25x28 Detached Garage

[coby65]

Great build!
I like the whole package with the house and garage. And that driveway is outstanding.

I just read through this so I may have missed it but how is house heating bill and draft reduction after adding all the insulation?

 

[Gentle_Ben]

Amazing build. Love it!! My first post on GJ as well.

I'm liking your idea of the gravel approach to the garage. How is it holding up through the first couple of years? Are you getting a fair amount into the drainage ditch?

I've got about a 20 yard pour if I do concrete and in some ways I've wanted to do something a little different. Part to reduce cost but also just to have it be a little different and "blend" into my backyard area a little better. I'm basically thinking of a small retaining wall for borders and then packed gravel for the driveway. With your sleds, I assume you prefer the looser gravel? I think I read that you had to compact a different gravel below your "finish" gravel. Do you think compacted gravel would hold up to a once/twice per week used driveway?

Thanks for the compliments.

The gravel is holding up very well. There is compacted A base below the top coat of limestone, the compacted layer is definitely necessary for longevity of the driveway. We have treated 2x4 planks staked at the edges to contain the gravel where it doesn't meet up with a concrete edge. Little to no gravel has made it into the trench so far. Properly prepare a gravel driveway can handle daily driveway duties for sure.

 

[Gentle_Ben]

Great build!
I like the whole package with the house and garage. And that driveway is outstanding.

I just read through this so I may have missed it but how is house heating bill and draft reduction after adding all the insulation?

Thanks very much for the comments.

It's hard to say exactly how much heating savings we gained by adding the 2" foam, but it's definitely improved. The past few winters have been vastly different from one another so its been hard to compare apples to apples. We also changed from a gas furnace to an electric one in the house so that changed things quite a bit too, as well as heating another 700sf for the shop. Also we added several heated tile floors to the house (two bathrooms and the entranceway).

It will change again next winter too as I figured out that our furnace has been wired incorrectly and as such we weren't taking advantage of it's energy savings capabilities.

 

[coby65]

I was thinking any cost savings would be offset by the addition of the heat in the garage.

I was just amazed at the 2" of foam on the exterior on top of what 2x6 insulated walls covered in osb wrapped in Tyvek........but as cold as it can get up there I undestand.

Thanks for sharing!

 

[isuhunter]

Very cool thread. Great work! You've inspired me to probably gut my garage and redo it!

 

[MIB]

You'll love that Jeep. I've got the same one, 30k km in and it averages 7.8l/100km mixed driving. Not bad given the performance compared to the competition on the market.

Just a quick question, why is it normal to just use pea gravel around fence posts/barn posts in the US? Everything here in Aus is set in concrete...

 

[Gentle_Ben]

I was thinking any cost savings would be offset by the addition of the heat in the garage.

I was just amazed at the 2" of foam on the exterior on top of what 2x6 insulated walls covered in osb wrapped in Tyvek........but as cold as it can get up there I undestand.

Thanks for sharing!

It's been a learning curve with heating the garage, trying to find a happy medium with energy consumption vs comfort level. I found a pretty major air leak with one of my doors not sealing all the way so now that's fixed it might improve some more.

Our government actually pays for us to add the two inch foam to save on energy since electricity is one of our major exports. In newer houses I've seen them do 8 inch thick walls (2x4 walls offset from one another) and it's really impressive. If I ever build a new house here that's what I will do.

Very cool thread. Great work! You've inspired me to probably gut my garage and redo it!

Thanks, I look forward to following your build thread!

 

[Gentle_Ben]

You'll love that Jeep. I've got the same one, 30k km in and it averages 7.8l/100km mixed driving. Not bad given the performance compared to the competition on the market.

Just a quick question, why is it normal to just use pea gravel around fence posts/barn posts in the US? Everything here in Aus is set in concrete...

Glad you are liking your grand cherokee as well. I love ours more and more each time I drive it.

So the simple answer to your question is frost. If you concrete your posts into the ground, you give a lot of surface area for the frost to grab onto and it can heave your posts and wreck your fence. You have different options such as using ground hawgs like I did for my deck which go down below the frost line, or you can use gravel which will not give the frost anything to grab onto and the posts will stay stationary.

 

[Gentle_Ben]

We got rained out yesterday, but progress has been made, the first 40 feet of the fence was up as of Wednesday. Something very satisfying about seeing a fence go up, especially when that fence is going to hide your neighbors messy yard.

 

[Grizz1963]

Currently on holiday with my wife, changing jobs on the 26th of May, so need to burn off my leave.

This has given me time to read a few threads on so e of the forums where I do contribute.

Your build the last few years has been amazing, so reading 27 pages allows you to see stuff happen fast.

Being from South Africa originally, and living in the UK since 2002, I love the way people from around the world build and adapt to weather and local conditions.

Your record of the whole build has been thoroughly entertaining.

The new fence is looking great too.

Thanks for sharing

 

[Gentle_Ben]

Your build the last few years has been amazing, so reading 27 pages allows you to see stuff happen fast.

Being from South Africa originally, and living in the UK since 2002, I love the way people from around the world build and adapt to weather and local conditions.

Your record of the whole build has been thoroughly entertaining.

The new fence is looking great too.

Thanks for sharing

Thank you for the comments. It's been fun and rewarding documenting the entire process. Sometimes when I am getting burnt out I will look back at where we started from and see how much we have accomplished.

 

[Gentle_Ben]

We were trying to finish up the last few things to do on our property on Saturday when we ran into a snag. We were trying to run heat trace wire which we can use in the winter and spring to keep our drains flowing. We had installed a drain tube (weeping tile) along the entire western side of my garage which also picked up rain water from my eaves trough. No matter what we tried we could not get the wire fed through this one line, so we decided to dig up a portion of it. To our dismay it looks as though a skid steer operator who did some gravel work for me had carelessly drive over this line multiple times before it was protected and crushed it beyond repair. Not an expensive item to fix, but time consuming. Glad we found the problem though.

Pictured is the first damaged section, we found several more equalling about 10ft of pipe to replace.

 

[55cadillacking]

Nice catch!

 

[Gentle_Ben]

Finished up the attached garage this weekend. Followed the same theme as the detached garage. White walls with pine cabinets and trim, and race deck free flow tiles.

Ran the race deck into the walk in closet as well.

Obligatory shot with just the under cabinet lighting on.

 

[55cadillacking]

The hits just keep coming from you! That looks really good. You must now have the most experience of anyone with installing a FreeFlow RaceDeck floor!

 

[dubber]

Wow! Its like a mini me version of your other one. Looks great! She must be happy pulling in there, especially with the new ride

 

[Gentle_Ben]

The hits just keep coming from you! That looks really good. You must now have the most experience of anyone with installing a FreeFlow RaceDeck floor!

Thank you very much. Even though I knew what to expect from doing the detached garage, the second race deck install on the attached garage was still a surprise. It just changes a space so much.

What did you use to apply the concrete sealer in your garage? When they did my driveway last fall they used a sprayer but it was pretty sloppy and I didn't know if that would be a good idea for an interior application.

 

[Gentle_Ben]

Wow! Its like a mini me version of your other one. Looks great! She must be happy pulling in there, especially with the new ride

Thanks, a mini version of the big garage was exactly the look I was going for. I am going to be on the hunt for some nice squared off garbage and recycling bins that can tuck up against the wall.

 

[Sunbimmer]

Nothing other than PERFECT ......again.

 

[HSpencer]

Totally beautiful. I love the knotty pine and french doors!! Very cool!!

Best Regards
Herb Spencer

 

[Gentle_Ben]

Nothing other than PERFECT ......again.

Thank you!

Totally beautiful. I love the knotty pine and french doors!! Very cool!!

Best Regards
Herb Spencer

Thanks very much, the French doors are something that was added upon a suggestion from a friend and I am very glad we did it. The amount of natural light they let in helps keep the garage warmer in winter.

I think I am addicted to pine as much as I am race deck. My basement is like a shrine to pine, haha.

 

[Gentle_Ben]

Nothing too terrible exciting, but added some flush mount drawer pulls that were impossible to source locally, so had to purchase online.

Much easier to open now, and can do so one handed.

 

[Gentle_Ben]

So for the first time since starting both my garage projects, we finally parked a vehicle inside one of them, lol.

A happy discovery through the backup camera is that the red parking lines in the RaceDeck flooring line up perfectly with the grid lines on the backup camera making parking in the garage extremely easy.

 

[Boosted1]

Wow! Very well done all around. Congrats.

 

[Gentle_Ben]

Wow! Very well done all around. Congrats.

Thanks!

 

[CoachR_9426]

Wow. This is amazing. Great job!

 

[HemiRamOn22s]

This is amazing! Nice work!

 

[River19]

Fantastic......

 

[Gentle_Ben]

Wow. This is amazing. Great job!

This is amazing! Nice work!

Fantastic......

Thanks very much! I really do appreciate each and every comment on my projects.

 

[1/2 Cup]

What more can one say that has not been said already other than....

 

[Denwood]

Ben, just came across your thread. The bulkhead lighting is awesome..a great look for any garage. Hiding your garage doors in the bulkhead is a nice way (combined with 12ft ceilings) to open up storage under the door if you ever need it. Cabinetry looks very slick. Nice recovery of the corner storage space with the swing away mount. Your build is an interesting read with an "educational" roll up of ideas.

 

[JohnnieMo]

Great work Ben. I enjoyed all 28 pages to date. It's nice finding a thread where you can read the whole project in one sitting

A couple things I really like - the bulkhead under the overhead doors. I find that my overhead door drops grease on my vehicles. This would prevent that and be really clean. I'll have to consider that liftmaster also.

The racedeck.... I am looking at doing this too. I was leaning towards Swisstrax just because they had a Canadian distributor. Where did you buy the Racedeck?

Really great work. Quite inspiring. You really like your pot lights

 

[bonecrrusher]

Hey Ben - can you take a shot of your racedeck just looking straight down at it?

It seems the darker colors makes the concrete beneath it disappear more.

I have the silver samples - and I cant decide on the FreeFlow or the solid style...

 

[Gentle_Ben]

Ben, just came across your thread. The bulkhead lighting is awesome..a great look for any garage. Hiding your garage doors in the bulkhead is a nice way (combined with 12ft ceilings) to open up storage under the door if you ever need it. Cabinetry looks very slick. Nice recovery of the corner storage space with the swing away mount. Your build is an interesting read with an "educational" roll up of ideas.

Thank you very much for all your comments and observations on my build. The bulkhead was part of the plan right from the beginning. I've always had a distaste for seeing the garage door rails and openers out in the open, I felt like it was a limiting factor for a garage to transform into a true multi purpose room. Of course that isn't true, but its just my thoughts on it I guess.

Maybe someday I will post some pictures from our house that we completely renovated before doing the garage's. I feel like we were just as innovative with what we did in there.

I really enjoyed designing the cabinets with Sketchup, seeing them manifest in real life after drawing them up on the computer was very satisfying.

Hopefully people can learn from my build as much as I learned from the threads I spent countless hours on before starting this whole project.

 

[Gentle_Ben]

Great work Ben. I enjoyed all 28 pages to date. It's nice finding a thread where you can read the whole project in one sitting

A couple things I really like - the bulkhead under the overhead doors. I find that my overhead door drops grease on my vehicles. This would prevent that and be really clean. I'll have to consider that liftmaster also.

The racedeck.... I am looking at doing this too. I was leaning towards Swisstrax just because they had a Canadian distributor. Where did you buy the Racedeck?

Really great work. Quite inspiring. You really like your pot lights

Glad to know you enjoyed my thread. I am also enjoying following your thread, especially since we have a common passion for wakeboarding boats.

The RaceDeck tiles I ordered from RaceDeck directly. They will ship to Canada, or what I did was have them shipped to the border then I just went down and picked it all up. They have been a fantastic company to deal with.

Lol, yeah the pot lights are kind of a big deal to me and my wife. We both have light sensitive eyes (more so for me), and we just prefer the kind of direct light that pot lights provide without scattering it every where. In my house I have theater dimmer controls on every single light switch so I can have very tight control over how much light is on, and how fast they come on, etc. Its a bit ridiculous, especially when I have to explain to people how to lights on and off in our house, haha.

 

[Gentle_Ben]

Hey Ben - can you take a shot of your racedeck just looking straight down at it?

It seems the darker colors makes the concrete beneath it disappear more.

I have the silver samples - and I cant decide on the FreeFlow or the solid style...

Sure thing. Graphite on the left, and black on the right.

You can see the concrete through any of the colors by looking straight down. If you are on any sort of angle, the concrete disappears completely and the floor appears to be solid.

The free flow was the right choice for me, I can list a few things about it to help your decision along if you are on the fence either way.

If you have a floor drain, with a properly sloped floor the free flow is a no brainer. The free flow looks the best (at least imo). Free flow tiles don't allow any air to get trapped underneath them, which I think helps prevent the hollow sound that some people complain about with this type of flooring.

 

[Gentle_Ben]

Time to address our crappy back yard. Years of neglect, plus one neighbor who doesn't take care of his lawn, plus flood damage, plus construction damage, plus damage from a fire pit that probably burned all kinds of nasty stuff over the years equals a very damaged lawn.

I borrowed a heavy duty rototiller and started breaking up the existing lawn while my wife kindly raked up the majority of grass and weeds as I went along. Tomorrow we are going to hopefully level it all out and prep for the two pallets of sod that are being delivered on Wednesday.

 

[Gentle_Ben]

Adding soil to the low spots, pulling weeds and grass.

Found some instructions online on how to level your yard. Made this thing up out of some junk laying around, worked pretty good I gotta say.

Looking pretty level, not perfect, but way better than it was.

Sod arrived quite late, but it was really nice stuff.

Finished product. Not bad for 2 days of work, $430 in sod (delivered to my backyard), and $100 in topsoil.

 

[HemiRamOn22s]

Turned out nice!

 

[PhantomEB]

My backyard is soon to be ripped up for the 24x26 to go up and I will have to re-sod as well delete the rubber **** the PO put in down the whole 8' wide side yard to re-sod and sure hope mine turns out that good!!!