Dr V's Garage Build

[vinculum]

I've always wanted to do a build thread, as I've learned so much from others. I finally decided to do some pic upload tests and decided to start. This building was built in July 2006 and I'm currently on the floors & far wall. But I'll post pics in chronological order ever so often until I catch up in realtime. Hopefully I'll get some helpful comments for future work and be of help to others.

Intro :

I'm a muscle car guy from the 80's (Yeah i know it started WAY before then!) Somehow I've managed to keep my first car. A '78 Camaro Rally Sport which I've converted into a prostreet car. You can see some older pics of the car here (need to update that too! argh!) I also have a '99 Dakota, '99 Durango, '87 Fiero GT, '05 Jetta TDI of which 2 need to be in this building. I have a small 2 car garage attached to the house for everyday driving vehicles, so the big garage will be for storage and work on vehicles, plus lawn care & gardening equipment (tractor & wagon, mower, snowblower, chipper, powerwasher, ect.) I also plan on having it be a place car guys can hang out and relax. That means a fridge, seating, internet, sound system, security, ect. Now onto the building....

I decided to build as large as I practically could. a 60x40 pole building seemed like it would meet my needs. Here is the first pic before anything was touched. Guess where the perfect spot for the building will be ??



More to come... alteast I got this started!

Dr V

 

[vinculum]

A nice red maple tree, too bad it was in the way. I promised to replant its offspring next year. Waste not want not, the tree is now firewood and chips for mulch!



Dirt is flyin' ... The pile to the right is all topsoil, which will be placed back on top after the building is up. All the dirt was reused and graded into my yard.



Here's the finished pad, ready for the builders to do their thing. The pile of rocks in the rear is for a seepage pit. Anything over 500 sq ft in my township requires a stormwater managment plan. Downspouts in the rear will dump into a lined hole and filled with rocks.

 

[PAToyota]

Looks like a good start and welcome to the board! There is a growing number of us from the area on the board!

 

[sharpshooter]

More pics, More pics, More pics

 

[vinculum]

Anybody down there? The business end of the seepage pit. A cement manhole cover tops this part so it can be cleaned out of needed.



Supplies arrive.. The posts are glulams, 3 2x6's glued together. Bottoms are pressure treated individually for better penetration and laminated together.



These are the cement "pills" that sit in the bottom of the post hole. The posts sit on top of these and the hole is then filled with dirt. If the hole was filled with cement, as many people think it might, the cement would make a nice cup for water and rot the posts. There are 2 "pills" in the bottom of each hole. They used to use just 1, but a new regulation says they must use 2 now.



Posts are up!



I failed to mention earlier that this is a 12ft. ceiling. I considered a 16ft. ceiling with a loft, but I had to save a few bucks and since my house is a rancher, I didn't want a monstrous looking building looming over the house too much.

Hope you guys enjoy the pics. Its a beautiful day outside, I need to get back to work on the garage! I'll post more later this week. Glad to see there are some locals on the board. Its interesting to see what others in the area are doing with the garages and in them! I belong to many different forums for my hobbies, never thought there would be one for garage enthusiasts! Till next time...

Dr V

 

[DaveL.]

Welcome Dr.V...keep us up to speed on your build.

 

[MyDomain]

Sounds like a local garage fellowship may be in order! One night a week we could meet to discuss upgrades, check out our toys and just simply relate. Oh, not to mention

My neighbor has a Mon nite football gathering I look forward to every week. When you're married with young kids it gets tough to hang out with the guys as much as we all would like to.

 

[JMURiz]

These are the cement "pills" that sit in the bottom of the post hole. The posts sit on top of these and the hole is then filled with dirt. If the hole was filled with cement, as many people think it might, the cement would make a nice cup for water and rot the posts. There are 2 "pills" in the bottom of each hole. They used to use just 1, but a new regulation says they must use 2 now.

Never thought of that, I guess you could always use the 'pills' for deck construction, right?

 

[keperkey]

Can someone offer a suggestion as to why I can only see a couple of the pictures.

 

[PAToyota]

Sounds like a local garage fellowship may be in order! One night a week we could meet...

Wouldn't be adverse to a gathering every now and then! But I'm lucky to get out to the shop a night or two a week as it is! Just too many things going on...

 

[vinculum]

Wouldn't be adverse to a gathering every now and then! But I'm lucky to get out to the shop a night or two a week as it is! Just too many things going on...

Sounds like a good idea. I need to get things in order first. I don't even have electric ran yet! I currently rent a garage and told the landlord that I hoped to be out by dec 1st. Its looking bleak, now today he told me that he has a new guy moving in on the first.. ugh! I gotta light a fire under my **** and get moving. I need to seal the floor, thats whats holding me up. Plus the fact I'm always working my job doesn't give me much spare time. MORE COFFEE!

 

[JoeKramer]

Looks good so far!

Are you building it yourself or did you pay a co. to do it?

I myself am looking for property to build a garage on. I would love to do the size that your doing. Currently I have a 30' X 48' garage.

 

[6567GTO]

Can someone offer a suggestion as to why I can only see a couple of the pictures.

If you can see a couple you should see them all. Try reloading the page and see if they show. :tard:

 

[vinculum]

Looks good so far!

Are you building it yourself or did you pay a co. to do it?

I myself am looking for property to build a garage on. I would love to do the size that your doing. Currently I have a 30' X 48' garage.

I had a local pole building company do it. It took them about 3 days. Had a local company insulate for the price of materials at Lowes/HD. Saved me some long itchy hours. I'm finishing the inside walls/electrical and the rest. Getting ready to do seal the floor right now. Just decided on today to use a colored methyl methacrylate sealer from Scofield as recommended by the local concrete gurus. A 30x48 is a nice size too. You are probably better off than most! I'm coming from a 24x24. Started out with a small storage unit, not much longer than my car. I was luck enough to get one next to an outlet outside, so I rolled up the door and plugged in my extension cord for "main" power strip. Any medium sized load would pop the breaker and you had to wait for maintenance to reset it. Hehehehe... those were the days eh? I have about an acre and a half now. Big enough to build my garage, have future landscaping. Like trees, plantings, woodpile, composte pile, gardens, ponds, ect. But not more than I need as to keep taxes low.

More pix...

Perlin time....





From the right side. Placed an entry door 1/3rd of the way (20ft) up the 60ft side in case I put a car there, then door wont open right into the side of it.

A window at the 2/3rd position, window at the center of back 40' wall, and the at the 2/3rd position on the left hand wall. 2 of the windows dont really see much view, but I'll probably stick 2 big wall ac units out those windows. I used them in the house before I had central AC and always planned on reusing them, so they are only a season old. Here the tax would be more if i had a dedicated installed AC system. Windows are cheaper in the long run!
This is the wrong window they said was delivered by accident. It was the wrong size. Mine look the same, only they are 4x3s.




Enjoying some Blue Moon after a hard days work!

Dr V

 

[keperkey]

Tried that a number of times and it does not help.

 

[vinculum]

Unfortunately when i arrived home the one day, they installed the trusses and most of the outside skins already, so I didn't get any pictures of that process.

The outside skins are an off "white" color with just a hint of brown. We thought it matched the color of the house the closest when looking at the color card they gave us. However when they put it up, it looked much lighter. Had we known that, we would have gone a shade darker. We wished they had given us a small piece of an actual panel to place near the house and look at it. Tip from my experience, Ask for a piece of material if you have some close color choices to make!! The paper color cards are deceptive. The trim is then "bright white" and the roof is "charcoal grey". This matched the house really nice.

Here's the structure after they finished. 4" of stone on the inside.





The trusses are on 4' centers, which turned out to be a pain in the *** when planning insulation, but all went well in the end as you shall see.

Its kinda deceiving when looking at these pictures. The garage proportionally looks like a 2 car garage, but to keep things in perspective you must remember that the garage door openings are 16x10 each.

Dr V

 

[ersatzs2]

Its kinda deceiving when looking at these pictures. The garage proportionally looks like a 2 car garage, but to keep things in perspective you must remember that the garage door openings are 16x10 each.

I envy you guys with rural locations. You can build on a grand scale! This looks like it's gonna be great.