Garage design thoughts

[jpcjguy]

Hi Everyone,

New here and finally have a house with some land to put a detached garage.
I am a Jeep guy - have 2 lifted CJ7s. My plan is about 28x28 to 32x32 range. Space is not so much an issue as $$$. Ideally I would like room on one side for a lift (10k to also lift my excursion) and a room upstairs on the other side. So would this be a mix of scissor truss on one side and 8' - 9' foot ceiling on the other(bottom). The room could be storage/man cave/gym. A bathroom with standup shower would be great also.
I am confused on trusses/roof line("A" vs. gambrel, etc.), joist length, etc.
How does costs around the above (trusses, stick, joist) work?
Is a complicated roof line more expensive than larger garage footprint? Or am I trying to stuff too much in too small a space?
The garage still has to look nice for the neighborhood and wife!

Any thoughts?
Thanks
Joe

 

[jpcjguy]

Anyone?

 

[astroracer]

I read through your thread when you posted it. Didn't bother to reply because what you need to do is talk to a contractor. Besides not knowing where you are, what your housing situation is and what your building codes will allow there is just to much "stuff" to consider.

Go to a couple of lumber yards and ask about good polebarn erectors or just call a few that have listings in your local paper.
I/we can talk about this all day long but that will not get you the info you are looking for. Once you get a few plans and some prices we can go from there but you have too many questions that are easily answered by a contractor that we could spend days trying to answer and still not get right.

 

[HoosierMark]

www.menards.com has a garage building program that you can access and it will give you the materials cost for the package. You can insert and take out various features to get a better handle on price. Sounds to me like you may like a 1.5 story cape cod garage with finished area above and work area below. You may need to have the first floor higher or go a smaller lift (scissors) to keep the outside height down. Look at the plans that say they have an apartment above the garage, they are pretty nice.

 

[jpcjguy]

I read through your thread when you posted it. Didn't bother to reply because what you need to do is talk to a contractor. Besides not knowing where you are, what your housing situation is and what your building codes will allow there is just to much "stuff" to consider.

Go to a couple of lumber yards and ask about good polebarn erectors or just call a few that have listings in your local paper.
I/we can talk about this all day long but that will not get you the info you are looking for. Once you get a few plans and some prices we can go from there but you have too many questions that are easily answered by a contractor that we could spend days trying to answer and still not get right.

Good call. I am in Richmond, VA. I guess I was just looking for some basic info on stuff like going from 28x28 to 34x24 footprint would be (in general) cheaper than adding a second story - or is it a wash?
And having a scissor truss on one side and a second floor on the other is considerably more $$$ than just all truss. How about a 3/4 dormer across the back?
Again - just some general info on construction principles. Once I do reach out to contractors, I want to be somewhat prepared once we start talking options and how they would increase the cost.

 

[383 240z]

Joe. Just make sure you build at least 1 "tall" garage door. I had to learn that the hard way. I pulled my Jeep in and backed out with the aftermarket hard top sun roof open. It shattered all over my lap. Scared the heck out of me when it blew. Keith

 

[jpcjguy]

Joe. Just make sure you build at least 1 "tall" garage door. I had to learn that the hard way. I pulled my Jeep in and backed out with the aftermarket hard top sun roof open. It shattered all over my lap. Scared the heck out of me when it blew. Keith

Nice! I have not done that but did get caught not latching the hood and have it fly up on me down the road! DOH!
Currently my garage has an 8' door and works - Not a fan of jeeps that are sky high to fit big tires - carve out them wheel wells!

 

[AMCguy]

My advice at the planning stage is to consider a rectangular footprint (if possible) rather than a square footprint.

I was only permitted to build 100 square meters. That's 1,076 square ft. I wanted to go the maximum but elected to keep multiples of 4 ft to get the least waste of building materials.

I ended up deciding on 32x32 ft. That gave me two big 16x32 ft bays. Although I love having room around what I'm working on it's only a two bay shop. If I were to do it again, I'd go 28x38 ft. That would give me three narrower bays 28 ft deep. It would be a tiny bit tighter, but I'd have three bays. I would have scissor trusses over the whole space and a mezzanine floor over most of the space not needed for the lift. Work benches and storage would be against the 38 ft back wall only.

 

[Bib Overalls]

There are a number of garage builds documented here where the builder used scissor trusses for lift clearance on one end and trusses with a storage loft or bonus area built in. Both sets of trusses having the same outward pitch and a single, continuous roof top.

The more complicated you make the roof the more expensive it becomes.

 

[rburke65]

You have to go out and get your quotes on a build design that is to your liking, that reflects your needs and your wants. Too many variables. I planned my build for more than 6.....8 years with every option that I could think of. Mistakes and changes are VERY expensive. This is your garage/shop. Do you want trusses or rafter built? Want an attic? How big will this be? How much money do you have? How tall? Planning For a lift? The questions go on and on. Go get your quotes.

 

[FXDawg]

You totally have to talk to Tam Lapp. He is a pole barn erector. his pricing is great and he is down there in Amish country. I worked with him planning my garage but ran into some footing/foundation snags and it cost me some time. Anyway, (i'm planning a 36x28 build) when he quoted me the attic truss over 2 bays and scissor truss over 1 bay the price actually came down a small amount.

He says he can build anything and gives up a ton of references. Which I called and they all raved about him. I have absolutely no affiliation with Tam Lapp. i Just had some conversations with him and got a bunch of quotes with different options.

The nice thing with him is all his option have dollar values set. Like a 10' dormer over the front was like $1200 or something extra. A dollar amount for every window. Offers upgrades to roofing, siding, anything you want and his prices can't be beat. From what I understand, if you can do a pole barn, he can have it done in a matter of weeks from the contract signing, like 7 weeks I think.

Advice I got was to go as big as you can afford but you have to be sympathetic to the surrounding context. You don't want to dwarf your house or your neighbors if they are close by. Take some photos and sketch over them to try and get an idea of scale.

Even just measure the foot print of your house, lay that out on grid paper and start laying out the plan of the garage next to it. If it looks real big on the plan it will be in real life! LOL

 

[NES]

Your going with lifted jeeps. Make the garage door 10' tall and the ceiling 12' tall. This way you can have a two post lift in the garage. Also with the height of door in case you want a light bar or cb antenna.