Lifting a garage and adding a lean-to

[cak446]

Hello,

This is my first post, but I’ve been lurking around here for a few months. I bought my first house last fall, and it came with a 24x30 garage. It has new shingles and vinyl siding, but on the inside it’s just a basic uninsulated garage with 8’ 2x4 walls and three 9x7 doors.

This summer I plan on insulating it and making it into my own little oasis. This site has been very informative and has already given lots of ideas, and I can’t wait for the weather to warm up, so I can get started.

The first thing I want to do is lift the garage so I can install 8’ tall doors. My truck just barely fits in there now, and I feel if I don’t do this now, I’ll be kicking myself later. Does anyone have any experience lifting a garage? I figure it can be too hard, right?

My plan is to nail a 2x6 around the base of the garage and use jack-all’s to lift the garage in stages, being sure to use lots of blocking, until I’ve raised it two feet. Then I’d just simply shove a 2-foot pony wall under it. I’ll also remove the bottom two feet of siding and cut two feet of the plywood off around the base of the garage, so that I can tie the garage and pony wall together with a four foot high piece of plywood. Does anyone see any flaws with this plan?

The second thing I want to do is build a 16x10 lean-to for storage of sleds, quads and lawn and garden equipment. I have basic carpentry skills, and have a general idea on how to build a lean-to, but I’m looking for more ideas, and to expand my skills. Does anyone have any advice or links to good construction/carpentry forums?

Thanks,

Carl

 

[PAToyota]

There have been a couple discussions posted here about lifting a structure as you have outlined. I think you're on the right track. One thing to make sure of is any water or electrical lines that may need to be lengthened. Depending on the situation, that could be a bit tricky. You don't say, but I assume this isn't attached to the house? That would be the only other issue.

 

[kbs2244]

I never did one your size, but I have done a 24 x 24 and a 16 x 20.
Did it just the way you described. Plan on lots of jacks. We spaced them about 3 ft apart.
And use at least 2 20 penny spikes into every stud.
Use some 2 x 6 to X brace the doorways, otherwise that front wall can get a little wiggley. With those big holes, it just isn't as stiff as the other three.
Be sure you find all the tie down bolts and either undo the nuts or saw them off. If you can undo them then you can reuse them, but sometims they are rusted to the point that it will be easier to cut them off with a sawsall and use expansion bolts.
Look out for any up from the ground eletric, gas, phone, etc connections.
The best temp blocking we came up with was cinder blocks. Wide enough so that they don't get tippy as you start getting up there. Cheap. And easy to throw around. You will need a bunch.
Think about useing the block for the extersion. We did that with the small one. The blocks are 8 inchs high. We would lift it 10 inchs, the brick guy would come and put in a course and we would set it down. We figured that setting it down would take a lot of stress off the small points of the jacks. Did that three times and we were 24 inchs higher. And with a water proof bottom to the wall.
You can do the jacking by yourself, but you sure get tired of the walking from jack to jack. You want to take it up less than an inch higher than the jack next to the one you are working on. So going up 10 inchs means walking around the garage 10 times.

 

[Lu47Dan]

I think it would work . I lifted the roof and ceiling joists on my present shop to give me more head room . This might be easier in your case since the outside walls are sided . I added two feet the the height of the wall by building what you call pony walls than put T1-11 siding on the out side and waferboard inside . I lifted the roof with hydraulic jacks and used tele-post house jacks to support the roof while I was adding the short walls , also braced existing walls so nothing stupid would happen . Dan

 

[AGBill]

You did not say how the garage wall sill plates are currently connected to the concrete floor. If they are attached with threaded anchor bolts or threaded anchors - no big deal. If they are attached with nails shot through the sill and into the concrete, they will be a lot more work to cut off the head of the nail or pull it out of the concrete.

The other isssue that always comes up when moving a building is the effort required to keep the building square and not have it rack when you jack it up and put it down. The wall with the 3 garage doors is going to require significant temporary diagonal bracing because there is no strength in the wall with these large openings. Significant amounts of temporary bracing will also be required inside the garage to keep it square.

The idea of using a 2 X 6 board that is only 1 3/4" wide as your jacking surface is a bit scary. If the building moved sideways an inch, it could easily slide off the jack and fall to the ground. A professional building mover would install 2 or 3 large timbers or I beams completely through the 24 foot side of the building and have them extend 6 feet outside the building to allow a good jacking surface and room for bracing.

Maybe it would be easier to take the 6" lift kit out of your truck......

 

[cak446]

Thanks for the advice so far.

I like the thought about using cinderblocks for the base, but I have a few concerns/questions:

1: The cinderblocks are going to be quite a bit wider then my 2x4 walls. So shelving, benches, cabinets, etc will no longer be flush with wall, unless time is spent modifying them

2: Cost, this isn’t a huge issue, but I’m sure this will cost more then just a wooden wall

3: What’s the insulating value of cinderblocks? Won’t there be more heat loss?

4: How does one attach the garage walls to the cinderblocks?

As for the garage being unstable and falling off the jacks, I hope to just be able to raise each end an inch or two at a time, constantly adding blocking, minimizing the rise of sideways movement.

The sill plates are attached with nails shot into concrete. I just want to to be able to grind the heads off the nails, and hopefully the sill’s wont pull off when the garage is jacked up.

I have no lift on my truck, just 35” rubber. The main reason I want an 8’ high door is so that I can leave my quad in the back of my truck and still be able to park in the garage.

Keep the comments coming,

Carl

 

[Special55]

You're probably not considering this now but if you ever plan to put a lift in down the road I would raise the garage at least three foot. Most lifts require this clearance and most two posts require 12Ft. ceilings. It would be allot easier to do it now than decide that you want to raise it again down the road.

Just some food for thought.

Rich

 

[kbs2244]

I have helped on a job where they lifted the roof instead of the building. I actually found it scarier. All the work was 8 and 10 feet off the ground. The way theses guys did it was to build 4 tall stacks of timber in each corner, (It is called “cribbing”) thread a long timber the length of the building, and then have the jacks on top of the stacks. It was a truss roof with the long timber across the bottom chords of the truss's. A lot of climbing. And a lot more carpentry since the roof to wall joining is more complicated then the wall to floor joining.

They did it that way because of a whole lot of existing ground to building connections. Gas, water, phone, electric, sink drains, etc.

Lifting a whole building takes a bit of rethinking because they are big. But you have to remember that they are empty. Your whole building was delivered on one 18 wheeler. That is a bit of weight, but it isn’t as much as you first think, because we always tend to relate size to weight. Just get twice as many jacks as you think you will need. This is more for stability then lifting capacity.

The cinder block wall will be 8 inch’s thick vs. the 4 inch’s of your frame walls, so you will have a 4 inch shelf on the inside. (You can get 4 inch block, but I don’t like it. Too tippy for my taste. But it is used a lot.) The best way to anchor the walls to the block is to lift the wall a bit higher the last time so that you can pour some sloppy concrete into the holes in the block. Then you put the J bolts into this concrete before it dries. Drill holes for the bolts in the sill, set her down, and use big washers.

I don’t know how the R value compares. That is something you will have to check out up there.

Since you already have some block, the extra cost will be how many more you need to do the whole wall vs. stacks every 3 feet, and the cost of the brick guy.

If you do go with the frame lower walls, build them in 4 foot long sections. That way you can slip them into place between the stacks of block, get the block out of the way, lower it down onto what you have, then fill in the gaps. Nailing to the concrete is the way to go in this case.

 

[1320stang]

With your present thoughts, I would lift the building from just inside the walls and remove the bottom plate and scab 2x4s onto the bottom with a new treated bottom plate. Putting a pony wall will just act like a hinge at that point. I'd scab up a minimum of 2' on the existing studs, but 4' would be better.

I really like the block idea. Maybe you could pour an additional amount of concrete on the outside of your foundation to where the inside was flush with the wall. Dowel it into the existing foundation and add bonding agent to the concrete. The block could be split face and colored and would look nice, you'd have to flash the top of the block up under the siding.

 

[2ManyGPs]

Lift your garage is doable. I did exactly that with mine this summer. Check out the link below.

http://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=5624

The actual lifting process went pretty smooth. We lifted the entire 26x48 building about 40", all at once. After the building was up in the air we but down 4 rows of 8" block and then set the building back down on the block.

I used 16 Hi-Lift jacks and 7 great friends, plus myself to do all the lifting. The lifting part only took about 45 minutes. I did spend a good week before hand, cross bracing all the walls to each other and the trusses. This is vital in ensuring that the building stays together. I also lucked out in the fact that I could 'slide' the building up 4x4s that were cemented into the ground. This kept the building from wanting to move side to side at all.

My advice would be to brace every corner, wall to wall, and every wall to the trusses in about 6' intervals. Then put your 2x6 along the bottom and lift away. Just take your time and be safe.

Dave

 

[kbs2244]

I am glad you jumped in 2many. Great pics!
Everything I have done was before Digital. So all I have is mental memories. It is a real confidence builder to see that other guys have done it.
I forgot to mention the wall to wall braceing. You do need a 2x6 to go at a 45 degree at both the sill and the top plate in all 4 corners. On a truss roof go with some from the sill to the center of the bottom chord also. Otherwise to the middle of the joists. Anything you can see that will keep it from racking out of square.
The basic rule is that triangles are good things. Make lots of them.

 

[kbs2244]

Oh yes, do pick a calm day.

 

[cak446]

Thanks for all the idea's guys.

I just have to wait for spring to come so I can get started. I'll let everyone know how it goes once I get it done.

Thanks,

Carl

 

[Daved]

Well my first post, but here goes, got to get my feet wet sometime. All good advice so far. I did something like this in reverse (jacked it down), a 24x24 framed floor. We used about 12 jacks and thought we had everything stable.

The only problem we had (and it was almost a disaster) was as we had the platform solely on the jacks and were jacking each jack about 1" at a time the darn thing decided to become unstable and started to ROTATE. Balancing solely on the jacks was very unstable. We were lucky that we only had to drop it another inch or so to get it on some temporary blocking. 4 guys in a mass panic in 30 seconds slamming jacks down 1" more. We had thought this out in advance in case it was to happen since we were all in the crawl space under the platform manipulating the jacks.

Be aware that you may not know that it is unstable until it starts to move and then you will have NO time to recover. Gravity will take over.

Point being, be sure to always have temporary blocking in place as you go so if something happens you can immediately drop it down on the temporary blocking by only dropping it an inch or so.

I too would recommend the cement block route since they can be both temporary and permanent. Also be sure to have a mess of 2x4 and 4x4 pieces 18-24" long for temporary stacking as you go.

I'd also consider 'X' bracing it inside (parallel to the ground) with 2x4s to help prevent racking.

Have twice as much manpower on site than you think what will be needed and talk out in advance with everyone what to do if it 'gets away from you'.