Garage construction costs

[Dan Siegel]

Hello,

I'm reposting this {here} because I initially posted this at the new member forum. Sorry for the repetiton. Here goes {again}.....

Hello,

I'm in the planning stage of building a detached garage on my property. I am submitting plans to my building dept, etc etc. What a Royal PITA.


I found this set of plans online and my contractor said he could build it.

http://www.familyhomeplans.com/plan_...mage-slideshow

Plans are:

26' x 26'
open floor design with no support columns
cathedral ceiling
2 7x9 garage doors
paint ready sheetrocked walls and ceilling
2x8 stud walls with insulation
roof
1 side entrance door
Vinyl siding

The quote I received so far is $24500.00 just for the above structure and items listed above.

My main question is regarding the cost to build this. I really have no idea what it should really cost.

Foundation, 6" slab floor, approx 2 blocks above grade
Electrical to include 8-10 light boxes, 220V for 2 electrical heaters
are all extra. I would imagine that the foundation work is around 10K?

Are these prices in the ball park? I really don't want to get 100 quotes. This carpenter came highly recommended but at the same time it is a relatively easy structure to build.
Garage is for storage and light car repair only.

Any advice is greatly appreciated.



Regards,

Dan, NJ


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[blkhonda1991]

get atleast 3 quotes and you quickly figure out what the cost should be

 

[kywildcat]

Put bigger garage doors in it.....I learned the hard way!!!!

 

[rickycobra]

get atleast 3 quotes and you quickly figure out what the cost should be

Additionally you could change the start time of construction to see if that changes the costs.

 

[5lima30]

Mine is working out to be about $29.25 sq ft. That includes foundation & slab and framing which I subbed out. I am doing almost everything else my self. The one way I have found to control costs is shop/ bargain hunt for materials. It is a a time consuming chore however I haved saved about $3000 so far by doing this. I have found that timing lumber/material purchases to when they are priced low saves $$. For example I found OSB for $5.05 a sheet. Currently it is almost $9.00 a sheet. Lumber prices tend to fluctuate week to week sometimes very dramatically. YMMV,

 

[Chris Adams]

It really matters where you live, and I mean exactly.
I got the same square feet, but in what I felt was a more practical 24x28, with a single insulated door, one man door, electric included, for 23k flat.

However, the exact same structure built by the exact same people could have been 21k, if I lived two miles away, different town, or 20k if I lived two miles away the other way, unincorporated.

I had a bit of a slope in my backyard, but he waived the 'leveling' fee. If I had ten percent more slope, another 1k.

If I lived thirty miles from here, in the mountains, same job, same contractor, 6k more. Weather conditions are rougher, code is different.

So do like they suggest, get more estimates, only real way to tell.

Electric can add about a grand, usually, but you can beat that by having them just put in the minimum electric code requires, then you upgrade the rest. That way they pull the cable, etc. you do the easy stuff of sticking boxes where you want.

On my slab, I paid for 4 inches, but told them I 'wished it was more'. Ended up with 5-6 inches over the whole surface at no extra charge.
4 inches will support my Class A motorhome so I doubt I needed six for anything I could have gotten in the shop.

 

[mobetta]

cant see the plan you are looking at, but I am in the middle of building a 26x26 9' walls, 2 9x8's, 3 windows, fiber-cement siding, unique roof storage, man door and the city told me it was worth $25K.

I have about $7K into it, (it took 3+yrs of collecting mat'ls to get that cheeep ) and only need to spend about $700 more to finish it (insulation and drywall)

I did it all myself, including the slab. If i paid myself my normal hourly, i would probably be at about $10K+ in labor, so i dont think the price is too out of line for you to get everything done.

and a good contractor is worth thousands more than a shoddy one, so watch out for lowball bids.

 

[thrifty bill]

I am in the process of planning myself. One thing I would have you consider is an attic. Do a search on attic trusses. Since you are doing the garage for storage anyway, for a few dollars more, an attic can make sense. Of course, the roof needs adequate pitch so at the center you can stand.

I am looking to build a garage 28 feet wide by around 40 foot long. Been looking at some attic trusses that will give me about a 12 foot wide attic, with at least 7 foot stand up height.

While I have not built my shop yet, so I do not have a baseline on whether your cost is good or not, I have spend a career bidding out jobs, and working with contractors. One thing I learned is that additional bids helped me learn what to ask, particularly in areas where I did not have a lot of expertise. Contractors would tend to bring up potential problems in their questions, helping both of us head off pitfalls in the process. In a way, they wanted to make sure everyone bidding was on equal footing, and they also helped me avoid the dreaded change orders ($$$). Imagine you got three bids, I would expect a 10% to 15% spread. So lets say it takes you three or four hours to solicit bids, sit down with the contractors, and so on. You might save yourself $2000 or $3000. That's $500 per hour. I don't know what you make in your job, but that's pretty good pay for the time!

Even if you end up taking the current bid after this whole process, you will as a minimum be a lot more comfortable with the price (you won't ask yourself later: "Did I pay too much?") and you will learn more about the building process and improve your scope and expectations.

Things as simple as "who removes the debris?" will come up and bite you if it is not covered in the contract.

 

[bill9860]

I have 26'w x 28'L detached garage. I agree you should get bigger doors. I have 2 9'w x 8'h on the detached and much prefer them to the 8'w x7'h on the garage attached to the house. And I do have an attic w/ pull down stairs. Great for spare stuff you may never need but can't bear to part with.

 

[KMR Construction]

That price seams pretty good. Get 8' tall doors it isn't going to cost much more.