Doors For A 33' Wide.

[Prairiedawg]

Looking for thoughts, comments, and ideas for garage doors on my to be new attached garage and addition. because of the setback, I'm limited to 27.5 ft but my neighbor is graciously going to sell me a 5-6' strip of land so I can possibly get up to 33' wide. If so, the dimensions will be 33w x 50d. No hope of going any wider.

I would like to have a 2 car wide door on the left and another single on the right. Also, around the corner will be a man door to access the patio to the left of the garage. I was thinking an 8' wide door for the right because of space, but wondering if an 18' door on the left will work due to that being the access side for the man door. The garage attaches to the house on the left about 25' in with an interior door and mudroom.

Plans for the garage include 2 daily drivers in and out of the 2 car, a small sports car in and out of the 8' plus lawn tractors, snowblowers, storage etc. 9' would be better but I think I run out of real estate.

With an 18w door, will there be enough access on the left hand side to get back and forth? How much space is comfortably needed? I assume moving BBQ grills, trash cans, etc in and out.

Thoughts and opinions welcome.

TIA
PDawg.

 

[WisJim]

My first thought is that 32 feet wide is more practical than 33 feet because most building materials are more efficient in 4' increments; plywood and other sheet goods are normally 4 feet wide.

 

[ericm]

My first thought is that 32 feet wide is more practical than 33 feet because most building materials are more efficient in 4' increments; plywood and other sheet goods are normally 4 feet wide.

Yea but if you're scraping for size it's worth it. The builder can deal with it.

18' and 8' doors do not leave much wall for stiffening against racking. The builder can do alternate things to get the stiffness with smaller walls but it will raise the cost some. An 8' door is pretty small for cars unless they're tiny.

The 36' wide garage in our old house rarely held more than one car due to motorcycles, bicycles and tools. I think we pulled a small car into the 8' wide door once. It's small. The 18' door is small for two cars unless they're both small too. The left most bay (one side of the 18') became my motorcycle and bicycle storage with tool chests and workbenches on the side and in the back. If you want to park three cars all the time, getting stuff into and out of the back is going to be a challenge. Can you add a door on the back or side? Even a man door? Ours did not have one and that sucked. I had to go in and out through the attached mud room which had an outside door, or open the big garage door.

 

[stripmalldojo]

I have a 24' wide with an 18' door, so my setup is comparable to your plan (without the extra smaller door of course). We park our two daily drivers in it, which are a half ton pickup and a Jeep. We keep the truck sidewall entirely clear, and the jeep sidewall has tool chests and the man door. All the toys (motorcycle, atv, projects, etc) live further back in the building and we move one of the daily's outside to bring the toys out. Same would go for bringing out trash cans or a grill- they generally don't fit between the cars and the door frame. This setup is tighter than ideal, but we make it work. Our width was also constrained by property size. Given the building width, I'm definitely happy we went with 18' and not two 9' doors.

I also seem to recall that stepping up to wider doors started to get a lot more expensive, but it's been a few years and ymmv.

 

[Prairiedawg]

Here is plan before the additional 5'. It was at 27.5' I think I can get the additional 5.5 and will be progressing accordingly.

There is both an overhead and man door opposite the overheads. The old plan shows just the 18 but I am hoping to keep uit and add the 8. I would hate to have to go down to a 16. That's what I have now and it's tight. Current garage is 36x24 with 1 16 and a 9'. When that comes down, we will have to make the width less to conform with current zoning and meet the absurd 25' setback that the city refuses to budge on. The current garage (unattached) got a variance about 50 years ago but will have to meet zoning codes if rebuilt.

The plan is to also have a slop sink along the interior wall somewhere and at least 1 floor drain by the overhead door. 12 foot ceiling, 10' overhead door.

I plan on parking a small sports car at the 2nd bay in the summer and or use it to get things in and out without moving the other two vehicles. Those are currently two Toyota SUV's

 

[PCustoms]

Here is plan before the additional 5'. It was at 27.5' I think I can get the additional 5.5 and will be progressing accordingly.

There is both an overhead and man door opposite the overheads. The old plan shows just the 18 but I am hoping to keep uit and add the 8. I would hate to have to go down to a 16. That's what I have now and it's tight. Current garage is 36x24 with 1 16 and a 9'. When that comes down, we will have to make the width less to conform with current zoning and meet the absurd 25' setback that the city refuses to budge on. The current garage (unattached) got a variance about 50 years ago but will have to meet zoning codes if rebuilt.

The plan is to also have a slop sink along the interior wall somewhere and at least 1 floor drain by the overhead door. 12 foot ceiling, 10' overhead door.

I plan on parking a small sports car at the 2nd bay in the summer and or use it to get things in and out without moving the other two vehicles. Those are currently two Toyota SUV's

Is your setback to the walls, or the eve?

 

[Prairiedawg]

The setback is to the walls, thank God.

 

[ericm]

Oh, garage doors on both ends. That's much better than both on one side. I recommend upsizing the 8' wide door to 10' if you plan on driving cars though it. Also make the man door 36". Then you can get more stuff through it and not have to open a garage door and squeeze past cars.

 

[u2slow]

With 50' depth, why the need to get 3 vehicles side by side? It won't work with a lift, poor working room, and limits the use of the adjacent walls.

18' and 8' doors do not leave much wall for stiffening against racking. The builder can do alternate things to get the stiffness with smaller walls but it will raise the cost some.

I had to delete the man-door from the wall with the OH for this reason. There was no reasonable alternate way for my building.

 

[ericm]

With 50' depth, why the need to get 3 vehicles side by side? It won't work with a lift, poor working room, and limits the use of the adjacent walls.

The original post sounded to me like the "right" and "left" car doors were all on one side of the building. Instead as shown in a later post, they're on opposite ends which is totally different. For that I'd do three car doors instead of two so the two cars aren't crowded together. But it really depends on what the OP wants to do with the space and the cars in it.

 

[Prairiedawg]

That was/is an earlier plan. It's only 27' wide. I can now go 33'. I'm looking at the feasibility to add a 2nd overhead door to the 18' side with the driveway. The opposite side with the 8' door goes to the back yard.

I am looking at addind the 2nd door to be able to move things in and out without moving the cars parked there. I was planning on adding a lift probably close to the backyard overhead door in the interior.

I'm completely open to comments, suggestions or critiques

 

[ericm]

What helped me was to "build" the shop in sketchup then fill it with equipment. Sketchup is neat in that there's libraries of existing stuff (cars, trucks, lifts, workbenches, milling machine, etc) that you can import and use. That way you know they're the right scale. Then you still need to imagine the space you'll use but you can make educated guesses by measuring the space you take up in your existing work areas or even in the kitchen. A kitchen counter is basically a workbench for food.

Another way is to use graph paper with small squares and make each square a foot or 6" on a side or whatever. Then cut out shapes to represent objects in the shop. The paper method lets you move stuff around faster than can be done in CAD, at least for a CAD novice like me.

 

[tomshep]

When I did my garage I used garden hoses, extension cords, cones, buckets, all kinds of **** and laid it all out in the yard and physically pulled vehicles into the space and looked around. My wife thought I was crazy. Meh.

From your comments, the back garage door would be 10'. Make sure on where you decide to place it and what you want going on BOTH sides of the door. For me, I have a 10' door in the back of my shop. I poured a slab on the back side and that is where I do some outside work and also added a storage shed. I'm glad I didn't go 8'.

Go 36" on the man doors. I don't understand why you deleted the front man door. You will need it.

As far as the 18' +8' on the front side. That is probably the safest way. The 8' door is a compromise but will give additional access. That only leaves 7' for the center and each side. That's not a lot for supporting the end. Talk to your builder. See if they are confident they can frame it to support a 9' door + the 18'. And then give it the gut test to see if you think you will have issues 10 years down the road and the builder won't answer your calls.

Tom

 

[Prairiedawg]

I don't follow about deleting the man doors. There's a man door on the side, around the corner from the overhead doors. I think a 32" will be sufficient because anything larger can use the overhead door if needed. I'm open to being convinced a 36" is advisable. I've already talked to the builder about a 36" door to the basement though. Keep in mind these are preliminary plans and are a work in progress. The width says 27-1/2 and we're looking to go to 33'. Now questioning if the wall can take the load with both openings. Construction will be 2x6 walls and a Dutch hipped roof with 30" eaves to stay congruent with the existing house.

I'm more concerned if having the 18' overhead door on the side of the man door and having a car parked there will give enough access from the man door to the interior access door. That space will be where trash will be brought out, BBQ grills rolled past, and daily comings and goings.

As much as a 9' door would be preferred, I don't think there's enough real estate for that. Though which would be better, 18' plus an 8' or 16' with a 9'?

Planning on having 10' high doors.

 

[FJ 432]

Learn from my mistake, build as big and as high as you can, go 33.

 

[ericm]

I don't follow about deleting the man doors.

If you don't have enough wall, the building can rack sideways without additional support. That support can raise the cost. (it's in the building code but I forget the details and code in your area may be different). It's hard to fit all the garage doors and a man door and enough wall all on one side of the building. If you can have some doors on another wall it's easier, or not an issue at all.

Adding doors on the gable end is not much of an issue structurally. Adding them on the sides takes a bit more work but it's not bad. Putting four 12' wide doors on a non gable side added a few percent to the cost of my 40x80 pole barn type shop. Mostly it needs thicker headers, and for a pole barn, a few additional poles.

Are you trying to put all the car doors on one side, or are you putting one on the other side like in the drawing? I think a 16' wide door is going to be pretty tight for two cars unless they're tiny. A 9' door will **** a little less than a 8' door. The answer really depends on your usage. If you want to pull daily drivers in and out of all three then that's different than putting two daily drivers and a shop space or moving small equipment like lawn mowers in and out.

The suggestion to lay out "garages" on the driveway is a good one. I did that too. 8' bays are tight!

Can you add a shed space on one side to store things like trash cans and lawn mowers?

 

[Prairiedawg]

If you don't have enough wall, the building can rack sideways without additional support. That support can raise the cost. (it's in the building code but I forget the details and code in your area may be different). It's hard to fit all the garage doors and a man door and enough wall all on one side of the building. If you can have some doors on another wall it's easier, or not an issue at all.

Adding doors on the gable end is not much of an issue structurally. Adding them on the sides takes a bit more work but it's not bad. Putting four 12' wide doors on a non gable side added a few percent to the cost of my 40x80 pole barn type shop. Mostly it needs thicker headers, and for a pole barn, a few additional poles.

Are you trying to put all the car doors on one side, or are you putting one on the other side like in the drawing? I think a 16' wide door is going to be pretty tight for two cars unless they're tiny. A 9' door will **** a little less than a 8' door. The answer really depends on your usage. If you want to pull daily drivers in and out of all three then that's different than putting two daily drivers and a shop space or moving small equipment like lawn mowers in and out.

The suggestion to lay out "garages" on the driveway is a good one. I did that too. 8' bays are tight!

Can you add a shed space on one side to store things like trash cans and lawn mowers?

The 2 (hopefully 18 and 8) will be on the gable end. Another, either 8 or 10 will be on the opposite gable end along with a man door. Those are the 33' lengths. another man door will be located around the corner from the 8 and 18 door side on the 50' wall side that attaches to the house. There will only be 2 doors total on each gable end whether overhead or man doors.

The car overhead doors will be on one side (18,8). The opposite overhead door opens to the back yard. The 18' is for daily drivers, the 8' next to it is to occasionally move a car in and out but mostly for access for lawn tractor, snowblower etc. I was planning on putting a storage lift behind the 8' door, about 25' in.

 

[finn]

Try to keep grills, mowers, etc out of the garage. Commingling that **** with real garage tools, equipment, and vehicles doesn’t work.

If you can’t build a small shed for that ****, consider a roll up side door or door on the rear to assess it. That way you don’t have to wiggle past it.

 

[JuncleJohn]

Just a thought, can you have the walk in door open out instead of in? Not typical, but might be a solution if building code allows.

John

 

[Prairiedawg]

Going over lot lines and building plans again, it looks like I might be able to squeeze another foot up to 34' wide. I'm not sure if that makes any difference?

 

[JuncleJohn]

Absolutely, every little bit helps.

John

 

[Prairiedawg]

Looking for more guidance here. I was able to purchase 5' of my neighbors property to expand the width. The plan here shows 34'w x 50L in the front. I can actually get to 34-1/2'w and will be doing that. I would like to go with an 18' and a 9'w door if possible. Do any of you think this would be unmanageable?

TIA

 

[JuncleJohn]

After going back to the beginning, I see your existing garage is 36x24. If it’s already 36’ wide due to a zoning allowance many years ago what about the idea of building and addition to the rear 32 or 34 feet wide by 26’ deep? That will give you two more feet in front for your garage doors?

Unless I am mistaken and your existing is only 24’ wide.

John

 

[ipgenie]

If I had to choose 8 or 9 ft door, I'd pay the extra for the 9. Friends of mine with an 8' door have torn off several side view mirrors over the years. Maybe not enough to pay the difference if engineering costs are more, but the agrivation and inconvenience is worth more than the difference.

 

[Prairiedawg]

After going back to the beginning, I see your existing garage is 36x24. If it’s already 36’ wide due to a zoning allowance many years ago what about the idea of building and addition to the rear 32 or 34 feet wide by 26’ deep? That will give you two more feet in front for your garage doors?

Unless I am mistaken and your existing is only 24’ wide.

John

Yes , the garage is 36w x 24d. Because of the zoning laws, this has to be a teardown. Couple of issues here.

First, we have a 25' setback from the rear of the property. The existing garage is closer than that. It was given a variance in 1972 when they added a 3rd bay to the existing 2 car garage. The plan is to build the garage and a home addition to the existing home structure. The village will NOT allow a new structure past the setback, especially if it now becomes part of the home. The existing garage is unattached. In order to get the 34' width, I had to purchase 5' of my rear neighbors property, which they gracefully have agreed to.

Second, To build the garage that large, it MUST be attached to the house and be part of the structure. Besides wanting an attached garage, the village mandates garages and outbuildings cannot be larger or taller than the house. It will be 18" taller. I can, space permitting build it as large as I want, so long as it's attached. Silly, but that what we have to deal with. The lady that runs the zoning office has been compared to Atilla the Hun and Stalin by some of the builders I spoken with.

 

[bowtie327]

8’ door width is tight. But in this case, moving to a 9’ door takes away another foot from your wall. And as Ericm pointed out, racking is a real concern with large openings and minimal structural wall support.

A 16” wall section in my area is considered the minimum. Its not just sheer, getting 2 concrete anchors (needed as a single anchor has no resistance for twisting) into anthing less is difficult.

What state do you live in?

Have you thought about using a single 20’ or 22’ garage door rather than an 18’ and an 8/9’?

 

[Prairiedawg]

I'm in Wisconsin.

I think if i had to choose, I'd rather go down to a 16' door than up to a 22. I have a 16' and a 9' on the existing 36'w garage now. It's a little tight parking 2 SUV's next to each other now and it's what I was trying to avoid. I'm trying to duplicate close to what I have but deeper and a wider door for the SUV's.

 

[JuncleJohn]

Too Bad there’s no way to save the 36x24’ existing garage. I agree with the others that an 8 foot wide door is too tight except for mowers, snow blowers etc.

Maybe consider a smaller 5 or 6 foot wide (swing type) door/doors for the lawn equipment. I was thinking a 36” door with an additional 24 or 36” that will open after releasing a latch. The other door would open the other way to give you a 5 to 6 foot wide opening.

Then going with a 20 or 22’ wide door as previously mentioned.

Just a thought.

John

 

[CraigStu]

Your builder will be able to tell you if the 2 doors will work. Building code is the problem. There are some ways to get by code legally. My SIL built a 2car w/ 2 doors on the gable end. I don't remember the exact #s but his initial drawing didn't allow enough wall to the outside of the doors are between them. The solution was to run the garage door headers all the way to the corner. And there were specifics about how the corner would be constructed and what fasteners would be used.

 

[ericm]

Some of the methods to address lack of wall stiffness are pretty simple, like adding sheathing on the inside. I looked up the codes for this once and they go on for pages. But it will depend on what your local building dept says, so its best to bring it up with who ever is designing or building your building. If that's you then ask the building dept.

 

[Carchie]

Hopefully you haven't framed this out yet. Doing 18' and 8' doors in a 33' total width leaves you with just 7' for all three structural framing posts. That is incredibly tight, and standard overhead door tracks will force you to park close to the walls, killing your walkway.

 

[Sumboodie]

My place is 30ft wide.

Currently has 2 10ft wide doors and they are about useless. Can't even pull a truck in without folding mirrors.

I priced out an 18ft and 20ft. 13ft tall. (I have only a 14ft ceiling)was almost $20,000 with opener so that's been on hold.

Figure door width plus a few feet each side for truck doors, walking around. Plus take a good 3 feet off the wall width for stuff.

So 30ft is more like 24ft.

20ft wide door allows a truck in the middle of the shop and ~7ft on each side.

Course all depends what you work on. If the biggest thing you own is a mini Cooper, an 8ft wide door would be like passing a hotdog in a hallway.

 

[Sumboodie]

Also someone agrued about small foor let's less heat out.

True, but it's not like the door is open and closed all day like in a warehouse. And even when it is, it's closed fairly quickly if it's cold out.