first house, first garage: an intro and questions

[tpwalsh]

My wife and I are closing on our first house at the end of the month, and I'm looking for ways to "improve" the garage. It's a basement drive out garage about 1100 sq ft in size, but with a low ceiling ~7-7.5feet tall. It's two bays, one 23x 14.5 and the other 55x14.5 The very first thing on the list is lights. The current plan is about 10 8ft florescent fixtures, or 20 4ft fixtures. The next piece is humidity and vapor control, which I'm not really sure about. Anyone here ever dealt with a basement garages and humidity and vapor control?

 

[JMURiz]

Wow, that's a serious space!
I'd also look into insulating the rafters and installing a drop ceiling.
For the lights you could also do recessed fluorescent lights with the drop ceiling surround...but whatever floats your boat on looks.

Insulating a basement area brings up some challenges, please see the link below and read up (basically use foam boards and not f'glass bats of any kind.

http://www.buildingscienceconsulting.com/resources/foundations/Basement_Insulation_Systems-2002.pdf

 

[tpwalsh]

Thanks for the link.

The ceiling is already insulated with fiberglass bats between the floor joists but that's it. I'm not too worried about insulating the basement since I'm in NC and our weather is relatively mild, but it's on the list of to be thinking about for the future. I'm mostly worried about lighting and humidity rusting cars and tools at this point.

 

[Charley varrick]

You should check out 89Vert's garage,as I believe his is in a basement and it's spectacular.

 

[bluesman2a]

I would recommend the 4' fixtures, if for nothing else the tubes are easier to store, work with, and transport. I took some 8'ers out of my garage when I bought it, and changed to the t-8 4'ers, I like them much better.

 

[mhoffm911]

You can run a dehumidifier attached to a garden hose ran outside (or into a drain if you have one close).

Be sure the electrical panel will support the extra draw you are going to put on it for all of the lighting. It may be of benefit to put in an additional circuit if you are going to put as many in as you want. Same thing goes for air compressors and any other higher powered items.

A drop ceiling would definitely clean the place up, but I would be concerned about the loss in height since it is already somewhat low. I think I would be looking more into spraying everything white with paint to clean it up and brighten it.

 

[rickairmedic]

You can run a dehumidifier attached to a garden hose ran outside (or into a drain if you have one close).

Be sure the electrical panel will support the extra draw you are going to put on it for all of the lighting. It may be of benefit to put in an additional circuit if you are going to put as many in as you want. Same thing goes for air compressors and any other higher powered items.

A drop ceiling would definitely clean the place up, but I would be concerned about the loss in height since it is already somewhat low. I think I would be looking more into spraying everything white with paint to clean it up and brighten it.

I agree with spraying the ceiling white that is actually a new trend in basements rather than finish the ceiling peaple are just painting them flat black so everything just kinda dissapears into the abiss in a shop I would go with white though and you can never have too much light LOL . My other half comes out to the garage all the time and complains she is going blind out there due to the light differance between the shop and the house lol .

Rick

 

[SC-Eric]

First, CONGRATULATIONS on becoming a homeowner! I bought my first house in Morganton, NC and had 1700ft2 basement that was about just like yours.

I like the idea about the 4 ft fixtures vs. the 8 ft... There are even some now that are 8 ft fixtures but they use 4 - 4ft bulbs. There are bulbs that use less energy that are also 'cold starting' that seem to do well in that environment.

I also think it's a good idea to spray the ceiling white. If you are going to do that, just go with about 3 coats of a cheap acrylic latex 'dry fall'. Don't buy it from the Evil Empire (SW). Go somewhere like Porter Paints.

Coating the walls will also help if you use a good barrier coating that can take the hydrostatic pressure... especially where the dirt is against the wall.

Last, if you want to maximize the light... coat the floor! I'd recommend an Ultra Light Gray...

Good Luck! And, again... Congratulations!

 

[tpwalsh]

Since I seem to be spending more time here, I might as well update this thread. It's been very much a work space so functionality is paramount.
Since I've moved in 4 years ago, I've put up 7 4' T36 lights, painted the cinder block wall, put up the cabinets that came with the house, put up pegboard behind my tool boxes, insulated the garage doors and replaced the old Zinsco/fusepanel with a modern indoor breaker box.

I keep thinking about coating the floor but I've come to the conclusion that coated floors aren't for me. Too many spilled fluids and scraping parts/jackstands.

There doesn't seem to be a huge number of basement garages here so I might as well put down my thoughts on the space. So far it's been great 95% of the time. My current complains is that there isn't any good for storage. As you can see there's wayy to much **** just floating around that doesn't have a good home. Most of this stuff would go into an attic space but I don't have that. Secondly there's zero room for a lift. 7.5' ceilings can make things like engine removal/installation interesting, even on something low like a miata, not to mention that there's no way to build "up".

On the plus side the $/sqft is pretty ridiculous and the unheated uncooled space stays between 55 and 75 all year long no matter if it's 0 or 100 outside.

I'm looking to do a wiring up grade sometime in 2012 since currently I have only 15 amps to work with and now have the extra breaker box capacity to support the extra wiring. I'm just now sure what the best place to place the outlets at. The ceiling seems to be the natural spot, but drop cords don't really work well up there since they tend to pull out on there own. Mostly I need the outlets along the cinder block wall since that "lane" is where 99% of my work is done. Any thoughts?

 

[camarotoolman]

Use metal conduit and boxes coming down from the ceiling screwed to the walls. I have 4 and 6 outlets per box, one from each power tool. 12-2 wire is code here.