2 estates, 3 coupes, 1 sedan) and 2 bikes
-space to work on those cars and bikes (basic maintenance, nothing too fancy, once in a while a bit of welding)

What I have come up with so far:
-12 meters should be enough for 4 spots (see layout attached, cars are drawn to scale)
-the two spots to the right (see blue square on layout) will be occupied by a double 4-post lift so I can store 4 cars in that spot
-the spot next to it will be used for working on the cars and bikes, so I'm thinking 2-post lift
-the leftmost spot will just be used for parking and getting the groceries upstairs as it's closest to the entrance to the house
-in the space in front of the cars I plan to install a large workbench, storage shelves and some machinery (dummy picture on the layout as I just wanted to see how it looks)
-so far I have no idea where to fit the bikes

What is missing, what have I not thought about, what other ideas are out there? I'm thankful for any input I can get.

Thanks in advance

David

Bill Bowman · Aug 16, 2019

Welcome. Very nice layout. All I can add, is that no matter how big the space is, it won't be enough. Best wishes with your project, and please keep us posted.

CraigStu · Aug 16, 2019

The only questions I have are, 1- where will you put support posts? 2- How will you layout the garage doors. We just built a house of very similar size to your garage but the basement level is just a basement. They built a 2x6 bearing wall w/ large walkways through it that goes all the way left to right and is centered top to bottom (referencing your layout of just the basement. To keep your area open they can use some kind of steel or laminated wood beams but I am pretty sure there will need to be a post between the blue car and the blue lift outline. And that laminated beam may need to be extra tall to support everything above it so you could lose ceiling height. They will also need to do something similar to support the wall that the garage doors will be in.

matt_i · Aug 16, 2019

The layout of the double lift seems like it could have problems. The car to the far-right will be very difficult to get into the driver's door, it looks like it might have to be pushed onto the lift...and same with the vehicles below. This could become very inconvenient if you have to take one car off to get to the one next to it...

Its also important to make sure that you have enough height in the garage to use the lift as intended.

Badluck · Aug 16, 2019

CraigStu said:
The only questions I have are, 1- where will you put support posts? 2- How will you layout the garage doors. We just built a house of very similar size to your garage but the basement level is just a basement. They built a 2x6 bearing wall w/ large walkways through it that goes all the way left to right and is centered top to bottom (referencing your layout of just the basement. To keep your area open they can use some kind of steel or laminated wood beams but I am pretty sure there will need to be a post between the blue car and the blue lift outline. And that laminated beam may need to be extra tall to support everything above it so you could lose ceiling height. They will also need to do something similar to support the wall that the garage doors will be in.

Thanks for your input. :thumbup:

We have indeed talked about supporting posts and the door layout with our architect.
As the whole ground floor will be done in concrete, there's a chance we will get away without additional posts if we pour a thicker ceiling slap or if we add a supporting beam that spans the entire depth of the garage.
Not sure about the door layout either. It'll either be two double doors with one pillar in between or one double an three single doors.

Once we get there, we will of course consult a structural engineer.

What I also need to figure out is what kind of doors we will need. The usual standard around here are those Hörmann sectional doors. However, we cannot go with the standard here as the railings would interfere with the lifts, so we'll have to go with sth else.

Badluck · Aug 16, 2019

matt_i said:
The layout of the double lift seems like it could have problems. The car to the far-right will be very difficult to get into the driver's door, it looks like it might have to be pushed onto the lift...and same with the vehicles below. This could become very inconvenient if you have to take one car off to get to the one next to it...

Its also important to make sure that you have enough height in the garage to use the lift as intended.

I see what you mean, I'll check the measurements of my drawing again.

Should however be possible to put 4 cars on it, as they built those lifts for that purpose. Maybe I'll have to park one car backwards to make it work.

Thanks for the input though.

wout · Sep 1, 2019

Good luck on the build, it looks promising! I have 5 cars in my garage, 10m wide and 11m deep.
I also have a 4 post lift but as my garage is only 3m high it's almost impossible to store 2 cars on 1 spot.

Wout

Badluck · Nov 10, 2020

Sooo....long time no see.
And there's a reason.....
...things have NOT been moving forward.

Yep, it's been almost two years since I started this thread and we're still not building that garage.
I feel like this is taking forever, but wait no...it's only been 12 YEARS!!!
Yup, you read that right, my wife and I have started this adventure 12 years ago. Little did we know that today we'd still be stuck in the planning phase.
There's multiple reasons for this, not gonna go into too much detail, but let's say building in our country is not as easy as it should be.

Rant over.

So, I'm sorry, there'll be no pics of a happy homeowner showing of his gigantic garage, but we did redesign the ground floor a bit. The size of the garage has shrunk a little (approx 2 feet) but the layout includes a toilet now.

To the right there'll be a 4 post lift to store 4 cars, to the leftmost there'll be a "parking only" spot and in between I'll install a scissor lift to do most of the tinkering. Don't mind the two bikes, they're only in the picture so I know I can somehow make it all fit.

As always, feel free to comment.

Regards
David

1st attachment is the plans, second one is a lame mock-up of the layout I did in Excel.

CraigStu · Nov 10, 2020

I notice you 8M depth doesn't go to the wall of the garage. It stops at a grid line. Is the garage actually about 9M deep?

Badluck · Nov 10, 2020

Nope, unfortunately that's an error

. It is 8m, if you count the cells, the line does indeed stop at the 7th cell (each cell is 1m in my mock-up). I did draw a version where it's only 7 m deep and then decided that was clearly not enough.
If you look at the plan, you can see the garage is a bit deeper than the cellar part, which makes building it a lot more expensive. I drove a couple of our cars to an empty parking lot and did some tests with a bit of chalk and in the end my wife and I agreed that we need that extra meter.

nadogail · Nov 10, 2020

I am sure the toilet in your workshop will be a well loved feature. The toilet in my detached garage workshop is the envy of many of the men in my neighborhood.

HoosierBuddy · Nov 11, 2020

What happened to the lathe?

Good luck with your build. I'm curious if building material prices have gone up a lot in Europe in the last 6 months like they have in the United States.

Phil

Badluck · Nov 12, 2020

Hi,

The lathe was only wishful thinking, I don't actually own one. But there's a bunch of other stuff that will surely take up the space in no time.

Concerning the prices, yup they have gone up already. Estimates are 20 to 30% up from last year this time.

By the time we'll start the building they'll surely have come down again... :lol_hitti

David

Badluck · Nov 20, 2021

Hey all,

it's been some time since I last posted here, but....today I actually have news.
Loads of good news even.

We have broken ground!!! Finally!! After almost 13 years in the making, time to celebrate!!

For your viewing pleasure I have attached a couple of pics from the building site.
In chronological order there's the demolition of the existing structure (there used to be a large concrete built garden shed).

A couple of pics from the excavation work as well as the retaining wall that is needed to keep the sandy hill from sliding down into the construction pit (don't ask me how expensive that wall alone is).

As of now, the excavation is finished, we're waiting on the builders to start the garage/ground floor 2 weeks from today (yep that's me in the pit).

Lastly I have attached the "close to final" plan of the garage floor including the cellars to the left of the staircase.
Much thought has gone into this...I feel like I'm overthinking this while simultaneously forgetting essential elements.

The two recesses in the left bay will accommodate a Maha Twin F IV 3.5 A scissor lift.
In the right bay I'll put a 4 car parking lift with individually movable platforms, so I can lower each of the top cars independently.

If you have any suggestions or remarks, I'm all ears.

David

bazzateer · Nov 20, 2021

Looks cool. I see the Capri and the 911. Is one of the other two a Mk3 ****** - RS Turbo maybe? No idea on the 4th car.
Never been to Luxembourg but have had coffee with your former Princess Tessy a couple of times.

Badluck · Nov 20, 2021

It is indeed an RS Turbo...MK4 though, MK3s didn't come in red.

4th car is a BMW Z4 Coupe.

Badluck · Nov 24, 2021

Electrical layout is next. I wasn't quite satisfied with the positioning of the control unit, so I asked for it to be moved to between the garage doors. Hydraulic connections will have to be lengthened but I think it makes more sense than to leave it in the middle of the space.

Badluck · Jun 2, 2022

Hi all,
It's been a long time but this time I really have a lot to show you.
The pouring of the slap for the garage was done in march.

Next came the walls. (mid april)

View without the formwork for the walls but the ceiling formwork halfway done. That's the back wall you see.

There's my little man admiring all that space.

Steel reinforcements for the garage ceiling done. (early may)

Concrete pouring in progress...

Tadaa! Concrete pouring done. (end of may)

Also....we had a first little party on the rooftop (my mom's birthday).

Badluck · Jun 2, 2022

Here's another couple of shots you might find interesting. Please excuse the fact they're in no particular order..

Next step is gonna be the driveway, more precisely the left part of it where we're gonna have to "support" the neighbours lot by installing L-shaped retaining elements. I'll keep you posted.

Badluck · Sep 11, 2022

Thinks don't always go to plan...

The driveway wasn't done in June after all because of some bad timing on the builders side (n.b. where we live, there's a 3 week mandatory period in August where the whole construction sector goes on vacation and no work on construction sites is allowed).
It's going to be done in November...maybe.

On the other hand, the construction of the upper floors of the building has started this week.

This was Monday.

And this one is from Friday afternoon. Quite impressive I must say.

Here's a couple more shots from the different rooms.
Children's bedrooms and staircase.

This is an earlier pic (Thursday), in the back there's the children's rooms again, front room will be our living room with the kitchen to the front left.

And these are some walls they put up in the cellar to segment the space into storage, technical and laundry rooms.

Furthermore we've decided to coat the garage floor in epoxy instead of going for the cheaper option of tiles. I'm still in two minds if this was the right decision given our future usage of the garage (storing cars, working on them whenever I get time and keeping one corner as clean as possible for my wife to use it as an impromptu photo shooting set.
We've already selected a company to do the epoxy flooring and scheduled it for the end of the year if the temperatures are high enough.
BTW I don't think I've mentioned the lift that'll get installed end of the year as well.
I've chosen a MAHA Twin IF 3.5 full flush-floor installed scissor lift (car's not included

), mainly because it's only 15 cm high and thus can be put in the floor screed instead of the concrete slab.

As always, feel free to comment, criticize, question my judgement etc.

David

Edit: Just realised I wrote about the lift in one of my last posts already...ah well.

RoninB4 · Sep 11, 2022

It may be too late to accommodate, perhaps you've already included this. When too much dirt/debris gets blown by wind into the garage or I just want a clean floor to work on I like taking a water hose and cleaning the floor off, using a squeegee to get the excess water off the floor. Often the water will pool in places where a floor drain is most beneficial. A floor drain is often part of homes in the USA but I don't have one in my current house. The basement is 223 square meters and when I had a burst water pipe it flooded much of the basement. It took many hours with a broom to sweep out the excess water, several days running fans to dry things out because I have no floor drain.

Also, do you plan to have multiple shut-off valves for your water supply. In this country there are usually a minimal number of valves. This often means shutting off the water supply to the entire house to repair/replace/remodel anything with the plumbing system. Seems rather short-sighted to NOT be able to isolate part of the system when something needs to be done. Your house and everything in it will be new but there will be a day when maintenance or the unexpected will require access to your water supply/drainage.

House build looks real nice so far.

mike93lx · Sep 11, 2022

Badluck said:
Furthermore we've decided to coat the garage floor in epoxy instead of going for the cheaper option of tiles

I'm surprised on this. Tile is so much more durable than any epoxy

Badluck · Sep 11, 2022

RoninB4 said:
It may be too late to accommodate, perhaps you've already included this. When too much dirt/debris gets blown by wind into the garage or I just want a clean floor to work on I like taking a water hose and cleaning the floor off, using a squeegee to get the excess water off the floor. Often the water will pool in places where a floor drain is most beneficial. A floor drain is often part of homes in the USA but I don't have one in my current house. The basement is 223 square meters and when I had a burst water pipe it flooded much of the basement. It took many hours with a broom to sweep out the excess water, several days running fans to dry things out because I have no floor drain.

Good point. Floor drains have been incorporated in several places in the slab as can be seen on the plan here.

RoninB4 said:
Also, do you plan to have multiple shut-off valves for your water supply. In this country there are usually a minimal number of valves. This often means shutting off the water supply to the entire house to repair/replace/remodel anything with the plumbing system. Seems rather short-sighted to NOT be able to isolate part of the system when something needs to be done. Your house and everything in it will be new but there will be a day when maintenance or the unexpected will require access to your water supply/drainage.

Yes, there's mandatory shut-off valves with every new installation here.

RoninB4 said:
House build looks real nice so far.

Thank you, we're pretty stoked about the work this company does.

Badluck · Sep 11, 2022

mike93lx said:
I'm surprised on this. Tile is so much more durable than any epoxy

I've been told the epoxy-polyurethane we're getting is as durable as tiles...probably time will tell.
The company we're using has long lasting experience with this type of coating, also in heavy use environments, so I'm confident they know what they're doing.
Tiles would have cost half of what we're paying now.

Edit: here's a link with examples of the type of coating we're getting : Click me

mike93lx · Sep 11, 2022

Badluck said:
I've been told the epoxy-polyurethane we're getting is as durable as tiles...probably time will tell.
The company we're using has long lasting experience with this type of coating, also in heavy use environments, so I'm confident they know what they're doing.
Tiles would have cost half of what we're paying now.

Edit: here's a link with examples of the type of coating we're getting : Click me

Tiles are harder than the concrete underneath and can't get worn off, scratched away or discolored.

There are good epoxies out there, no question.

I personally don't like all the flake people use and find that a single color epoxy looks boring.

Building a garage (with a house on top)

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