2 post lift with 10' ceilings

[MWINCHEL]

Hello All,
I am new to this site and i am sure it has been gone over before. I have found links that bring me to this site but all of the photo bucket pictures are so old they will not come up. Here is what i have going on. I am building a garage 36wx28dx10h. I want to put a two post lift in here but my builder is telling me he had thought 12' was what it will take. I do not want to go 12'. I see you all talk about scissor truss. Can someone please post a picture with a full size truck on a lift with scissor truss? I am no builder but why couldn't you just double up the rafters on either side of the lift and add a few other supports and just run the truck clear up in the rafters? Please help i want a lift so bad i cant stand it!!!

 

[lowe.joshua51]

Why not 12'? I'd go 12' and not look back. I have a lift in my garage (garage was already built when I bought the house) and the ceiling is 9'3", I can't imagine building new and staying with 10'

 

[MWINCHEL]

This garage has to be proportionate to the house. With a 12 foot ceiling it will look like a commercial building in my opinion
.

 

[Falcon67]

IMHO, depends on which why the trusses run and where your lift is positioned. If the trusses run across the 26' and you are lifting parallel to their placement, then a average 20' long truck may run out of clearance sooner than full lift. If the lift/doors are placed so that the lift in centered along the 32' dimension, then you'd be lifting under the peak clearance afforded by the trusses.

Example - I recently modified my shop to allow full lift with our race cars. Those are 16' long and the lift area is 23' deep with the posts positioned about the middle of that. The ceiling was removed up to the rafters - no trusses. A 16' car could be lifted to clear the floor about 6 1/2' with around 8" clearance to spare near the trunk. No way one of our trucks would get anywhere near that high.

 

[MWINCHEL]

Thanks for getting back to me. My garage will be 28' deep and my 4 door, 4 size truck is 18ish feet long. The Rafters will be running the 28' with the gables on the ends of the garage. I think i can pull this off after reading your garage tread. My home builder says otherwise. I am thinking i might just have him build the damn garage and i will go in after to support the truses up higher on the gable. Garage will be 28 deep by 36 wide. I was going to put this off to one side but after thinking more about this i think it might be smarter to put it in the center so i have room to get around it. What are your thoughts.

I just want to be told it can be done with a little extra work.

 

[Falcon67]

In my build thread you can see I took out 8' of joists. I went over this with a building engineer here at work and we came up with no real issues. My largest concern was the area over the door. I left 3' on that end to route electrical and spread the load of the rafter tails out to the two joists on either side. On the back wall, I just plated the ends of the rafters with lift over 2x12 to spread any loads along the plate. The collar ties I used are in the upper 1/3 of the pitch, which conforms to recommended practice.

I would think for a truck - owning both a F-150 Super Crew and a F-350 DRW - you might go for a 10' space above the lift. IF "disabling" the trusses in that space, I would upsize the rafters in that area per the applicable Span Tables based on your local live/dead load factors. Likely 2x8 or 2x10 for a 13' span (26' total width). If you use rafter ties and can keep them in the lower 1/3 of the rafter then you'll pick up some additional strength against wall spread. If you have to push them above that mark, then upsize to the next rafter size. On a 6:12 pitch, you could push a standard rafter up 2' and still be good on loads. That would give you 12' from the floor.

Old school cypherin' - graph paper and pencil, lots of measurements and a plan in place before I cut a single board. Also note I was working with 8', so a lot less clearance starting out than your 10'.

I put my lift to one side, outside of post 24" from the wall. Allowed for max use of the space. Overhead door framing started at 3' off the corner.

 

[124ci]

I can not offer you any pics, cus mine is not built yet. My inside dimensions are 28 x 36, 10 ft ceiling, with the trusses 28 ft long. 2 10' wide door openings on the 36' ft side. The rest for work space. 4/12 pitch with scissor trusses on the first 14', not in the center. My thought is I could put a 4 post lift in that area and I could put the maxjax in the middle when used. The scissor trusses have a pitch of 2 3/8 on 12. Some on here named kevin54 I THINK, says he can get under his 4 wheel drive truck.

 

[firebirdparts]

Many of us run cars up into the rafters, including me. There are many, many threads on this question, probably one a week. If you tell the builder you want a hole over the lift for that, he can easily do it. He's a builder.

To do it, you just use common rafters, but you need additional support of the ridge pole, basically, or you could stiffen the structure like Falcon is talking about. I think he would propose a couple of options.

Lots of people have pole barns with the trusses on 8' or 10' spacing to start with. You could do that instead of common rafters. If you have trusses on 8' spacing, you can just send a car up between the trusses.

 

[Falcon67]

That's a pretty low pitch. Considering that my F-150 is at least 6' high at the cab, that's not much clearance under when the roof reaches 10'.

My idea on the Max Jax was that I got a full height lift for less $. I used it plenty with the 8' ceiling in place. Its even more fun now with the hole in the ceiling LOL.

Now if I could just find time and $ to blow out the back wall to 28'. I could park the dragster straight in LOL.

 

[Kevin54]

Use scissor trusses. It should keep you within your height restrictions of very close.

I have a 9000 lb. lift in my garage with 10' walls, and scissor trusses. I can raise my 4wd truck all the way up and have room to stand up under it. The wall side post is maybe 2' from the wall. BTW....my garage is 28x36 and my trusses run with the 28' direction. You can see it in the link THE ADDITION.

 

[GrayFlattop]

Scissor trusses offer a viable solution. But largely it depends on what vehicles you are working on and how tall you are.

In terms of the garage being in proportion to the house, I'm assuming that the house is already built (if not, simply build the house taller)? Are the two buildings that close together? Is the height or the massing of the larger garage that bothers you? Unless you are limited by zoning restrictions, there are ways to build taller without being that obvious. You could always choose an asymmetrical roof line a salt-box style or a more contemporary style. Much depends on your existing house, the site plan and the zoning restrictions.

A creative architect or builder should be able to come up with an answer for you, but if you are working on full size pick-up trucks, you will want 12' or more of inside clearance.

 

[Samh]

So it is said, if using scissor trusses, the inside pitch is typically half the outside pitch. So the pitch of the roof is 10/12, the inside pitch will be 5/12

 

[spudley]

Thanks for getting back to me. My garage will be 28' deep and my 4 door, 4 size truck is 18ish feet long. The Rafters will be running the 28' with the gables on the ends of the garage. I think i can pull this off after reading your garage tread. My home builder says otherwise. I am thinking i might just have him build the damn garage and i will go in after to support the truses up higher on the gable. Garage will be 28 deep by 36 wide. I was going to put this off to one side but after thinking more about this i think it might be smarter to put it in the center so i have room to get around it. What are your thoughts.

I just want to be told it can be done with a little extra work.

Depending on your roof pitch, it can be done with a little extra work. Tell your builder, many structures use both trusses and rafters.
I'd shy away from adjusting after the fact. Build it how you want it now, not later.

 

[fiataccompli]

after much preliminary debate with my wife (the arbiter of the project aesthetic), we landed on a 12' ceiling height (hopes for both a 2 & 4 post lift ultimately) on what's basically 30' deep x 40' wide with 20'x8' offsets on each side. The offsets (thus complex roof...aaarrrggghhh) and a low pitch combined w/ sort of clever grading & landscaping around the garage is all intended to address what was mentioned in the original post...fitting in, not looking industrial, etc. We're still in the excavation phase, so I also do not have photos to show how it did (or didn't?) work, but I have a pretty good feeling it will cleverly blend in. All that and I will be predominately working on Fiats that are about 14' long at most & not particularly tall either!

 

[GrayFlattop]

If you are concerned about an overly industrial look, you can always put flowerboxes at each window! No window? Make faux windows.

 

[LPD ret]

10' walls in my part of the garage (30'x26'), but with scissor truss (spanning the 26' direction) I have 12'6" clearance in the center ten feet of the ceiling. Slopes down to the ten foot height - 8' on front and back. Roof pitch might be 8/12, I'd have to look it up. I have a 4 post lift and can lift my Silverado 4x4 too high for me to reach it to work on; I'm 5'9". At a working height (for me) the Silverado has about 18" - 20" clearance to the ceiling. The cab is just about centered in the fat part of the high center of the ceiling. Regular cars are no problem at all.

 

[RipHST]

after much preliminary debate with my wife (the arbiter of the project aesthetic), we landed on a 12' ceiling height (hopes for both a 2 & 4 post lift ultimately) on what's basically 30' deep x 40' wide with 20'x8' offsets on each side. The offsets (thus complex roof...aaarrrggghhh) and a low pitch combined w/ sort of clever grading & landscaping around the garage is all intended to address what was mentioned in the original post...fitting in, not looking industrial, etc. We're still in the excavation phase, so I also do not have photos to show how it did (or didn't?) work, but I have a pretty good feeling it will cleverly blend in. All that and I will be predominately working on Fiats that are about 14' long at most & not particularly tall either!

you win my "screen name of the week" prize. well done.

My garage is mostly built and I had the aesthetic struggle with my wife too. I wanted 12' but had to settle for 10' (but the builder squeezed in an extra 6" by not cutting the studs before setting them on the superior wall foundation...so 10.5') With the house only 12' away...I get her concern so I didn't fight it. We also have 12/12 pitch so it stands tall. Anyway, there seemed to be decent options for lifts that fit under 10' so I didn't worry.

good luck...seems like it'll be pretty nice.

 

[Greg5OH]

i have 10 foot open ratfers in my pole barn. got a 7k rotary lift, put it up in between the rafters. I am 6'3" the only way I work on cars is sittin gon my shop stool underneath, but its quite comfortable this way so Im not complaining.
I can still pull motors out the bottom on Audis and wheel them out from under the car on a 3' tall castered table so my needs are satisfied.

 

[driewal536]

I'm just wrapping up mine and moving in so sorry no pics of truck on lift. mine is 28x40 10' walls for the same reason you want 10' walls. my old garage had 12' for the lift bay and it was too big next to the house, (I also didn't like all my heat up there). My trusses are 4/12 with 2/12 inside. I had the concrete guys give me a 6' curb, helps to hose out the garage too. Hopping to have something on it this weekend!

 

[spudley]

All that and I will be predominately working on Fiats that are about 14' long at most & not particularly tall either!

I had a 1970 850 Spider. Fun little car.
My buddies dad, who had a Fiat fetish, also had an amazing photographic memory. His hobby was building or rebuilding Fiats out of dozens of boxed up parts and he knew exactly what box held the parts he needed.
Spent a lot of nights as a teen riding around in Fiats.

 

[brownbagg]

my toyota tacoma needs 12 ft 2 inches for me to walk under it. im 5'5

 

[Lucky13driver]

That was one thing I missed when designing my garage. Go for 12' if you can you won't regret it

 

[Kevin54]

 

[3rdgendslmech]

Ideally yeah you'd want to be able to walk under a vehicle when working on it. My county limits your building height to equal or less than your house. I have 10' walls and standard trusses. I went through a diy company for my barn and at the time didn't offer scissor trusses.
Been thinking a lot about a lift and am more than likely going to a Greg Smith location for a 10K floor plate lift.
It's not the end of the world if you don't have 12' walls. I did a transmission pull on my truck (04 Ford super duty) this weekend and only had the front wheels on a 8x8 block. Only needed maybe another foot and I could have pulled the transmission out from under it. If I had a lift I could have pulled the cab and done it that way. If you work on newer cars you can def drop subframes. I'm 6'2" so I doubt I could get my wife's civic up high enough to sit under.
IMHO get a lift. It'll beat jacking and cribbing up vehicle. Even if it is only 2-3 feet off the ground most floor Jack's don't lift past 18". Doing a tire rotation now you've gotta put one end on Jack stands.....