Looking for some tips pointers.

[Yoke]

Okay I live in an area that won an award when it was first built buy utilizing the land are to the max. Imagine if you will a whole subdivision designed like a Tetris game. I've uploaded a couple of pics of what I would like to do.

In the first picture

This is my neighbours garage to the left, it's got a nice height to it and the city can't prevent me from going to the same height if there are other garages on the street with the same set up.

In the second picture

That is my neighbours garage to the right, as you can see our driveways leading to the garages are sloped and of not much use. Not only that they are joined and have a firewall between them. The garage door on the left in the picture is mine.

In the third and fourth picture

you can see the height difference between my two driveways, it works out to roughly three feet, or slightly higher. Not to mention one is concrete the other asphalt.

So my game plan is to excavate the garage and driveway on the right and flatten it to the same grade as my concrete driveway, at the same time I am dropping the floor of the garage I am hoping to raise the roof as well. (All dependent on the city of course)

So any tips, suggestions questions hit me please I only get one shot at this with the wife so I've got to get it right the first time. The other thing I was wondering was should I go with a concrete footing and retaining wall or blocks, as I've heard blocks are cheaper.

Yoke

 

[boiler7904]

You realize that will mean removing the existing foundation and pouring a new one below the frost line right? You'd also have to do foundation work on your neighbor's garage to make it step correctly. You're looking at big bucks for this project.

 

[tatra]

how much building experience do you have?.............would be nice to know so as to guide you with our own past endeavours.

 

[blkhonda1991]

a very ambitious project...i suspect youre going to put way more money into this than its worth imo. Being attached to another garage that is not yours is going to be the biggest hurdle because you share walls and foundation structure. If the footings arent 3' below the lower drive you are going to have to shore those up and if you raise the roof you are going to have to build the firewall higher impacting your neighbors roof as well.

 

[michael Mccoy]

Have you given some serious thought about selling and buying a place that suits you?

 

[PurdueSD]

I agree, the cost is going to greatly outweigh the gain.

 

[akdiesel]

What advantage are you expecting to get out of doing this project? Looks to me you will only be getting one extra parking spot (the area between the two hights).
Does you neighbor want to do the same as you want?
I am not from Canada but I would expect the building codes to be close to what they are in the states. Plus you want to go up in hight by only dropping the grade to approx 3'. This will change the appearnce of the property which can pose a problem in the permits.

 

[Yoke]

Well I personally don't have any construction experience but I have contacts with architects, electrical, concrete, framing etc.... So getting the right people in to guide me is not an issue. Nor is getting the man power, I've got a great group of friends that would be willing to help out in a heart beat. Mainly because they know if I get a double garage they will get better service and the use of my tools(supervised of course)

What I am looking to gain is a double garage, as well as a flat driveway as the single just doesn't cut it and the sloped driveway is useless. I'm a licensed tech that does work for family and friends at home and eventually I'll need a hoist.(not to mention working on my own projects)

Moving actually is not an option, I'm in Calgary Alberta and the prices here are stupid due to OIL and GAS. We bought into the market before the boom and are lucky to say the least. We are in a great location and love our house the wife is happy, the only thing missing is the garage. So she compromised and said it was okay to build a double. I'm just trying to figure out the best way of going about it and all your points are great, unfortunately not one of them sounded the least bit positive.

Keep them coming, I've actually just sent off some specs to an architect to give them a once over. So we'll see what he/she has to say.

 

[Yoke]

Seriously though good or bad keep the tips coming like I said I only get one chance at this I've got to examine all the options.

 

[Charles (in GA)]

Anything is doable, given enough time and effort and money.

You say in your last posts you want to build a "double" garage, but you only have a single. Do you intend on expanding it into the area where the steps and walk and flowers are, forward of the lower parking area? You didn't say so in your first post.

You could demo the end foundation and then bust out the slab of the existing garage, take off the roof, knock off the overhang of the neighbors roof, raise the firewall put on a new roof, trusses and all, with an overhang over the neighbors garage (reverse of what you have now essentially). You will have some issues with the foundation of the back wall and the shared firewall, probably end up going inside and pouring a wall to beef up the foundation, and will lose some space in the process.

Quite truthfully, you would be better off, wiping out the existing garage and building anew. Then all you have to do is raise the firewall and beef up its foundation. Whether you can do this depends on zoning and code people who may insist you modify the existing building rather than building a new one.

Charles

 

[blkhonda1991]

Anything is doable, given enough time and effort and money.

You say in your last posts you want to build a "double" garage, but you only have a single. Do you intend on expanding it into the area where the steps and walk and flowers are, forward of the lower parking area? You didn't say so in your first post.


Charles

i think he means allowing for 2 parking spaces by using a lift based on him lowering the floor and raising the roof