New member, question on garage ceiling

[79loserbluebu]

Hey everyone this is a great forum and have been lurking for a little while. I'm closing on my house Friday and it has an awesome garage in the backyard. The house is run down but whoever lived here previously was definately a gear head like myself.

I'm a GM dealer tech been doing it for almost 4 years now, and I'm definately spoiled having my own lift at work.

The garage has 10ft ceiling with a loft.

Question is, I saw all the lifts that can work with 10ft ceilings, but I just want to see how much trouble it would be before committing to anything. So what is all involved in getting a 12ft lift in the garage? If at all possible I would want the loft to remain intact, but the ceiling opened up where the lift goes.

I'm attaching a couple pictures, the inside of the garage is not the best I apologize, I will snap more when I go there Friday to change the locks

I'm sorry if this is a beaten to death subject, I'm alot better at automotive then well anything else lol

 

[mattmankow]

Getting the lift in is not a viable option. you will still be limited how high you can lift by the ceiling height. The vehicle will hit the ceiling before you top out the lift. Just get a two post bottom plate lift.

 

[Cryptic1911]

If there wasn't anything upstairs, you could always put some trusses in there and raise the ceiling downstairs since there's a pretty high pitch on that roof. What's up there, just open storage? maybe lose portion of it in that small bay and do what I said with the truss setup

 

[Steevo]

When you say a "loft", I assume you have attic trusses, with an open area down the center, and some load-carrying capacity on top of the lower chords.

In order to raise the ceiling/joist level at one end of the shop, to accommodate a 12' lift, you'd have to get the trusses re-engineered for modifications to the center section, or pull off the roof at one end and replace 4 trusses or so with scissor trusses, so you have a vaulted ceiling on that end.

 

[Kevin54]

That was going to be my question....do you have trusses or rafters? If you have rafters, it will be a piece of cake to modify. If it's trusses, then you may want to get a good contractor in that knows what he's doing to either point you in the right direction or to modify it for you.

 

[79loserbluebu]

Thanks for the replies everyone. It is just open space up there at this time. The ceiling looks alot like the one in the link below

I'll take some pictures Friday. My post was misleading, the ultimate goal is to remove half of the upstairs and have the open space from floor to ceiling for the bay with the lift.

http://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showpost.php?p=533852&postcount=28

Appreciate everyone's patience as I'm new to this

 

[Kevin54]

If you have rafters, then raising things up will be a piece of cake. Can you post some pics up of what you exactly have though? You may not have to have the huge LVL's.

 

[NUTTSGT]

Once you get the property, more pictures will help.

Another option you have is to raise the garage and put down 3 courses of block. By looking at your second picture, it appears the walls are built right on top of the floor.

Also putting your location (approximate is fine) will help guys give you advice as some things in construction vary on your location.

 

[Oldtymeflyr]

I would consider just raising the roof. You could do this either at the top of the top plate or coming down about a foot and raising the whole roof just below the lintels. You would then be able to raise the door entries if this is helpful to you but it would be more costly.

This is not that difficult to do and is done all the time in the Denver area on older homes. It is easier than raising the whole garage. If there are drainage issues or moisture issues then you may want to stick some masonry under the whole garage.

Also, do not aim for a 12 foot ceiling go to 12-3 or 12-6. I know a Rotary lift will fit a 12 foot ceiling but its tight.

Good luck.

 

[Rookie2]

AH what state r u in ? I'm in Pa. and a local trans shop has a 'overflow work' lift outside. just a thought.

 

[CNGsaves]

. . . . [clip] . . . . If there are drainage issues or moisture issues then you may want to stick some masonry under the whole garage.

Also, do not aim for a 12 foot ceiling go to 12-3 or 12-6. I know a Rotary lift will fit a 12 foot ceiling but its tight.

+1 for ^ ^ ^ This (ie raising whole thing with concrete stem walls). Looks like driveway up to garage is dirt anyway so you'll be needing concrete work.

Since inside looks like insulation only so far, there won't be any sheetrock destruction needed.

Could skin the bottom few feet of exterior with brick (or thin imitation brick) and really upgrade look of the garage.

I'd lower and re-header each garage door unless you wanted to make one taller for RV or camper.

If there's budget money for it, couple dormers with windows up on roof would let in a lot of natural light and improve look of the garage. Might even be possible for attic apartment with all that room up there!

Good luck and post more pics . . . . enjoy your new garage!

 

[79loserbluebu]

Hey everyone sorry I haven't been back since my first two posts, been very busy on the inside of the house. There is a ton of work to do and basically gutting the house minus the walls and some of the drywall, there were some mold issues.

Here are some pictures of the garage. I've actually decided on keeping the garage the way it is for now and just going with a floor plate lift such as an Atlas 9k lift. It will lift my car which is a majority of what I will be working on and hopefully my Silverado's transmission doesn't need to come out, but if it does then so be it. I'm also considering maybe adding a second lift in the far left corner between the wall and staircase so I can store my father's car along with mine and still have plenty of workspace in the winter.

I forgot the best part, the garage has it's own electric meter

 

[darkk]

Getting the lift in is not a viable option. you will still be limited how high you can lift by the ceiling height. The vehicle will hit the ceiling before you top out the lift. Just get a two post bottom plate lift.

Has to be a killjoy in every crowd. A lift is a very viable addition with just a little effort. It should be relatively easy, people do it all the time.

 

[NUTTSGT]

Now that you have some more pics posted it looks different (for the better). It appears that the area around the garage is built up, a good thing. The picture with the van inside, definetly shows it's bigger than it looks.

 

[79loserbluebu]

Yeah the garage is a ton bigger than it looks. I figure if I ever decide to raise the ceiling up I can sell the lift and just get a larger one. There's far too much to do in the house before getting crazy out there