Above 1200 Sq/FT 40x42 Basement Garage

[oltruckag]

After 3 years of planning, false starts, finding a reputable GC and getting approval from the county health department I'm finally getting started on my garage. If you were to ask the financial and planning committee (my mom and my wife) we're adding on an in-law suite and some bedrooms and a garage below it but I know my audience.

The initial plan was to build a 40x80 barndominium with an apartment for my mom however it proved easier to add on to the existing structure than to get an auxiliary apartment with giant garage approved with the county. I'm not going to have the same amount of space as I would with an independent structure, but this will be significantly more convenient. A pole barn for the tractor, mower and trailers is in the plan as well, but it will be just a structure to keep the sun and rain off of them.

I've got a great GC on board, he's handing structure, electrical & plumbing. My company is doing the mechanical and low voltage work.

The plan:
40x42x14 Basement garage, slab will be ~6' below current basement grade
- Final height was determined by the amount of digging required to get to undisturbed soil
- 6" slab w/5000psi concrete
- basement is my office and 'clean bench' area
2 Floors above - aligned with the existing floors, 1st floor for mom, 2nd floor for the kids
Lean to for the camper next to the garage
Remove archway from the front of the house, build new front porch
- Archway is 6"+ inches off center; the guy who originally built this house was a hack
- Archway was suspected to be settling, after removing some dirt it's obvious why. It was built on fill, likely as an afterthought. If it doesn't collapse during construction I'll be surprised.

The new construction portion has to be a few feet off of the existing foundation to avoid disturbing the footers, so I get a bit of a transition area where the floors change height and what I'm going to call 'workbench space' next to where I think I want the lift.

Current status:
Earthwork for foundation work is complete. Based on the amount of soil removed to get to undisturbed soil for the footers the exterior foundation wall is almost 12' high and at least 6' will be buried.
Footers are poured
Walls are poured, waiting for them to cure
Waterproofing as soon as the rain stops long enough (some yesterday, 3"+ today, more tomorrow, unusual for the Atlanta area)

I've attached some photos up to current, and a layout of the garage. I'll be updating this thread as work progresses, I'm hoping to be dried in before the end of the year, and substantially complete by spring. Knowing construction that means we may be done by September 2022

 

[Swanny1953]

Good start - subscribed to follow along!

 

[TiFJ]

Wow, big project! Hop all goes smoothly!!

 

[isonic]

This looks awesome. Following along!

 

[Clemson13]

Update?

 

[Clemson13]

Any updates?

 

[oltruckag]

Updates - quite a bit has happened since the end of September when the foundation walls were poured.

Concrete work:
The front porch footer wall was poured at the beginning of October and I put in footer drains (and temporary gutter drains). I have to admit, I'm not sure how the front is going to settle out. GC has a vision, and has done some great work on other projects, so I trust his plan. Somehow, we are adding a porch roof and making the whole addition flow like it was 'always here'. We shall see...




And the foundation and driveway were backfilled (180 dumptrucks later). The dirt was compacted as it went into the foundation to mitigate settling.





October 18th - foundation was formed up and steel was laid out.



October 19th - Concrete

Slab specs:
4000psi w/mesh, 5.5-6"
#4 rebar in the slab and support column footers 2x 5'x5'x2'
#6 on 12" centers in the first bay for a two post lift.
Saw cuts done in the first 24 hours - 2 front to back, 3 side to side

 

[oltruckag]

Steel Work:

I had an engineer spec the support beams and columns to hold up the house getting built on top of the garage. I really wanted clear span 40', but the numbers just didn't work out. To do a full clear 40 front to back the engineer wanted 30" tall H beams, to the tune of $10k each (not delivered) so intermediate posts were suggested. For better or worse, I decided to push the columns back 25' from the front of the garage, the thought being that exactly centered they would be 'in the way'. Now that they are installed I'm pretty sure I made the correct decision, but I won't really know until I put up the two post and move in.

The final height of the garage was dictated by the amount of digging we had to do to hit undisturbed soil. I think the existing house was built on the highest point of the lot and all of the dirt around it was pushed up fill. Final slab height ended up 68" below the existing basement floor, and the new beams put the floor system for the first floor level with the existing house. So the ceiling is at 14'6", and clear below the beams is 13'2". Plenty of ceiling height for the lift and future mezzanine in the back.

After the engineer sized the beams I thought long and hard about fabricating the columns and installing the steel myself. After putting pencil to paper and working the shop time required, the additional help I'd need on site and trying to get the work completed in one weekend I decided to get my GC to farm out the work. After watching it go up, I'm glad I decided to have someone do it. I have no concerns that I couldn't have done it, but I think it would have been at least 2~3 days at the pace I work. (measure 37 times, cut once)

November 30th - 10,000lbs of steel arrives:

W16x67 40' beams and 5x5 support columns


The erector brought in a 40ton crane - overkill for this job but a boom truck might not have had the reach needed. Brand new truck (~2 months old) with wireless outrigger control. Pretty cool to watch the hydraulics operate themselves. (don't mind the footers that appeared to the right for the front retaining walls - that part of the project is on hold pending permitting; when I'm less annoyed with the county I'll get into that story)




The guys made fast work of getting the columns setup and anchored once the correct anchors arrived. Steel shop put 5/8x5", supply house sent 3/4x5" - not enough clearance in the flange holes.



And beams set:



I knew it was going to be tall, and usually have a pretty good vision of how something is going to work out, but it's TALL in person. If I put tall enough roll up doors in we could park a 40ton crane inside.

The lumber package should arrive in the next week or two, so it's definitely going to take shape quick. I need to get some primer/paint at least on top of the beams before the lumber arrives. I haven't decided what color I'm going to paint them yet. Walls will be light grey, white ceiling and I'm not sure what I'm doing with the concrete foundation walls color wise.

I think I'm going to go with RLM warehouse style fixtures in the space for a retro/industrial feel (43 fixtures) so I think I can actually get away with a contrasting color (yellow, red, blue?). I'm open to suggestions, lots of potential in this space.

 

[Klokwerk]

I like where this is going....please keep the updates coming!

 

[oltruckag]

Small update - Painted the beams (and a couple of columns) this weekend in preparation for the framers. No photos of that, I was working by myself, but the single man lift was indispensable. Rolled on a coat of rustoleum rusty metal primer (for better or worse, not many options for steel primers on short notice). I'll paint the remaining columns this weekend. I'm pretty happy with it for a primer coat, I'll put on a final coat of either matte black or smoke gray once it gets dried in.

Framers are supposed to be here tomorrow.




The first lumber delivery was today (sorry for the wyze screenshot, it was dark when I got home). The stack looks small for what is coming next, hopefully a couple more trucks will arrive tomorrow.

 

[oltruckag]

Framing - after a week delay the framers are making excellent progress. This is 2 days of work, it was too dark last night when I got home to take photos, so we start with the work they completed yesterday:




And when I got home this evening, they were nailing on floor decking above and cleaning up.




I swear it's grown 5' higher now that its framed.



Totally have room for a storage mezzanine above the back of the garage. I'm debating welding brackets on to the support posts to run beams to build a mezzanine on.

Getting close to making lighting decisions; I'm seriously considering doing a grid of barn lights with high wattage led bulbs. Or just boring T8 strip fixtures with led tubes. (North Carolina Transporation Museum lighting for inspiration)



Moving fast now, the trick is to finish building before running out of budget now.

 

[Spacep0d]

That's looking great!

 

[NickH]

Getting close to making lighting decisions; I'm seriously considering doing a grid of barn lights with high wattage led bulbs. Or just boring T8 strip fixtures with led tubes. (North Carolina Transporation Museum lighting for inspiration)



Moving fast now, the trick is to finish building before running out of budget now.

I love the idea of the barn lights! I think the bulbs have come far enough now that if you put in enough fixtures, you'll have plenty of light.

 

[Motoman1100]

This place looks great, thanks for sharing the journey. Subbing for the ride.

 

[Motoman1100]

Somehow, we are adding a porch roof and making the whole addition flow like it was 'always here'. We shall see...

Man the only way I can see adding a roof to that porch is bringing the arched window above the door all the way forward flush with the "pillars". Trying to waterproof a roof around the corners below the window would be a real challenge.

 

[oltruckag]

Man the only way I can see adding a roof to that porch is bringing the arched window above the door all the way forward flush with the "pillars". Trying to waterproof a roof around the corners below the window would be a real challenge.

I think we are basically going to end up doing just that - blowing out the existing window/wall out to the archway front. This is a bit of field engineering/design that I'll work out with my GC. He's done some pretty creative projects, adding 2nd floors to existing homes, etc. so I trust his vision.

 

[oltruckag]

Update, albeit not really garage related. The 1st & 2nd floor walls are up and they've started on the roof framing. Rain delay (most of this week) until tuesday/wednesday of next year. We've been fortunate to not have been bothered by some of the severe weather that blew thru earlier this week, the project is a a bit of a risky stage for high winds and lots of rain. 70 degrees in December in GA is not something I'm used to.



I'm doing the mechanical and low voltage wiring for the project, so I'll document that here as well. As soon as they get it dried in I'll have one of our crews putting in ductwork for a multizone HVAC system for the living spaces and I'm laying out distributed audio and network/coax to all of the locations I think we need it. I know Wifi is pretty powerful now, but I like a hardwire connection to media devices if I can get it.

As for distributed/whole house audio I'm going with a DIY multiroom setup with an Alexa Echo Dot located in the ceiling of each zone. Echo Dot Ceiling Kit. I've always wanted a home automation system that was voice activated, and have run some basic systems in the past (like 15 years ago) and while I HATE that amazon is listening to everything, its just a powerful little system combined with IFTTT. I figure my phone is already listening, and google is collecting my internet habits I don't think there's anything left to hide.

The attic will be sprayfoam to the roof deck, so I'm going to pull all of the data/speaker cables up to a central location in the attic for a rack. The space should stay within 10-15 degrees of the conditoned space, so I'm anticipating a reasonably decent place to keep the amps, switches and patch panel.

 

[loganb]

Awesome update setting the walls up and roof framing started really changes the perspective of the size!

 

[tjmonsen5]

Wow, interested to see the progress of this one!

 

[Pluribus]

Definitely some site and integration challenges here! It's interesting to see the solutions.

That "footing" in front reminded me of my visit to the Hoover Dam.