Help designing a "dream garage"?

[rjd2]

Hi all-so I have what I consider to be a fairly lucky situation. I bought a piece of land in a pretty safe neighborhood on the cheap, and I intend to build a 2-story structure on it. The 2nd floor would be living space, but the first floor will be a dedicated garage/workspace. This will be a ground up design and build, so I can incorporate almost anything I want, within code. So I figured, why not ask the guys who have done this longer than I have what features would be great to have? Attached is a rough site plan. My plan was to do two rollup garage doors on the west wall(front) of the building, facing the alley, and one on the back(on the east wall), with the east wall rollup in series with one of the west ones, so i could drive a car right through the building. definitely a lift(2 post? where?). i also considered embedding conduit in the concrete slab to supply the lift(run more than 1 line in slab?).

the building will be roughly 20'x80'; i may be able to stretch the depth to 25', not sure yet.

if you don't mind, i'd love to hear any of your garage ideas now, while i'm in the design stage. hopefully there's cool things that aren't on my radar that i can incorporate. i've worked out of 2 car garages with cramped space and tools unorganized for my whole life, so this opportunity is INCREDIBLY exciting to me! thanks for any help!

 

[sberry]

You will still be cramped. 20 wide is almost pitiful and the rectangular shape is not economical per sq ft. Post your general location for climate reasons.

 

[rjd2]

yea, i'm not thrilled about the 20' depth; the lot size is 40'x112'. i'm in columbus, ohio. there is an easement in place, so i MAY be able to go up to 25' or so. my max footprint by code is 2250.

 

[larry_g]

Give us a DETAILED list of what you intend to do in the shop area. Function will dictate form.

lg
no neat sig line

 

[rjd2]

OK- a bit of a dimensional update. it looks as though 25' deep shouldn't be a problem at all;however, i think i'm going to lose some of that 80' width, that will likely come down to about 70'.

function: the main things i want to do are:
1-be able to put a car up on a lift, and have the space to do car restoration. i don't weld yet, but who knows. i do auto stuff, and woodworking stuff.
2-store up to 8-ish cars.
3-have a workbench area, and organize my tools properly.
4-be able to work outside

one thing i didn't mention before; the land that lies directly to the east is owned by the railroad tracks; for all intents and purposes, they don't seem to care what happens there. folks seem to maintain it as a "backyard" of sorts; I see no reason that I couldn't use it as a type of backyard-ish type area. not build on it, of course.

 

[matt_i]

Are the 8 cars supposed to be stored in a 70' width...or are car-stacking devices going to be employed? I think I would look into those wheel jacks that allow the cars to be pushed around in a game of garage tetris.

 

[rjd2]

Are the 8 cars supposed to be stored in a 70' width...or are car-stacking devices going to be employed? I think I would look into those wheel jacks that allow the cars to be pushed around in a game of garage tetris.

here's my vision: 2 garage rollup doors along the west wall, one ~25' in from the north wall, one ~25' in from the south wall. in theory, i could drive in, turn left or right, and fit 2 cars next to each other(we aren't talking 118" wheelbase cars; 2 are bmw 2002's). if i did this 4 times, i think i could fit ~8 cars, oriented north/south, in 4 rows.

I'm going to go as big as I can with the building; i may be able to purchase the right of way to the south of me, which would buy me some more sq footage.

 

[2level]

here's my vision: 2 garage rollup doors along the west wall, one ~25' in from the north wall, one ~25' in from the south wall. in theory, i could drive in, turn left or right, and fit 2 cars next to each other(we aren't talking 118" wheelbase cars; 2 are bmw 2002's). if i did this 4 times, i think i could fit ~8 cars, oriented north/south, in 4 rows.

I'm going to go as big as I can with the building; i may be able to purchase the right of way to the south of me, which would buy me some more sq footage.

You might want to stake-and-string-up a 25x70 'footprint' on the dirt and try making that sharp 90* turn while one of your BMW's is already parked there.

I think that a 25x70 is better than a 20x80. Have you considered a L-shape building? What are you thinking about using for floor joists for the 2nd story?

 

[JohnnieMo]

I don't have the luxury of having built such an amazing structure, however I did recently visit a friend's place in Alberta that is about the same size. I recommend a couple things:

- Heated slab. Oh my god is that amazing. It is cost effective and utterly pleasant. In the one I visited it was actually heated by coal!

- Do a super tall roof in the area you want to work on vehicles. 12 feet minimum. I would suggest you only make the second story partial and then you can use the other section to do your lift work.

- Do a lot of reference checking on your concrete guys. With that big of a slab you want excellent drainage. Make sure they know what they are doing on a pour that big. Plenty of guys on here get bad slabs and it's hard to fix.

- Overkill on electrical. You can't have too many outlets

- Water and sewer. Man I wish I had those. At this point you probably want an entire bathroom.

Good luck on your journey! I envy. My life goal is to one day I can own a garage I can drive circles inside of.

 

[zmotorsports]

Personally I wouldn't do a drive through design mainly due to losing wall space and I've never really needed a drive through shop. That is giving up a lot of wall space that in my opinion is invaluable.

Next use roll around tire platforms to push cars into position as needed. Although having 8 cars in there won't allow much room for working, especially for restoration work where one car torn apart equals about the space of three complete cars. If you plan on doing restoration you will need to learn how to weld and you want some space between welding area and other areas so again, wall space in my opinion is too valuable to give up for merely drive through convenience.

Make sure to put a lot of electrical outlets in. If you're like me you hate extension cords. I can stand in one spot and easily reach two outlets. Also put in a few 30-amp and 50-amp outlets/circuits for those welders and other equipment that you will be acquiring to do restoration work.

Mike

 

[rjd2]

Thanks, everybody. Semi-good news; it looks like I can scale up to 78'W, 25'D, with a bumpout on the north side of an extra ~50 sq ft(bathroom? mechanicals?).

I'm probably going to ditch the "drive thru" garage door thing; I don't need to drive thru the space, plus, with 25'D, it's gonna get snug along the east wall.

I do, however, want to do something that'll allow air to move THRU the building on the first floor. My dad has a 1 car garage with 2 rollup doors in series; on nice days, NOTHING is nicer than having healthy air circulation through a workspace. Plus, I really hate being in garages where the exhaust is trapped in the space. It's a drag. Any ideas on how to be able to move air out the east wall?

Yes-tons of elec outlets. In ground heating would be cool; I'll look into it. I have a builder who specializes in ICF, so I am planning on doing ICF walls for added insulation/noise(the trains are kinda loud). I need to figure out heating/cooling on a small footprint. Definitely on-demand water heater. The 2nd floor will be it's own apartment, so I'll be running proper elec/HVAC/sewer/water anyway; I'll at a minimum do a small bathroom and shower.

I went back to the property today; the easement to the east is the same size as my lot. In essence, I'm going to get an extra free lot that I can't build on, but can totally use however I see fit. It's owned by the railroad company, and I know for a fact that they pretty much don't care what people do with those spaces. I'll probably fence the whole thing in.

Thanks for the ideas, these are all great!!!

 

[2level]

An air/exhaust set-up for that size of shop can be anything from 2 or 3 twenty dollar box fans sitting in front of windows to an auto-shutter high volume built-in-the-wall fan. I use an old 1950's belt-driven Trane in-the-wall unit. Works great.

Do you have a cost estimate on the ICF walls vs. conventional? You can insulate the hell out of the building, but the overhead doors and any windows will be a noise leak for train whistles.

 

[rjd2]

2level: i didn't price out stick build yet, but my estimate on the ICF walls is 27k, for both stories. that may change, as the footprint is being noodled with.

since i'm not doing rollup on the east side now, and the train is to the east, i'm not TOO worried about noise. i do need to figure out an elegant way to solve the east walls need for:
-ventilation
-light
-security
-insulation

the neighborhood is a good safe place, however, backup up against train tracks, there's always the possibility of unsavory stuff there. i need to figure out how to do the windows on the east side(and maybe on the other 3 sides too?)

 

[stm317]

Maybe glass block for Windows? It would allow plenty of light to pass through, but be more private and secure than a typical window pane. You could install them high up the wall for extra piece of mind.

 

[geyas]

I'm going to "sticky" this thread, thanks

 

[rjd2]

Maybe glass block for Windows? It would allow plenty of light to pass through, but be more private and secure than a typical window pane. You could install them high up the wall for extra piece of mind.

I considered it. One of the builders I'm talking to who specializes in ICF construction said that I basically don't need to worry about load bearing issues; 3 12 ft roll up garage doors didn't seem to concern him at all. I'd really like to be able to open the windows. Maybe there's a nice casement option that provides most of the criteria?

Thanks geyas-I'll try to detail all my work as I go here.

 

[2level]

Isn't the ICF enough for your east wall insulation? And "elegant", WTH, man...are you going to be serving Grey Poupon in there?

'geyas' is gonna "sticky" your thread??? M'FN trolls.

 

[rjd2]

Isn't the ICF enough for your east wall insulation? And "elegant", WTH, man...are you going to be serving Grey Poupon in there?

'geyas' is gonna "sticky" your thread??? M'FN trolls.

I don't mean "elegant" like I'm serving tea and crumpets, I mean elegant as in "a good solution" for both ventilation and insulation that's easy to use.