SQUARE Garages

[Wile1Coyote]

I am planning out my dream garage in my mind and I really want to start getting some stuff onto paper. Right now the overall design I am considering is square. Most shops\barns\man lodges I see here are rectangular and I was wondering if anyone had a square garage and what they saw as the drawbacks, limitations and or advantages are?

Would like to hear from other guys as to why they went with the shape they did as well.

I am thinking 30x30\40x40\60x60\100x100 you know something along those lines.

Really will just depend on where we build our house and how big the twp or city etc will let me get away with.

Any thoughts appreciated.

 

[JMURiz]

I would think strength would be an advantage. I chose my size due to my limited lot and the county regulations on max-size.

 

[twostory]

I am building a 26 x 44 detached garage because that is the biggest thing the county would allow me to build. I would make it bigger if possible.

As for my rectangular shape, it fits my lot better to do it that way. Also will look better from the street.

The advantage of a rectangle is your roof truss and second story floor joist are cheaper. In my case 26 feet can be done with a 16 inch tall wooden I beam, 16 inch OC. If I was 30 feet (like I would like to be), my floor joist and trusses would have been more expensive to span the distance without any mid span support. If you do not mind a few post in your garage, you can save alot of money on floor joist /or/ roof trusses.

 

[Wile1Coyote]

I should also mention I suspect my space on the main floor anyway will be open car bays in the front, with the back half of the space walled off into a couple of workshops, so thinking 40x40 the front would be one big ol room 20 deep by 40 wide with the back half being cut into some smaller rooms, storage, toilet, office, workshop\assembly room, paint room etc. Just loose ideas at this point. So a structural wall is certainly an option. I plan on going 2 stories with th bays open to the roof and a loft over the storage rooms etc overlooking the bays. The loft will be used as a rec room for entertaining and will probably have a walk out deck as well.

 

[Stuart in MN]

I think that once you get past 24 or 26 feet, the roof trusses or rafters (whatever you're using) start to get real complicated and expensive, particularly if you don't want the garage space filled with support posts.

 

[hawkeye2]

Check out my shop... pretty close to what your describe. it is 30x40 with two 10'x 12 rooms in the back corners (one for lawn equip with a garage door, and the other for machine tools I don't want covered with sawdust. the space in between these rooms will have a rollout lumber/steel rack. I have a 3x 5' room for the toilet, and a sink in the workbenches.

I ended up with 30x 40 because the county limited me to 1200 sqft.

The 30 foot vaulted ceiling trusses only cost about $900.00. with the 9' side walls and the trusses I have almost 15' at the interior peak.


www.hawkeyeindustries.com

 

[DynoDave]

Hey Jon!

This is the fun part. Planning it out, tearing it up, moving things around....

To give your A bodies a proper home, and have room for the things you are planning, I would guess the 30x30 is out.

The 40x40 you describe sounds sweet! You might even have to stretch that a bit. 20 foot deep isn't going to leave you much room to work around the cars with the garage doors closed (ie: winter). Your current garage probably can serve as a guage for how much you'd be comfortable with. Of course, you're housing A's and not B's, so maybe 20' is OK. My current one is 22' deep, and WAY too tight for my taste. The new one will be 26' deep. I'd go more, but the city says I'm out of room.

Once you start drawing it out, and standing in your existing shop measuring car sizes, lift dimensions, tool box sizes, & deciding what's a comfortable buffer for you around the front and rear of the cars, you'll pretty quickly discover what sort of dimensions would suit you best.

Where are you guys looking to build?

 

[Wile1Coyote]

Hey Dave glad to see you are still popping in here. We really missed ya over at CEMA. It was one of the best days I can remember in a long time. I posted pics over at Moparts. Anywho. Not sure where yet prob up in Chesterfield\Shelby or maybe Rochester Eastern side. Oakland is probably to pricey for what you get and Livingston while fine for me would give Marci's mom a heart attack. Actually we found 1 1/2 acres in the sub behind us that would be sweet. On a corner with some huge mature trees which I always like, Guy wants a 1/2 mill for it though which I think it excessive. We want to build our exact same house at the new place only bigger, like 2,500 square or so altough we may have to go even larger to be able to put up the garage I want. ( Honey we are going to need a 6th bedroom so I can have the paint room ) I will be doing a 3 or 4 car on the house too with 14 foot ceilings and one special bay for the GTS to park. I hear what you are saying about space around the cars but I figure with parking for prob 5-6 at the house with lifts I should have plenty of room down in the shop in a 20x40 room. The other thing I didn't mention and the real reason I want to go square is after seeing Hot Rods ( is he still here?) dad's place I am going to do 15 feet of overhang all the way around the first level so there will be plenty of space out there for covered parking for the trailer and an area on the house side for a covered patio area, maybe a covered wash area so I can wax outside but not be in direct sunlight etc. That is really the only place I have seen that had done that and I was very impressed by it. Still very early though as we don't plan to move from here for 5 more years or so. That may change though as I work form home 4+ days a week now and I really wouldn't have a commute so.... As long as I can find an area we can get a bigger piece of land and I can get a cable modem I can get access to the 2,000 servers under my thumb. Sometimes technology really is great! I could build my dream barn and walk to it every day from the main house to go to work! Heaven! Would be pretty cool to be able to see my son get off the bus everyday too.

Hawkeyee I spent quite a while on your site yesterday in fact and was quite impressed. Would love to see more pics posted up there if you have moved in more. They always look good empty a great garage to me is one that is full and still looks empty.

 

[Wile1Coyote]

Another question I have is if it is attached to the house is there really a limit to how big it can be?

 

[Charles (in GA)]

Another question I have is if it is attached to the house is there really a limit to how big it can be?

Depends on local restrictions. One county near me (a very well off county of people with lots of money), restrict accessory structures to 900 sq/ft each, while there is no limit on attached structures, they define attached as having a/c-heated connecting space to it. Everywhere is different.

Charles

 

[bmwpower]

Mine is 30x30. I would have gone bigger, but I was trying it save some money as well as making it look better next to the house. Township was also a concern, as I had to get a variance.

I would say 30 foot depth is a good place to start. I gives you about 10 feet in front of the vehicle to put tools, etc.

I would also say 30 foot width is also a good minimum. It's more than enough to have 2 cars next to each other comfortably and still be able to work around them.

 

[DynoDave]

Jon,

I've been to that CEMA show several years in a row. Wish I had made it over there this year. I went through your pics, and DusterGals. Looks like it was another great event.

I would love to build some form of canopy or extended overhang onto my place. It would be great to be able to pull the cars out onto the cement approach, and have some shade to wash/wax, etc. But, here they consider that as part of your sq. footage, or so I'm told. I can't find that in writing anywhere. So extra overhang is out for me.

What you are describing sounds awesome!

 

[Spencer Was Here]

A square building will give you the more square feet of floor space while using less building materials than a rectangle.

For instance if you build a 10' x 10' shed you will have 100 square feet of floor space. You will have four sidewalls that will each be 10 feet wide which gives you a perimeter of 40 feet.

If you build that same 100 square foot shed, but you make it 5' x 20' then you will have a 50-foot perimeter which in theory should cost more than a shed with a 40-foot perimeter.

You also have to take into account that in order to build square you may have to pay a lot more for special sized trusses than you would for a standard size truss.

I belive a circle will always give you the most volume for the least amount of perimeter, but I haven't seen too many round buildings. I'm pretty sure that is why you usually find soup in a can, it uses less metal to make the soup cans round.

 

[DynoDave]

I would love to do a round barn/garage someday, along the lines of a railroad roundhouse.

 

[Wile1Coyote]

Thanks Spencer makes sense. I have a book on Barns that details some cool 2 story round barns, They Used to keep hay in the bottom floor so they would have the horse walk up a ramp to the second level, dump the cart of hay and then walk forward around a track until they came back to the door and they exited. Apparently horses don't back up so well. I always thought that was pretty cool. Course storing big square items in a circle makes for lots of wasted space but ya gotta admit they look cool as hell.

 

[Der Bugmeister]

Wasn't there someone who posted a couple photos of the early stages of his converting a round corn silo, or something like that, into a garage? Wonder whatever happened with that one...

 

[sberry]

I would also say 30 foot width is also a good minimum. It's more than enough to have 2 cars next to each other comfortably and still be able to work around them.

30 is too narrow if you want the space along the walls for anything, 36 ft minimum for 2 cars. Width isnt a problem for trusses, nothing special about them and I have set a lot of 80 ft wide buildings. My own building is square, I like it and there is no substitute for some width.

 

[DynoDave]

Wasn't there someone who posted a couple photos of the early stages of his converting a round corn silo, or something like that, into a garage? Wonder whatever happened with that one...

Yes, essentially made a 1 car with extra space. I remember that. It was a very cool project.

 

[Wile1Coyote]

Bump since Dave made me start thinking about my dream garage again.

 

[DynoDave]

You can't blame that on me!

 

[autoist]

I started out with a 28x54 garage - soom outgrew it & added 20x44 to the rear of it - soon out grew that & added a small 18x32 shed to one end & then enclosed the 18' area between the shed & garage...well, we're in process of that right now....my point is that I didn't forsee all my needs when I first built. Whichever size you choose, make sure its really what you'll need over the long haul.

http://www.theautoist.com/garage-mahal.htm

 

[Wile1Coyote]

MG's eh Tony? My son inherited a 72 MG from my Father. Just got it back to the house a few weeks ago along with another parts car that found me during the process. Going to mothball it until my son is older so we can restore it togehter, Jaden is 16 months now. Car hasn't been driven since 79 My pops was the second owner. It is a bit of a mess now but will be a great car after some work. and I know what you mean about thinking ahead. I thought I had plenty of space in this garage and it is wall to wall now. projects just seem to find me and I cannot pass up a parts car for $50 no matter how hard I try. LOL

 

[autoist]

You & me....we got the huge triple 2x10 beam up today so we could remove the end wall & open the original part up to the addition under construction....so many cars, so little garage space!

 

[ZRX61]

Square will look odd, no proportion & asthetically ugly, a bit like H*nda Element with the wheels removed....

 

[Wile1Coyote]

Will not really be square though with a 2 story building with a first level porch\awning wrapped all the way around it it, I think it will be enough to break up the cube look that the Honda element certainly does have. I have often wondered if they did that so they can stack them on the ships from Nippon easier. LOL

My fear is that I may have to compromise my design and do it as an attached structure in order to be able to get the size I am gonna want. If i do a 40x40 detached, in most of the twps around here I need to have at least a 5,000 sqf house and I really don't want one that big. Bit of a catch 22 really.

 

[DynoDave]

Jon,

My friend in Waterford got away with a 6+ car, by (temporarily) framing some interior space as an "office". After his final inspection, those partitions came right back out.

 

[Wile1Coyote]

Really! Mmmmmm Great Idea Dave!