The Glacier Garage - Attached Three Car Garage Build - 40 x 28

"If you give me a million years, I can move a mountain" - Anonymous Glacier

If you hoped this would be a thread about some epic garage constructed near a glacier, I'll apologize now because it isn't. Instead this is simply a documentation thread about the construction of an oversize 3 car attached garage on a 2500ft² house in the suburbs of Pittsburgh. Over the last few years I've really enjoyed reading other members build threads so I felt compelled to give back to the forum and it's members.

Whats with the name The Glacier Garage? It's based a running joke between my wife and I about the pace at which I complete tasks. She says that I work very slowly but I tell her I'm working deliberately. Some things just really bother me and rushing a project and producing inferior results is one of them. I don't by any means think of myself as a craftsman (I'm a computer scientist and have no training in the trades) but I feel if I put full and thorough effort into a project it will turn out sufficiently well. If it turns out worse than that, at least it wasn't because I rushed it. So that's pretty much it, I tend to work at a near glacial pace, and I'm OK with that. If your reading this thread, please be patient, geological timescale is in effect.

So now that I've broken the ice, lets get into it.

Table of Contents - Click to Jump (never to early to plan for the future)

[Background]
[The House]
[The Plan]
[Fill and Driveway]
[Permits and SWM]
[Site Prep]
[Excavation Start]
[Basement Cutout]
[Excavation Finish]
[Footer]
[Block I]
[Block II]
[Grout I]
[Block III]
[Block IV]
[Grout II]
[Foundation Costs]
[Wall Framing I]
[Wall Framing II]
[Wall Framing III]
[Wall Framing IV]
[Truss Delivery]
[Truss I]
[Truss II]
[Truss III]
[Truss IV]
...

[reserved]

Background

With many geological timescale based processes, change can be hard to detect with the human eye. One day you pop out into this world in your birthday suit and the next you're 36 years old, married with 1 year old twins. During this time you've managed to accumulate 5 cars and 4 motorcycles and an unknown amount of tools. How did this happen? The details are foggy but I'm pretty sure it goes something like this.

When I was 8, my parents bought a house with 5 acres of land and a two car garage. They got my brother and me Honda z50r to ride around the property and like that, the glacier was moving. Within a few years they constructed a detached 3 car garage which housed my dads cars and our dirtbikes. In college things were normal (1 car, dirtbikes sold) but then the childhood motorcycle itch struck. First it was an Aprilia RS50 two stroke which I rode full throttle as much as humanly possible around the campus. When I graduated and got a full-time job I added a V-Twin Italian sportbike to the collection and soon enough a Flying Brick for a little sauerkraut throwback action.

Prudence struck me in my mid twenties and I traded the sportbike in for an increased life-expectancy and things were calm for a while. I bought my first house and was married soon after. The place was a charming stone cottage with a 1 car garage (I had three at this point), a great view out over the river and a super fast commute to work. It was never going to be our forever home but it was perfect for what it was.

I have so many good memories from my time there. Flashing lights and sirens, car crashes, DUI checkpoints, and police with their guns drawn on a motorist while I'm drinking a beer on the patio. I saw police lights flash by my house almost every night and it really didn't bother me. But as time passed it seemed things got worse and then a car slide through my front yard in the middle of the night and several months later two people died when a DUI driver went off the road about 300 ft away. Seven years had come and gone and it was finally time to find a place to raise a family.

My wife and I both grew up on several acres of land and knew we wanted our kids to also have that experience. But as most of you know, land is hard to come by when you're close to a city and the stuff that was available always had a small crappy house that my wife couldn't see past or a larger house and was out of our budget or would be on the side of a hill. Then after a year or so of looking a co-worker of my fathers said she was selling her house and I guess overheard my dad talking about his son looking for a similar place. We went to see it before it hit the market and had an accepted offer a week or so later. We closed on the place just past the summer solstice in the year of our lord two thousand and thirteen.

The House

So here I was with 3 cars, 4 motorcycles and I just bought a house with a zero car garage. On top of that my other house wasn't even ready to be listed on the market yet and became priority one. It took about 3 months working weekends to get it to tip top shape but that work was rewarded with an offer at asking price and a closing date in December 2013. This gave us a nice chunk of change to devote to the new house and an eventual garage.

First thing is first, gotta keep the wife happy. She made me promise that she could update the kitchen as the first thing we did. We compromised with all new appliances and saved the major part for later... after the garage. Most of it went pretty smooth until it came time to fit a 30" double oven into a 27" cabinet. A little 'saw the cabinet in half' magicians trick on that cabinet, $7500 in appliances, and a month or so of work and it all came together pretty well I think.

With that out of the way, brainstorming my plan for a garage was the order of business. How big should it be? Should it be detached or attached? or should it be one of each? Did I want loft storage? Did I want single or double garage doors? Too many questions and not enough constraints left me a bit stuck in "paralysis by analysis". In my job I'm very accustomed to building software knowing that mistakes can be corrected and enhancements added to the code at any time. With this project, the finality of the decisions really weighed on me.

I spent some time really listing out my wants and the few constraints I had and it helped me get past this part. The easiest decision was attached vs detached. I only had money for one and I was not in the mood for 10 years of walking outside to a giant shop until I saved enough to put a small attached garage on the house. So then the question was would I put a reasonable size (say, 26x26) 2 car garage on the side of the house and just deal with that until i could someday build a shop? The answer to that was also no, but for different reasons than you might think. I could have added a 4 post lift and still had storage for my cars and motorcycles but my wife kept saying how small the kitchen was and how much she hated the current powder room location (its in a column that attaches to our kitchen "island"). Between our kitchen and the driveway there was a good size laundry/mud room where the kitchen could expand into and removing the powder room would make the back side of the house entirely "open concept". I needed a place to build a new laundry and powder room to appease my wife and that wasn't going to fit in the front of a 26x26 garage and leave me enough space.

So now it was decided that I was going to build an attached garage that connected to the house with an enclosed breezeway. The breezeway would have a half-bath on one side and laundry room on the other. While I was at it, the existing basement steps are quite steep and narrow but the basement itself has very high ceilings but no other entrance. I couldn't even get a couch down there if I ever decided to finish it. I needed a second entrance and steps from the garage to the basement seemed logical and fit well with the breezeway idea. Next came the tedious work of figuring out all the dimensions and drafting and finalizing plans...

Until next time

The Plan

So my lot drops a decent amount as you move away from my house on the driveway side and that's a good thing and a bad thing. The good thing is the garage slab is quite a bit below the first floor level which would let me have tall ceilings. The bad news was I needed to build up the rest of my driveway quite a bit to have flat parking area and a reasonable approach to the space. About 65 ft from the house was part of the original foundation spoils and it served as a reference point for where I would need to fill in.

While I was accumulating fill, I started working with SketchUp to model the garage. Sketchup also has a second, non-free, component called LayOut which can take SketchUp models and produce scaled construction drawings. Its a bit to much to explain the CD part of the process in this thread but maybe I'll document it a separate thread over the winter if people are interested. But the modeling part for the garage was a real joy for me. I could easily adjust height, width, pillar sizes, door sizes and capture screen shots that I could do side to side comparisons with. So lets look at some of the decisions it helped me make.

Size - My house is 46' wide by 28' deep. These were pretty much maximum constraints on the garage from a negotiating point with my wife, it couldn't be bigger than the house (I know there are people here who might disagree ). For a while I was thinking of exactly this size with two 18'x8' garage doors, that would make an excellent 4 car garage. But when I sketched it out, it looked like a giant wide behemoth and my wife also didn't like how far it went into the back yard. Lopping off 6 ft and switching to 3 individual doors definitely made it look more traditional and I could add a 4 post lift later for more storage.

Height - The garage slab was going to be about 4 ft below first floor height so the logical solution would be to match the ceiling joists and have a 12' garage height. This left a problem of 4 ft of brick above the garage doors and that just looked silly to me. If I took it down a foot then the 3' of brick was much more in proportion to the the brick pillars on the sides of the doors and between them. I also may add an arbor above the doors to make it seem a bit lower

Door size - I contemplated 9x8, 10x8 and 10x9 garage doors. I think you'll see a continued trend here and I went with pretty standard (oversize standard, not like 8x7 lol) 9x8 doors. The 10x8 doors were a really close second but I wanted workbench space on the sidewalls and 9' is plenty wide for my vehicles.

Man Door - I originally had a man door planned on the back side of the garage but with only single garage doors on the driveway side, I wanted a separate entrance for my motorcycles and/or tractor. With the cost of brick, it was pretty much a wash to put in an 8' x 8' garage door instead. Also at 26' deep interior dimensions, additional cars can be stored in the winter in the front of the garage.

So that was the logic that left me with a 40'x28' 3 car garage with 11' ceilings. The breezeway is 6'8" wide which should leave me with a nice laundry/mud room. The further I widened it, the more fill I had to bring in and I don't need a palatial mud room. While the house and garage will have 9/12 roofs, the breezeway's pitch will be reduce so the peak falls below the house's roof soffit. The steps to the basement were spec'd at 3'6" wide so I can store my motorcycles down there in the winter but when I cut the opening I splurged a bit and made it 4'.

Some people will probably wonder why I'm not building higher, putting a gable roof on the garage and gaining second story square footage. To each their own but I'm a believer of empty space causes us to fill it. I'm not interested in more square feet to heat, cool, decorate, clean or be taxed on.

I tried to attach the construction drawings but the file is too large so I put a few screen captures as images

Until next time...

Nice detailed intro! I take it from your topic list in post 1 that you are part way through construction? Will be reading along, thanks for sharing.

I know the feeling of moving into a new house with no garage (I built mine and couldn't afford it yet). It blows!

This is going to be a great build.

Looks like a build I want to follow.

Yes, I am partially through the construction, I'm actually grouting the foundation today. Once that's done I'll be backfilling and grading to ride out the winter. Framing will start when the weather breaks next year. Stuff goes pretty slow when its mostly me doing all of it. I do have a friend who helps me when the job requires extra man power like today with the wall grout.

I should have enough stuff to keep posting over the winter months and then next years work will be updated as it occurs. I also will be releasing as-built costs for each phase when I get a chance to compile them.

Thanks for commenting and subscribing... we'll see how this whole thing goes.

Subscribing. Can't wait to see where this goes!

Fill and Driveway

So as I said in the Plan section, I needed quite a bit of fill to bring my driveway up to garage slab level and I knew this even before I was set on my final design. I started getting it delivered in April 2015 and finished (for now) in October 2016. I had a front loader tractor so moving it was no problem but when you are using the driveway while this is going on the dirt piles can still spread out pretty quickly and interfere with turning around for me and the trucks delivering it. My wife did not appreciate this phase with strangers constantly delivering dirt to our house (and using our outdoor restroom ). I'd say I probably brought in 250 yd³ of fill, all sourced from craigslist, and want to share a few things I learned in that time.

Fill is free as long as you don't have strict time constraints. Don't bother looking for people who want to get rid of fill, instead post a "Clean fill wanted" ad. In your ad you need to be very specific about what type of fill you will accept (dirt only, topsoil only, rocks, brick, blocks, asphalt, concrete) and how much and what size truck can access the fill site. Contractors who are excavating in your area are always looking for close places to dump excavated materials and they will bring it to you at no cost with the possible exceptions being used gravel and asphalt millings which have resale value. Post only an approximate location so people know if its close enough to be useful to them but have to contact you for the address before they dump anything. When you talk with them ask about their business, project and what type and amount they'll likely be bringing. I had a guy tell me he wanted to bring triaxles of dirt but only at night.... um... NO, and now I'm suspicious and you can't dump at all. Even though its free, contractors know that you want the fill and aren't going to remove ALL of the debris with it. You'll be removing some remnants of drain pipe, landscape fabric, and wood/railroad ties and spikes regardless of how clean they say it is.

I would highly caution anyone accepting asphalt or concrete, Caveat Emptor. They will only break it up as much as needed to get it loaded in their truck and your ad might say "broken concrete no bigger than 1ft diameter no rebar" and come home to 10 4'x4'x4" slabs interlocked with rip-rap concrete with welded-wire sticking out. Or they say the are ripping out a 2" thick cracked asphalt driveway (I remember thinking that sounds alot more stable for my driveway than the other guy who wants to bring clay) but a bunch of it comes in 2 ft sections 6" thick when you finally see it and they are long gone. This is the price you might pay for accepting those materials. I spent several months painstakingly pulling apart and adjusting concrete and asphalt so it was laying flat and didn't have any voids that weren't filled with dirt and it turned out very solid

I was getting close to finished building up my driveway by spring 2016 and it was time to "shift" the driveway to its new spot. I put a box blade on my tractor and took several passes loosening my old driveway and scraped and piled it up to be re-purposed. I pushed the dirt I stockpiled at the top down the hill, graded and then laid the gravel down. I patiently accepted only clean dirt until the left side (looking up driveway towards house) was built up and blended with the hillside.

My wife had delivered our baby twins and finished her maternity leave by this time so I took the next two months off to be with the kids and work pretty much stopped for the year. The plans however were finalized and would be submitted when spring arrived.

Until next time...

Permits & SWM Plan

With the majority of fill/grading completed at the end of 2016, it was time to get all the paperwork ready for the permit application. There are four things my borough requires for a building permit.

1) The permit application - pretty straight forward to fill it out. Mostly stuff like structure height, sq ft, exterior materials, purpose, estimated cost and finally attest that you are doing the work yourself (check) or attach workers comp forms.

2) Construction drawings - Drew them up myself as mentioned. I'm not in a seismic or high wind area and no crazy height or spans that wont be covered by the truss engineers so mine did not require an architects or structural engineers seal.

3) Lot survey - give them a copy of your lot survey with the proposed addition sketched in and distance to lot lines indicated

4) Storm Water Managment Plan (SWM) -

For those of you not familiar with a SWM plan, I'll take a few paragraphs to cover my experience with them since I dont see alot of discussion in other peoples builds. In 2006 my borough enacted regulations that specify any addition of impervious surfaces greater than 400 ft² require a plan to be submitted on how you intend to "Manage" the water that used to fall on the ground but now is either going to sheet off your driveway or come down your downspouts. The idea is to slow the speed of the water to prevent erosion and give time for it to seep back into the water table or be consumed by vegetation. In my area, your system needs to be designed to handle a 2 year rain event.

My borough currently accepts 3 "Best Managment Practices" (BMP) designs for use on individual lots (vs housing plans) . The three BMP's they have designs for are Rock Sumps (a hole filled with stone with no fines), Biomass Gardens (a hole filled with airy substrate like sphagnum moss and covered with plantings), and permeable pavement (we have freeze thaw cycles here, why is this even an option). Anyways the rock sump and biomass gardens kind of work on the same principle so I'll only talk rock sump. For a rock sump system you dig a giant rectangular hole, line it with landscape fabric to stop fines from flowing in, fill it with 2B gravel which has say 25% air space by volume, and create inlet and overflow piping and then cover it with dirt and access holes. The borough has charts that specify the pit volume, piping diameters and layout based on impervious square footage added.

So for the BMP I have to submit the SWM plan based on their provided charts and design. I have to include a topographic map of the development area of the site at 2' contours (what a pain in the ***, but do-able) and it has to be sealed by a qualified professional. WTF is a "qualified professional". The goddamn BMP's that are addendums to their code specify everything and they leave this vague term "qualified professional". So I called the borough and spoke with the building inspector who explained it needed to be sealed by a PE (Professional Engineer, its an exam). I tried to reason with him about the calculations and design being specified in their code and easy to apply but he wasn't budging, it had to be sealed by a PE. *SIGH*. I did ask him for a list of companies the borough had approved stuff from before and he rattled off about 5-6 names so that was a place to start.

One of the companies on the list was the same shop that did my property survey when I bought the house so I started there. He immediately told me it was *COUGH* $2500 ****** for a rock sump plan . My survey for 3.5 acres of wooded property cost that much and they had two guys on site for 3 days finding, pinning and marking property lines. It also seemed like he was upselling the difficulty of preparing the plan and topo maps which is strange because they already did my survey. I placed about 3 more calls a left messages but the 4th called back the next day. Part of becoming a PE (before the test) is essentially a mentor-ship under a PE and the person I talked to was that person. He asked me about the project, the lot and if I had any preferred method of management. I said I have a front loader and alot of dirt to excavate and that is free to me and I'd like to minimize my costs. He explained that even though there are 3 "standard" BMP the borough accepts, he can design many others just the underlying calculations need to be submitted instead of table references. He said he recently designed an "infiltration berm" for another customer and it would be appropriate for my lot if I didn't mind the surface storage of water, which I don't. I asked for the cost and he said between 800-1100 depending on how much onsite work was needed. He said the topo maps are available from a Penn state aerial survey in the 90's and he was looking at them while talking to me (suspicion of first company confirmed).

I said we had a deal and that I'd feel better knowing someone saw the land in person with the new grading and where I'd want it to be. I also asked him to build in additional capacity for 1000ft² of future impervious surface. I mailed in a deposit and three weeks later and after a 30 minute in-person visit one morning, I had SWM drawings, sealed by his boss who reviewed them with all calculations coming from a program called HydroCAD. The final design is for a ponding depth of 1 ft, width of 6 ft and length of 50 ft. It will hug the side of my gently sloping hill with about 50' of undisturbed woods below it to the property line. The $1000 I spent on the plans basically was saved on the gravel I would have needed for a sump design so I was pretty happy.


Armed with all my paperwork I submitted to the borough in late March 2017. A week later I got a letter saying my application was INCOMPLETE. The borough also requires a notarized Storm Water Management Agreement. This form gets attached to your deed as a covenant for all time where you agree to manage the SWM system and if you don't the borough can enter your property to fix it and then bill you. What can you do eh? . My wife and I went to a notary, completed the paperwork and when I took it to the building department they verified it and told me my permit was ready . Oh, and please pay us $582. Only contingency on my submission is engineered truss drawings have to be submitted before framing inspection.

Only a few redacted pics, my address and name are all over the plans and I don't know you guys that well

Until next time...

Wow this is pretty darn cool! It is nice to see you stepping out of your comfort zone and building this yourself! Keep up the awesome documentation and have some fun!

Thanks for the reply, sometimes I feel like I'm rambling on to myself and its good to hear some people are reading it and (hopefully) enjoying the content. Construction photos are great but I really want to highlight the details that get glossed over in many threads because professionals are doing it. With this being an attached garage there are quite a few more things to consider and highlight as well.

I'm pretty excited about building this myself! My wife, and our parents don't share my feelings. It took them quite a while to realize when I said I was going to build it that's what I meant. They were constantly telling me "oh I had dinner with a friend who used an Amish framing crew and can get you their number" or "someone recommend an excavator" or "Who is pouring the footer" ... or NO,NO,NO. The finished garage isn't the goal, its the result. Every time I park, work or watch tv in the garage I want to remember that I built it, not simply that I paid to have it built.

Yeah its a bit out of my comfort zone, but shouldn't it be? Who here hasn't pulled their first motor from a car and felt a bit apprehensive? Well maybe on this forum some of you, but my dad's mechanical skills stopped after he taught my brother and me brake and oil changes. When I saw my audi's motor with blown turbos completely detached from the car I didn't feel right for a month until it was back installed and running. After that everything seemed pretty stressless... until I had a giant foundation hole on my property but I'm feeling better with construction moving upwards now.

Stormwater management plan!?!? good lord, what a burden. So prior to your permit app, the water flowing from your gutters and off the compacted driveway base weren't any concern, but now that you want to improve your property you have to account for all the same water flow? What a draconian regulation.

Here in Michigan we have soil erosion permits that sort of account for similar goals (no sediment runoff into water/rivers) but they certainly don't require you to bank a 2-year rain event on site. I guess we have a lot less hills than PA though.

What was wrong with your driveway grade before (no real good before pics) ? Some of the free fill you got looked like a real chore to deal with, lol. Hard work for a lil' 1025r!

Thanks for keeping your thread going, lots of us on here like to read detailed and organized threads like these.

You only have to manage new impervious surfaces, existing structures and driveways are grandfathered. My house gutters likely drain to the street and will continue to but I cant connect new construction to them. The original driveway was just to low for the final slab height so I built it up about 2-3 ft on average. Its subtle in the pictures but noticeable on site. You can see the original slope in post 5. The good news was I was only replacing gravel drive with higher gravel drive so there was no net change in runoff to be managed since I'm not planning on paving the driveway.

The borough is at least somewhat understanding of the burden this places on people and you can convert gravel driveway up to 1600 ft² to pavement with no SWM and then from 1600 - 5000 at a reduced volume calculation. This whole thing comes from a state law that is finally being enforced at township level.

Yeah some of the fill did **** to move which is why I wanted to warn others what they might receive if they accept certain materials. No complaints about the Deere though, it was my housewarming gift to myself when I bought this place and for a small machine its quite a work horse. It has its limitations but has been instrumental in all parts of the project and will start showing up more often in future posts.

Site Prep

Building permit in hand and you know the deal. As soon as your ready to start something outside the forecast turns crappy, for weeks on end. Things perked up at the end of April and it was time to break ground. I'm typically only able to work on the weekend because of my 9-5 and spending time with the twins (who were almost 1 at this point) on weekdays.

The last picture I have of my house before before the project began



I spent about 4-5 hours using the 1025R to rip out the bushes and stockpile the topsoil from the grassy area near the house. Sure it might not be the fastest machine for the job, but its what I have and I didn't see the benefit of renting larger machines since my time is free.




A few weekends later a friend was able to come over and help me layout the foundation and remove the stairs. I'm not sure what the wife was expecting but for some reason she was very upset to return home to no more side door entrance. She must have had it in her mind that the stairs would remain throughout the building process . Stairs were held on by a few lag bolts into the brick and 4x4's just set in the dirt. We cut off the bolts and the tractor pulled the stairs out nice and easy.




Foundation layout wasn't to bad with two people and a laser level. First we pulled tape to roughly locate the corners and drove in batter boards to the same level with the laser. We got a parallel line to to the house laid out 6'8" from the wall to account for the breezeway and then squared out the rest of the lines based on that one. We dropped a plumb and drove pins at the four outside corners. We are working with 12" block on a 20" wide by 8" thick trench footer so we painted lines for the perimeter 4" to the outside and 16" to the inside of the pins.



This is mid-May 2017 and we'd start excavation memorial day.

Until next time...

Excavation Start

Weather was looking good so its time for dirt to start coming out of the ground. Again, I'm only able to work weekends and one of those days was my kids first b-day party so we're talking about 5 actual days work over 3 weekends to excavate the foundation, cut an opening into my basement for the stairs, form the footer where it steps down to the basement and lay the rebar.

My tractor only has a 12" bucket on its backhoe so in the words of the late Old Dirty ******* it had to do a lot of Shimmy Shimmy Ya side to side with the rear end to cut the trench to 20" wide. My soil is a mixture of silt and sandstone of varying size. Mostly the bucket had no problem but occasionally the sandstone would form a ledge that we'd have to break with the mattock rather than pull out a giant piece that would leave a void. We used a laser level and built a detector holder out of a 2x4 so we could keep checking depth without a tape measure.







So far so good on the first trench. Had to remove a batter board to finish the length. Started on the wall closest to the house and went as far as I could towards the basement stair area. I kept that trench a few feet shy so I would still have firm footing while digging the giant pit for the stairs and also have a soil damn so no crazy amount of water would flow into the pit if a rainstorm hit.



... and rain did come, you can see it in the trench. We used the 1025R to excavate as much as we could but eventually it just ran out of digging depth and reach. I'd say it got 90% of the dirt out but that last 10% was a ***** to shovel up and out of the hole.



So at this point, 80% of the foundation is dug. There is about 8 ft of trenching near the stair pit to finish and 12 ft on the driveway side that I left so I could remove the spoil piles with the tractor.



Until next time...

Basement Cutout

*Disclaimer* This is not a how-to for cutting into your foundation, I'm just highlighting what I did for my particular situation. There are companies that specialize in this and I'd recommend using one. If your planning a similar project you need to use your judgement to evaluate your site/building conditions and consult with a qualified professional.

With the backhoe maxed out on digging depth, it was time to finish the excavation by hand. It was only a few more inches down before we hit the existing downspout drainage and below that gravel that must have the drain tile running through it. These are the things you don't run into with a detached garage. Anyways, solving that is for another post. Once we finished hand digging I marked the door location. I drew a knob and tried the beetlejuice "draw a door and knock 3 times" trick but alas it did not open.




So I rented a 16" gas diamond blade saw. Concrete dust is not good for your lungs or eyes, and these saws are loud so safety equipment is a must. I'm using ear plugs, DeWalt face sealing goggles and a 3M P100 Particulate Respirator Mask. The P100 is so much better than a N95 surgical mask. For the outside cuts I didn't use water and as expected the dust was ferocious but the cutting went fast, maybe 20 minutes. I had to stand on a 2x12 plank that spanned the pit when cutting the top horizonal. Holding the saw above your head and creating a controlled cut wasn't possible. For the inside we hooked up the water to the saw and put plastic up as a spray guard. My friend did the two vertical cuts from the inside and after each we had to let the basement air out all the 2stroke fumes for 30 minutes.




Cutting the top horizontal required a platform and for me to support the saw weight from below while my friend guided it across the cut. This just left the bottom inside horizontal as the only un-cut line and we didn't need to. The mortar on the inside and none on the outside served as a hinge and after a few sledge whacks at the top the wall tilted outwards. The two of us gave it some good shoves and out it went.




The top course of block was still holding up but was not any kind of bond beam, just solid 6" block nailed to the rim truss. We bashed them off and then re-cut the outside brick 8" higher. Finally we framed in the opening so a sheet of plywood could be mounted.





Until next time...

Excavation Finish

With the basement cutout all finished it was time to wrap this up and get the footer inspection done and it needed to happen fast because the weather was looking bad in a few days. First order of business was removing all the dirt from inside the garage



And then finish off digging the last trench ... and then figure out a way to get my tractor back on solid ground.




The rebar was nothing fancy, 2 #4 bars and we epoxied it into the house block. The stair area needed a stepped footing. Since the drainage was going to run through the footer we doubled the thickness to 16" so we had plenty of thickness to run rebar over the pipe. The pipe itself would get covered in sill seal foam to isolate it from the concrete. Here is the form partially constructed.



Footing inspection was the next day and the building inspector did a quick walk around and signed off. Looking back, I would have done anything to pour the concrete right afterwards but it wasn't in the cards. The rain started that evening and it was a deluge. The only good news was I had cut a drainage trench and the natural slope of the dirt pushed 90% of the water towards the exit.



This is mid June and life and weather got in the way for 6 weeks. I had a 10 day motorcycle trip out west planned with my brother and dad starting July 5th and there was a thunderstorm every 3 days it seemed when I was in town. Footer pour would finally happen at the end of July.

Until next time...

Great write up, keep it coming. My guess many more are reading this than you think.

Thanks for the feedback, always nice to hear from people who are enjoying it. I wonder why the forum software doesn't have an option to see how many subscribers there are.

Anyways, I think I will take a few posts off from the garage and post up some pics from the ride out west. This low light single digit temperature winter bs has me thinking of warmer times.

Anyone have opinions on whether I should post pictures next of drying concrete or a 1400 mile ride through the desert and the rockies?

Beautiful home! Cant wait to see how this turns out. I'm currently building a detached next to an older home, hoping to make it blend nicely which isnt always easy.

Good luck!

Subscribed!

Great thread. I'm near Peters/Upper St. Clair.

flying_tomatoes said:

Beautiful home! Cant wait to see how this turns out. I'm currently building a detached next to an older home, hoping to make it blend nicely which isnt always easy.

Good luck!

Click to expand...

Thanks, I've been keeping an eye on your thread, looks like it will be sweet when finished. I like your Audis a lot. I have a '00 S4 in imola yellow. I was able to keep in on the road for 15 years but eventually north east winters caught up, it needed to much work to pass inspection and my left knee couldn't take rush hour traffic any more. I bought a '13 E-class but couldn't bring myself to let it go for what it was worth. Its in storage for a rebuild someday when my kids get old enough to help me fix it up and then it will be ready for a vintage plate. It was a lot of fun but also a quintessential 1st model year car with all the problems. A picture of it in its heyday, and then right before it was "retired".

Scottah said:

Great thread. I'm near Peters/Upper St. Clair.

Click to expand...

Hey Scott, I'm a bit north in the Sewickley area. Cool to see some local followers.

Great thread. Thanks for posting all the little details!

A Ride Out West - Days 1-2

Alright, its freaking freezing here so some warm weather pics to distract anyone in a similar situation.

My brother moved out to Wyoming several years back and we'd always talked about riding the Rockies at some point. He drove back home for a surprise Christmas visit in 2014 and offered to take my bike back back in his pickup. The plan was I'd fly out for the trip and then ride back home. I wanted to try for memorial day 15 but the fact is nothing out west is melted by that time and the rest of the summer didn't end up working out. By the time 2016 rolled around we were expecting our twins and my wife threatened me with death if I left her for 2 weeks with 3 month old twins. She did agree that I could go the following summer since the kids would be older and she could stay at her parents beach house when I was gone. So the weekend before the 4th of July 2017, all the family drove to the Jersey Shore and on July 5th I flew out of Philadelphia and off to Riverton Wyoming.

In the time since we first planned the trip my father asked if he could come along. He wasn't going to ride a bike but instead drive the asphalt parts of the trip with us towing a camper and take alternative routes to meet up at camp sites for the night. The general plan was to day ride some offroad in Wyoming then head south into eastern Utah then make our way east to Ouray Co then north back to Wyoming. We really wanted to go to Moab UT but the temperatures were forecast in the 110-120 range so scratch that. We weren't looking for a structured trip so we'd pick a route to ride each day and then locate a campground that had availability near by. We were using a Butler motorcycle map for colorado which grades the best on and offroad routes as gold, silver and bronze to pick the routes.

Day 1 (July 5th)

My father in law is a early morning stickler and insisted we leave southern NJ at 3:50AM EST so he wouldn't see any traffic in Philadelphia when he dropped me at the airport. My flight left at 8:30 AM for Denver. My dad arrived shortly after me in Denver from his Pittsburgh based flight. Riverton is a small regional airport so it was a 5 hour layover until out next flight. Touchdown in Wyoming at 8PM MST. Beers, whiskey and a steak dinner later and it definitely felt like I'd been awake for 24 hours.

Sayonara Filthydelphia

Hello Least Populated State



Day 2

My brother and I both grew up riding dirt bikes but it had been more than a decade since I'd been on one and a year since I'd ridden any bike. We prepped the bikes, then headed about 15 miles out of town and rode gravel and jeep trails for 35 miles to get my dirt legs back under me, especially on these heavy adventure bikes. My brother was taking us on trails by memory and lets say it was a bit foggy. Most of it was dry as a bone but we came upon a muddy grassland where cows were drinking from the water ponded in the rutted trails. There must have been some miscommunication because I looked at him and the look he gave me was "what are you waiting for" so off I went about 20 ft right of the trail roosting through the bog. It was about 200 ft long and I almost made it but slipped into a tire rut just shy of dry land and bogged down. My brother used this knowledge and took a much wider line and made it through. We spent about 45 minutes collecting rocks, tipping the bike over then piling rocks to get footing and traction to get it out. The bad new was alot of the muddy area was actually cow dung, the only good news was my waterproof boots held up even when I was 8 inches deep in ****. There were some pretty good vistas on the other side of the bog but only a dead end so we headed back but both took a very high line to avoid any water. $8 of pressure washing and all was good. Overall an enjoyable day of riding and I felt much more familiar with the surfaces we would run into throughout the trip

Ready to ride

Hitting the jeep trails

Taking in a view


Stuck in ****


On the way back


Cleaning the bike



Until Next Time...

A Ride Out West - Days 3-4

My dad is retired, my brother kinda marches to his own drum, and I'm on my first vacation in 2 years so lets say we weren't all on the same page about how much stuff we were going to do and what time we would depart each day. I'd be up and itching to hit the road or trail and my brother would just be starting his coffee, waiting for the call of nature followed by walking his dog and then planning a route . It was a struggle to depart by noon most days and it drove me nuts. Anyways for Day 3 the plan was to make it to Flaming River Dam and stop by Killpecker sand dunes on the way.

Ok, its time to hit the road.... at like 2 PM.


The ride out of Wyoming was not that interesting. My brother said there are giant sand dunes you can see from the road we were taking and he had never gone out to see them up close. I've never seen sand dunes so WTF, we'd pull over and ride to them while my dad relaxed with my brothers dog. I could see them from the pavement ealier on the highway but I'm east coast raised and had no idea how far they were. When we reached the pull off the sign told us it was 23 miles out which meant 23 miles back. It was a dirt road but well consolidated so we averaged probably 50 MPH



View of the sand dunes. Thought about riding them but you needed a tall flag mounted to your bike and the people there said the ranger was around.



On our way out we passed a trail to a rock known as Boars Tusk, so we took a detour on the way back to see it. It was about 3 miles of sandy two track each way which was something I'd never rode.



Cooling off in the shade of Boars tusk. Temps about 95 F.



The OP and his skinnier brother



Obviously leaving at 2PM, the day was getting short so we headed down 191 towards Flaming River Gorge. Beautiful drive on the ridge above a canyon and then you turn down into it.



Down at the reservoir right before night.



Took about 3 tries before we found a campground that had space. This was not the healthiest of trips. We basically lived on grilled burgers, Doritos, Coors Light and Jameson whiskey. This may contribute to the late departures.


Late Morning Light - Day 4



This was the day we decided Moab UT was out of the question due to heat. The plan was to head south through Vernal UT, then east through Dinosaur CO. Then we would split to ride gravel while my dad took pavement and meet near Rifle CO. We would then ride over Grand Mesa and find a campground. Enjoyable ride but my pictures are not so great from my IPhone 5. My brother had better ones from his samsung but dunked it in water a month after the trip and didn't back it up...


View near vernal UT, the water on the right is a tailings pond from a giant phosphate mine.


Normal Gravel road, maybe 35 miles worth at maybe 40 MPH



Then it changed considerably to sweeping hardpack over the hills. Since pikes peak is fully paved now I imagined this was similar to the unpaved part in the past. You could really cook with the traction.



Conditions could change fast. This stuff was washy.



After about 90 miles of gravel we picked back up with my dad on some pavement north of rifle. My brother wanted some place with shade to rest and rehydrate so we kept an eye out as we drove south to Rifle. Honestly, he must be blind because he rode right past a sweet shady area just off the road and I had to pass him and get us turned around. There were ATV trials everywhere and creek and hill climbs to mess around on.



Hitting the road to Grand Mesa. My dad has problems with altitude and decided to meet us on the other side at the camp ground. This is 45 1/2 rd and it was AWESOME with hairpins, sweepers, elevation changes, smooth pavement. If it wasn't 98 F outside we would have turned around and rode it twice. I'm sure my brother and I are each violating a law in this picture.



Grand Mesa is a high elevation plateu. Not much to look at but a welcome ride.



View on the way up, a bit hazy. Temperature was dropping and god did it feel good to see 68 F on the temp guage



Tons of serene lakes at the top for the next 30 minutes of the ride and then it winded back down the hill to our campground and back to 85 F.



Until Next Time...

A Ride Out West - Days 5-6

So the plan for the next two days was to head to Ouray and ride some of the passes that go over the Rocky mountains. We called around and could only get a camp spot for two nights but it wasn't a big haul from where we were so there was plenty of riding to be done

Our camp spot at Shady Creek RV park in colorado, just south of Grand Mesa. Mostly long term rentals here but you could see a diner and a liquor store from the entrance and had hot showers so what more can you ask for.



Ouray is the north end of the so called "million dollar highway". Again, great pavement, sweepers and hairpins but also no shoulder, no guardrail and lethal drop-offs on the one side of the road. This road was very enjoyable if you weren't stuck in heavy traffic of rubberneckers. A pic from the overlook and down the waterfall.




We figured we'd again get our feet wet by riding the old mining trails about 15 miles south of town. Pretty cool seeing all the buildings still standing and stuck in time.





No rain, just snowmelt and some mild water crossings. When we finished it was back down the M$H to the camp ground for the evening.




Day 6

The plan was to ride Engineers pass to Lake City, get lunch and then ride Cinnamon Pass back to Ouray. We knew Engineers pass was much more difficult so best to get that done when your mentally fresh.

Start of the trail, just outside Ouray. This part was very rocky with tons of drop offs and switchbacks. The Jeeps have to crawl this section but were very accommodating to letting us pass.





The hairpin pictured was rocky but easy and we could stop to take a picture. Further along they really picked up in difficulty and I was way out of my comfort zone. There was really nothing I could do except keep gunning the throttle and hope I would make the bend and then up the next rock face. Stopping was not an option, if you lost momentum to examine a line you weren't going to make it. After about 4 very difficult ones in a row it flattened out and I noticed my brother was not behind me. I wanted to go back but it seemed a miracle I'd made it up without crashing so I took a wait and see approach. About 10 minutes later I heard his bike and soon saw him. He said he followed my inside line up a hairpin and his rear wheel spun out just shy of the top of a 6ft slickrock face. He knew he wasn't going to make it so laid it down on the right side as he slid backwards. Motorcycle foot pegs pivot if you fall forward but not backwards and his was all f'd up but rideable.

Luckily this is where the trail got easier and we went above tree line. Soon we were at the top of Engineers pass, beautiful view.





We headed down the other side of the mountain. Weather was looking a bit ominus but held off. Still some snow along the road and then winding along a creek down into Lake City.





We asked some locals for a suggestion for a repair shop and they pointed us to Rene's Garage. Rene is from Switzerland and very kindly finished up what he was working on and helped us out with an oxy torch and a 4 ft pry bar for a very reasonable price... Back in Business.



We ate our lunch and then it was time to head back but this time along Cinnamon Pass.



Start of the offroad part, everything is looking good but then rain, and temperature was probably about 60 F. We started to hit some water crossings that all of the sudden were not trivial.




After about 6 miles we ran into this beast. I know the photo cant do it justice without a vehicle for perspective. It was at least 30 ft wide and probably 18” deep and FLOWING. But what are you to do? Cinnamon is the "easy" pass, the other options would be going back to engineers which would be slicker than snot or a boring 140 mile pavement ride



It was at this point I reminded my brother who rode first through the cow poop bog in wyoming so he knew he was going first through this. Off he went, as soon as he struck the pool water went splashing everywhere, he was drenched, no doubt. He was holding his own but 2/3rds through he hit an underground rock, veered left, and wheelied up the black rock about 6 ft left of the trail. The bike kinds stuck on the rock and he fell left into the bush. It was my turn, I took a much higher line to the right, got drenched as well but luckily made it out shiny side up. I helped my brother pick up his bike and get it back to the trail. As we were getting composed, a stock jeep comes down the road with two college aged girls driving it. They were not about to attempt the crossing but asked us if we were going to the research station... um no, we're riding cinnamon pass back to Ouray. They told us this was a dead end road to the station and we'd missed the turn off for cinnamon about a mile back.

F*CK F*CK F*CK. We turned around and looked at the water crossing we again had to ford. The good news was neither of us crashed, the bad news was any dry nook ANYWHERE on me was now wet. One thing, and one thing only got us back to Ouray, heated grips running on high for the next 2.5 hours. The temperature kept dropping and the top of Cinnamon Pass was 40F



No more photos, my fingers were too cold and wet to unlock the IPhone. Cinnamon doesn't go all the way back to Ouray, you have to take Engineers hard part for the last 7 miles or a 50 mile detour to silverton to the M$H. I could take 50 miles of gravel and slab rather than risk crashing on those hairpins. When we got back it was time for a VERY long shower at the campground and some alcoholic refreshments. Looking back, it was a heck of a day of riding.

Until Next Time...

RSr said:

I'm pretty excited about building this myself! My wife, and our parents don't share my feelings. It took them quite a while to realize when I said I was going to build it that's what I meant. They were constantly telling me "oh I had dinner with a friend who used an Amish framing crew and can get you their number" or "someone recommend an excavator" or "Who is pouring the footer" ... or NO,NO,NO. The finished garage isn't the goal, its the result. Every time I park, work or watch tv in the garage I want to remember that I built it, not simply that I paid to have it built.

Yeah its a bit out of my comfort zone, but shouldn't it be? Who here hasn't pulled their first motor from a car and felt a bit apprehensive? Well maybe on this forum some of you, but my dad's mechanical skills stopped after he taught my brother and me brake and oil changes. When I saw my audi's motor with blown turbos completely detached from the car I didn't feel right for a month until it was back installed and running. After that everything seemed pretty stressless... until I had a giant foundation hole on my property but I'm feeling better with construction moving upwards now.

Click to expand...

Nice thread, RSr. I feel exactly the same way about my garage build. Although I did contract out the foundation work, I'm doing all the rest of the work myself, for the same reasons. I'll be following along--good luck!

Cool build blue. Looks like we share several things in common including always having cars parked next to the build and never removing any plant the wife may potentially want saved, no matter how small/sick/spindly it appears. Thanks for the post!

Hey bud just read through your whole build! what a adventure you have had with your brother! Loving the photo's!

Trust me mate, i hear ya with the flood management reports and storm water reports. I've been through it all myself, dam near wanted to go to the city council and paint the walls red after the ring around i got, which took 1 and 1/2 years to sort out with my build!!! The bureaucratic red tape i had to go through cost me more than the price of the shed! Check out my build and you will see all the **** i had to deal with.

Looking forward to more updates.

Ouch, read your thread and that's awful to pay more for paperwork than the building but it turned out very nice though. Things that should be easy are just so difficult with regulations these days.

During the trip I really loved how much open land there is out west that's public and where you can do stuff that's fun with out anyone giving a f. That shady area outside of Rifle was a perfect example, trails to ride, campfire area and signs that just kindly remind you to know whats behind your target if you decide to pull out your gun and blast off a few rounds for shits and giggles.

The council where I live are all a bunch of conformists who want everyone to enjoy and do the same things their HOA loving members do. We have a ~170 acre park (its not the main park, this one is on the far edge of the borough) and an adjacent 100 acres was on the market. They already don't let anyone hunt or bicycle (yeah, evidently they hate wheels as much as motors) in what they have and its extremely underutilized but they want even more to keep the tranqulity and beauty of nature....blah blah blah. They also just passed a resolution that you cannot store more than 1 trailer or RV on your property. I already own a car trailer so I guess owning/storing a RV for road trips with the family is now illegal for me.

looking forward to seeing your build progress. Always like finding ones that peoples go into great detail. Also really enjoyed seeing your photos from your trip. Looks like a pretty awesome time.

A Ride Out West - Day 7

We thought about finding another camp spot near Ouray to ride the passes to Telluride and back but the forecast looked very dodgy plus my dad wanted to get back to a lower altitude. We planned on an easy day of driving for him and headed to Blue Mesa reservoir to setup camp. Again my brother and I took the slow gravel/dirt roads to get there. On the north side of the reservoir was rt 92, a winding paved road that was highlighted in the Butler map and we would ride it out and back maybe 25 miles each way.



Chimeny Rock


High Mesa in the distance


The ride and views were nice but the weather didn't look so good


UGH, a f'n traffic jam


Blue Mesa reservoir at our camp ground. We held off on riding RT 92 because of the rain on the north side of the lake.



A good call because it was soon thunder and lightning. The rest of the day was a wash. It was great to have my dad along for the trip and towing the camper, especially for times like this. We ran into quite a bit of rain during the trip but this was really the only time it kept us off the road.



We were running out of time and still far from Wyoming so the next two days would be long hours in the saddle.

Until Next Time...

Looking forward to the rest of the build. Good vacation.

May not be much replies but the thread is being read.

Dwight

jp828108 said:

looking forward to seeing your build progress. Always like finding ones that peoples go into great detail. Also really enjoyed seeing your photos from your trip. Looks like a pretty awesome time.

Click to expand...

dchance said:

Looking forward to the rest of the build. Good vacation.

May not be much replies but the thread is being read.

Dwight

Click to expand...

Thanks for the comments gents. This vacation posts are almost over and then its back to pictures of the build. My brother and I planned on posting a dual-OP post on ADVrider.com about the trip, but once he lost his photos its just kinda on me and I'd been putting it off for WAY to long. Anyways, over there it would just be your ho-hum everyday trip kinda thread, I figured by adding it to my thread here it would be something different than what the members might typically read. I'm working off about 10 sentences of notes and mileages I wrote down in my phone during the trip plus the photos and their timestamps to put it all back together. In my last actual post about the garage I said I'd have done anything to pour the footer right after the inspection. I'd like to revise that to say I'd have done anything but miss out on this trip with my dad and brother.

Looks like an awesome trip

A Ride Out West - Day 8 - 9 - The End

I mentioned earlier that we weren't big into planned routes and instead improvised day by day. We looked over the butler map and identified some nice roads to take and eventually end up at an area with camping called Stagecoach Park. There were plenty of scenic paved roads for my dad and separate routes for the bikes. The basic plan was to get about half way back to Wyoming which meant 250 miles of riding. We actually hit the road at 10 AM which was a miracle.



Leaving Blue Mesa for Crested Butte. Roads were boring like melba toast getting there but then we'd grab lunch and head east for Cottonwood pass which was not very long but Gold rated.




So evidently printed maps aren't good for relaying closures and a local told us Cottonwood pass was closed for 2 years for road reconstruction. Instead we had to head west to a road called Kebler Pass and then re-route most of our ride. Not far out of town the road turned to dirt, then back to pavement then back to dirt.



The road was similar to others we had ridden and then BAM, we were transported to somewhere very different. A giant grove of quaking aspen had engulfed us. Everywhere we looked was white (especially when moving) and it went on for miles and miles. A very surreal feeling, especially since we weren't expecting it.




A while later in the day we stopped on the side of the road and took one of my favorite photos of the trip. A look out over a valley we rode up. No cell signal, no buildings, no people, no other vehicles. Just a road, some power lines, motorcycles and tranquility.



The rest of the ride was long but enjoyable. During the day we got poured on by rain twice and then dried out as we kept riding. Pulled into Stagecoach later that evening where my dad (white shirt) already had a camp spot.




Day 9

We had about 250 miles back to my brother's house but no need for the direct route. Not nearly as scenic as earlier rides but not bad. We headed north on some pavement for a bit.



Then on to the gravel. Last time I'd see the "Pavement Ends" sign during the trip




The OP's brother, passing by for a closeup



The OP, straddling the Continental Divide



Back in Wyoming again, the least populous state in the country.



Packing the bike up for the long drive home. I wasn't looking forward to 1800 miles of slab on my bike so this was so much nicer. The deal was he got to take my dads 2 post car lift (dissembled in storage) in exchange when he flew to Pittsburgh early September and drove his truck home. Hard pill to swallow but he was making payments on the truck and I didn't like the risk of all the solo highway miles on the bike.



Day 10-11

Left Wyoming the mid morning and drove until we found a rest stop with parking around 3:45 AM. Hit the road at dawn and got home early afternoon and went to f'n sleep.

THE END

Well everyone, hope you enjoyed the read. I'd been putting writing up the details for too long so its great to have it chronicled out. Anyways, the long cold streak is over so its back to the garage build for the next post.

Until Next Time...