CAPTAIN_TR1
Member
OK, here's my situation. I live in NJ and have a 25'x25' 2 car (one double door) detached garage in the back corner of my property. I have a concrete driveway that goes straight from the street all the way back to the garage. The concrete isn't as wide as the whole garage, but a bit wider than the door (18 foot I think). It currently has a truss style ceiling which ***** for storage and I cannot put a lift in there. There is 220 electric with a dedicated subpanel out there but no heat or water (no real thoughts on doing that either).
I use the garage to store my race truck and a hot rod, and have several work benches, tool boxes, shelf systems, cabinets, and equipment around the perimeter of all the walls. There isn't much space to really lay anything out and work on larger things (Halloween floats for the kids, house projects, ect). I'd also like to start building another hot rod, so making this a 4 car garage has been on my mind for years now. Furthermore, I do not have a basement in the house and my attic is relatively small for the ranch style house. I'd like to incorporate a loft over top of this garage addition for storage as well.
Basically, I'd like to come forward one car length (20 feet) to make the garage 25'x45' with a loft on top of the front 2 bays. Ideally, I'd like the floor plan to be wide open, but I'm betting I'll need some sort of pole type support somewhere in the middle?
I'm looking for suggestions on how I should attempt to design this? In a perfect world I'd like to put a lift in there as well, but not sure if that's feasible with wanting the loft as well. What height requirements are need for a lift (roughly)?
Thinking about steps to the loft, should they be inside or outside? I'm thinking inside so I won't have to go outside to get upstairs when hunting a spare part.
Will I be able to reuse the current driveway as the garage floor, or will it need to be removed and a new slab poured? I think there is ample room on both sides to set footings/foundation, and possibly just fill in with concrete to fill the void.
As for the current portion of the garage with truss style beam roof. Is it possible to have the contractor somehow remove a portion of the truss and reinforce the area to accommodate a lift in the current original garage?
Do you have any suggestions on what to certainly include or exclude from this building project?
I'd love to hear some feedback!
I use the garage to store my race truck and a hot rod, and have several work benches, tool boxes, shelf systems, cabinets, and equipment around the perimeter of all the walls. There isn't much space to really lay anything out and work on larger things (Halloween floats for the kids, house projects, ect). I'd also like to start building another hot rod, so making this a 4 car garage has been on my mind for years now. Furthermore, I do not have a basement in the house and my attic is relatively small for the ranch style house. I'd like to incorporate a loft over top of this garage addition for storage as well.
Basically, I'd like to come forward one car length (20 feet) to make the garage 25'x45' with a loft on top of the front 2 bays. Ideally, I'd like the floor plan to be wide open, but I'm betting I'll need some sort of pole type support somewhere in the middle?
I'm looking for suggestions on how I should attempt to design this? In a perfect world I'd like to put a lift in there as well, but not sure if that's feasible with wanting the loft as well. What height requirements are need for a lift (roughly)?
Thinking about steps to the loft, should they be inside or outside? I'm thinking inside so I won't have to go outside to get upstairs when hunting a spare part.
Will I be able to reuse the current driveway as the garage floor, or will it need to be removed and a new slab poured? I think there is ample room on both sides to set footings/foundation, and possibly just fill in with concrete to fill the void.
As for the current portion of the garage with truss style beam roof. Is it possible to have the contractor somehow remove a portion of the truss and reinforce the area to accommodate a lift in the current original garage?
Do you have any suggestions on what to certainly include or exclude from this building project?
I'd love to hear some feedback!
