The Grand Conclusion (or, Abi's Box 'O Stuff)

[Abi]

Greetings, all. I've been lurking here for a while, but now it's time to begin my foray into garage construction...

Ever since I bought my house in 2014 (which has a 2.5-car attached garage), I knew I'd eventually need to build a detached garage. Like most of you, I have too much sh...stuff, and not enough space for it all. With a large truck, an SUV, two motorcycles, a lawn tractor, a snow thrower, a push mower, bicycles, tool chests, a refrigerator, and other sundries, I need about twice the garage space than I have.

So, I've titled this project "The Grand Conclusion" for a couple of reasons. First, I've concluded my constant moving (I'm retired military), so we're in our once-imagined, now-realized "final house". Thus, we're making it exactly what we want, and that includes garage space. Second, I had to manage competing interests when concluding the final requirements for the garage (most notably regarding square footage). We live in suburbia, and our lot is 0.43 acres. We want to retain as much back yard space as possible for our dogs, so I can't make it too expansive. Plus, siting the new garage was a challenge given the city's easement requirements, which limited the width given the proximity to the house.

In the end, I came up with what you see in the attached drawing.

I hired a reputable local contractor to do most of the work, and we signed the contract a couple of weeks back. Groundbreaking to begin as soon as the weather clears. I'll follow up this post with some pre-construction pics.

I guess that's plenty for now.

Cheers,
Abi

 

[SiGmA_X]

What's the plan for the garage? Ceiling height, slab thickness, door size? What type of lift will you be putting in? Etc!

 

[Abi]

Here's the short and sweet on the plan:

• Foundation outer dimensions: 26 ft deep x 19 ft wide
• 2"x6" stick-framed walls on 8-inch block foundation
• ceiling height 8 ft, 8 in
• Gable roof with 8/12 pitch to match dormers on front of house
  • Attic trusses, to have room for storage
  • 6-in bottom chord (support storage in attic)
• Pull-down ladder to attic
  • Hoist to lift items to attic (safer than carrying up a ladder!)
• James Hardie siding to match house
• Architectural shingles to match house
• Standard 16' x 7' roll-up door (Chamberlain HD750WF opener)
• One man door (north, facing house)
• Two windows:
  • double sash to the south side, facing neighbor
  • single sash to the west, facing back yard
• Electricity only (i.e., no water service, no gas)
  • 60-amp subpanel (from 200 A main s ervice panel)
  • One 240-volt breaker for electric heater (NewAir G73)

Other considerations:

• Given the layout of my property, the 10-ft easement, the location of the house, and the fact that my back yard is fenced, I've required the contractor to leave 9 feet between the house and the new garage. The reason is that this will be the only path wide enough to drive a vehicle into the back yard (or a Bobcat, stump grinder, etc.) should this ever become necessary. To meet this requirement, and stay off the easement, the garage must be 19 feet wide: 38' house-to-property line minus 10' easement minus 9' drive equals 19 feet. The depth of 26 feet was driven largely due to the amount of encroachment into the back yard. I thought about 28 feet deep, but it would have been too intrusive.
• The electrical service to the house runs directly under the proposed footprint. So, I now have the added pleasure of paying the electric utility to come out and splice in a new line (after I pay the contractor to dig two pits and a trench)
• When we bought the house, the (very old) air conditioner compressor was located on the side of the house, which would have blocked the backyard access drive. So, when I had the HVAC replaced last year, I had them put the new compressor in the back yard, out of the way. It's a high-efficiency unit, and extremely quiet, so it's not a nuisance when we're grilling out, etc.

Pics to follow...

Abi

 

[Abi]

As promised, here are some pictures. This first batch shows the impetus for building the garage in the first place: too much shi ... er, stuff.

 

[Abi]

These pictures show where the garage will be located, and some of the initial work I had to do to prepare the site (namely, deconstruct a portion of my fence). As you can see, I had the added complication of needing to retain an enclosed back yard for my dogs (2nd pic) throughout construction. The whippet (a sighthound) has a keen eye for squirrels and will chase any he sees, without regard for cars, other less-friendly dogs, etc. Mama wouldn't like me very much if her baby got hurt (or worse).

Next step: relocate the electrical service to the main panel. Fingers crossed for no more rain this week.

 

[Bib Overalls]

Why can't you access your back yard via the ten foot easement?

We have a 16'x26' garden shed where we keep the mower, pool supplies, etc and it is small. When we built it I wanted it to be big enough to hold a vehicle. The thinking is that a future buyer might find that an attractive feature. If I were doing it again I would want a 20, 22 or preferably a 24 foot width.

 

[Abi]

Why can't you access your back yard via the ten foot easement?

Strictly speaking, I could (although, there's a steep-ish grade there); however, to expand the width of the garage in the other direction would only put it closer to the house. Regardless of the backyard access aspect, there's also the aesthetics to consider: IMHO, it would be odd looking to have such a large building only 3-4 feet from the main structure. Like someone standing too close to you, invading your personal space.

The only other alternative for accommodating a larger footprint, then, is to invade the back yard. Insofar as my wife and I want to retain as much real estate in the back as possible, I've made the command decision to limit depth to 26 feet deep.

I have no doubt my plan would be too small for some on this forum. As for my wife and me, we plan to die in this house, so future buyers are of no concern to us in this regard. Mind you, I like functional garage space as much as the next guy, but for my planned use (parking and storage...which is to say, not a workshop), I think I'll be fine.

Appreciate the gut-check, though!

Abi

 

[sean Buick 76]

That will work out well, I think you will be really happy with this setup!

 

[Abi]

Well, over the past couple of weeks, we've made some progress. First up, we had to get the electric utility company to move my service line outside the footprint of the garage.

Here, the trench is about half way finished. Because of the proximity to the house, the last 20 feet had to be dug by hand. The soil is rock hard, with many large stones, so I didn't envy the crewman tasked to dig.

Here's the entire trench upon completion:

All that effort to find this wire:

With that all complete, the footer/foundation work can commence. I'll share those pictures in a subsequent post.

 

[Abi]

With the electric utility service line moved, the construction of the garage itself began this week.

First up, before the footer could be poured, we had to remove the turn-around apron at the end of the driveway. In siting the garage, I wanted the front of the structure to begin where the existing apron ends. To dig the trench for the footer, the existing apron had to be removed. It will be re-poured when the floor slab is poured.

Here's the apron being cut off with a masonry saw. It only took about 8 minutes to make a 20-foot cut through 4 inches of concrete.

The footer trench, ready for inspection by the county construction inspector. Note the pieces of concrete from the apron. The grade is such that they can be buried under the slab, thus saving a little money (and a lot of effort) to cart them off to the county construction landfill.

We had to sacrifice part of the existing lawn sprinkler. I did think ahead, though, by taking measurements of where the line was cut so that we can have a sprinkler contractor connect to the existing lines without having to abandon the whole system.

Big toys for big boys!

 

[Abi]

Even on a Saturday, they were hard at work building the foundation wall. Here are a few pics to show the progress today:

 

[Abi]

But what to my wondering eyes should appear? Three bricklayers at my house on Father's Day Sunday! Wow.

So, I guess the boss said the foundation had to be completed by Monday. Here's the finished product...

They had to do a little re-work today. They had created a vertical mortar joint that spanned the entire height of one wall (left picture below).
I pointed it out, and they graciously (and quickly) implemented a fix (right picture below).

This picture provides a sense of the severe incline within the width of the 10-foot easement (reference my discussion in the first several posts in this thread).

 

[readhead]

They must do things differently in Ohio. It appears that the blocks on the top course have a solid top. How did they grout the cells? Are the anchor bolts embedded in anything besides the head joints? Was there any rebar coming out of the footing into the wall? I would definitely not leave the broken concrete unless you want problems down the road.

 

[Abi]

readhead,

Ohio code requires anchor bolts to be embedded into grout at least 7 inches. However, the top cap system used on my foundation is a termite cap top course which meets Ohio building code with regard to anchors. Not all the blocks are cast the same. Some accommodate the included anchor bolts which hook under the block, and the anchors are shaped to fit into sockets cast into the side of the block (which provides room for additional mortar around the anchors). Here are a couple of pics showing the bottom view of these cap blocks:

The concrete pieces from the old apron were removed before the gravel base was put in. Here, we're almost ready for the apron and floor to be poured.

 

[readhead]

Interesting. The pictures didn't come through. Are the top blocks solid?

 

[Abi]

No, cell is open on the bottom. Cross section essentially looks like this: |_|_| (upside down)