Garage demo and rebuild

[kmehr]

Long time reader, first time poster!

Just bought my first house that has a 2ish car detached garage. It's less than desirable for my purposes, so I think I'm realistically looking at tearing it down and rebuilding. I'm here looking for guidance and options and to document what I end up doing.

Current garage is cinder block and stucco with a shingle roof. It's 21x22ft exterior dimensions. It is detached and backs up to an alley where the current opening is. It only has one car bay/door at the moment. It used to be a single car garage, but somewhere along the line a wall was torn down and the garage expanded over top of a brick patio. That means one bay is concrete floor and the other is brick floor. About 6inches of the original wall still remains between the bays and is a real tripping hazard.

I like to wood work and love to do mechanic work as a hobby. My wife drives an Audi Q5, I drive a 2005 Dodge pickup, and we have a 7ft (11 foot overall) slide in truck camper. The goal is to get all three in my "new" garage and still have room to work on my truck or other projects.

Right now I'm looking at a 24x28 size garage. My truck is the biggest obstacle as it is long wide and a hair over 7ft tall so I need larger than "standard" garage doors. The boss lady has nixed a "versatube" metal type building as too ugly.

I'm very handy, but I also spent all last summer gutting and rebuilding my camper, so I'd like to be using that this summer instead of working all the time on my garage. I'm leaning towards a local company that has a baseline quote of $14,500 for a 24x28 installed woode sided garage. Could go 4 feet wider if I can get a zoning variance, which would be awesome and ideal option A as I don't want to use up too much of my yard.

Advice, tips and suggestions greatly appreciated. What am I realistically looking at to demo the old garage and add concrete? Definitely need to remove brick or pour over it? Can I just add to the existing poured footprint, or is all the concrete going to need to come up in addition to the brick?

 

[HotrodHR]

Before you do anything verify your property lines, location of current structure on your lot and confirm all setbacks, right of ways, and local building codes.

The condition of you block walls and overall structure will dictate if you should try doing some of the demo yourself. People do rebuild on existing slabs, again it depends on age and condition. Adding to the slab, new footers, etc may or my not be possible. Your builder may not want to build on old concrete...

 

[matt_i]

I hate to say it but I think you are going to be really cramped in a 24x28 with 2 parked vehicles and a stationary camper. Seems like you'll have about 10x12 for actual shop space in rough numbers, and while that's nothing to complain about its not like having a full 10 x 24 space.

As mentioned above, I would recommend that you need to investigate building permits, their detailed requirements, and potential taxation. It would seem good to be able to build a 2nd floor attic space tall enough for actual use but you might have a local restriction for total height.

You mentioned wood-sided. That says paint to me, and my belief is life is too short to be painting buildings. I'd go with a siding that matches your house, after that I'd go with vinyl siding, unless its prohibited locally.

Does your quote include teardown and demo of existing? I would look carefully at the specs as you might be getting into a corner. At that price it doesn't seem like there's hardly any room for concrete work or excavation/footing expansion...

 

[yeldogt]

X3 ... on the permits and codes. Make sure you can do what you want. As nutty as it sounds ... in some places you can't knock down and rebuild what's there. You can fix/remodel to the point of almost replacing ...

demo ..is typically more $$ then expected for first timers

 

[kmehr]

Thanks for all of these replies! I'm still in the very beginning stages of planning this so gathering as much info as possible. My property zone requires a 10 foot setback from the alley if the garage door is going to face the alley, otherwise it is 5 feet. My current building is set about 19 feet from the alley. There is definitely room to expand in that direction, though I don't know how far out will start making it difficult to turn my big ole truck into from the alley. I don't want to have to do a 10 point turn every time I pull in and out of the garage!

I'm 5 feet from the side of my yard, assuming my fence is on the property line, this is the required setback for a garage. I know some folks do get variances, but I'm really not sure how hard that is. Height restriction is 16ft if 6:12 or lower pitch, 20 ft if higher pitch. I'd prefer keeping it pretty low so it doesn't block the sun into the back of my house.

The quote is from sunset sheds in Colorado Springs (in case anyone is experienced with them). It is for the building and installation only. Dirt work and foundation is extra and I'm not even sure something they do. I say wood siding, but I'm sure they offer other options. My house is stucco, and I don't really want to do that on the garage as from what I can tell it's about the most expensive option.

I do have one other option, that being building an attached garage to my house. With setbacks, I could do a 16x27 garage on the side of my house and use a driveway from the street in front of my house. This option to me seems like it would be ton more expensive though. And it would be nice from the standpoint of having a full garage to work on my truck, then another for storage and my wifes car and possibly keep my woodworking tools out there in the back. Downside is it would eat up a lot of my yard, and i don't want to have an all concrete yard! My budget is $20k.

 

[kd3pc]

+1 on Matt's comments. I had a 24x24 and it was cramped with two cars in it, and you want to work on one. It was really a one car if you wanted both doors open and to be able to walk around it.

Budget sounds low for CO to me.

 

[K'ledgeBldr]

A 6:12 roof in CO!?

As others have lamented to-
Find out how much space you have to actually work with, then figure the size of the garage.
And with most builds- it's never as much as we really need!

As for the camper- I'd put it on a parking pad; unless there some restriction about that.

 

[kmehr]

I'm not sure what you mean by a 6:12 roof in colorado? I have neighbors with much shallower roofs!

Did a lot of measuring today, I think i can fit a 28x30 or maybe even a 30x30. Now I'm thinking of basically just expanding the garage in place as a money saver- pour the concrete around the outside, then build my new walls in place, then tear down the older walls. Finally cutting the roof off, and building a newer, higher one in place. Think that sounds more cost effective? Would allow me to do a lot more work myself.