Thinking about lifting garage....advice and pics?

[neel2008]

We are in the buying process of our new to us house and it has a 24x24 garage that is only 10 years old....problem is, the concrete is HORRIBLE....someone deff didnt do their home work and prep work....garage would have to be jacked up and slab redone if I wanted a decent floor.....So plan is to live with it for the winter, then in the spring im thinking about pouring a new slab on the other side of the house (where I would like the garage anyway) with help of my excavating company buddy and his concrete expert friend. lol Then I will either move or have the garage jacked up and moved to the new slab on the other side of the house and tear up the old slab that might be the location of a future pole building.....anyway, the garage is your standard ~8' ceiling standard truss etc....What I was thinking about is what if we did the new slab and did maybe a 32-inch "knee wall", 4 layers of 8" concrete cinder block dry set then filled with concrete, and set the garage on that...J bolts would be in the slab and go up through the holes in the block so the garage would still fasten down like it does now....then I would remove the siding from the garage from the top of the door ways down and lower the doors and windows down to where they should be and re side (would use the siding from the back of garage to "fill the gap" on the front and sides and get new siding for the back side that matches as good as I can get it, this will help make it less noticeable....depending on how I do it, I may get away without buying any siding, theoretically, I would be just be swapping it around anyway....Plus, I might just get a taller garage door for the front....

Anyway, Ive been trying to figure out how this would look....I don't want it to look horrible....I've been searching but can't find a pic of a 2 car garage on something like a 4 block high wall with vinyl siding that goes down to where the block starts.....might paint the block with a gray paint or something....maybe some landscaping around the base so it doesn't look so much like "hey, that hillbilly but his garage up on blocks" lol


So sorry about the book there but trying to paint the best picture I can....I've heard of people downing this but have not actually seen one done up like I'm thinking....any pics? Thoughts? Would 32" be a little much? Maybe 24" (3 block high) instead? Oh the goal is room for a lift lol so 32" would make for a 10' 8" ceiling which would be fine for me with a 4 post lift that I want....
Here is a pic of the garage...not bad shape really....door fits a little weird right now because of the floor....

EDIT: I know "knee wall" isn't the correct term, but I'm pretty sure you guys know what I'm talking about. lol

 

[cyamaha2007]

Go for it. Your already redoing concrete any way. Ive lifted them before much like you plan. Brace the hell out of it and lift in small increments. I bought cheap sissor jacks from a junkyard they worked good. I bought 20 of them and each were 3 bucks so not a big cost. I left the floor and dug a new footer to lay block on.

 

[cyamaha2007]

If you use split face block it will look much nicer, Mine looked like it was meant be that way. Look into split face tinted block i went with a tan/clay. My blocks were 4 feet high above grade. Go taller than you think the extra height is nice.

 

[Slick111]

You could also use a brick mold concrete form and just pore a 3 foot solid concrete wall to raise it up I have seen it done on old houses that were moved or just had a new foundation put under them looks like a brick wall & better than just plain concrete some were painted brick red to look even more real could not tell the differance from 5 feet away let alone from the street.

 

[GeorgiaHybrid]

Do these help any? Mine is a 4' concrete knee wall with a 12' stud wall on top.

Outside views

Inside views on move in day.

 

[neel2008]

Yea, im not worried about jacking it up, I can handle that if need be....I still need to get ahold of a couple building movers to see what they would charge to jack up and move the garage from the old slab to the possible future new slab on the other side of the house (about 80 feet away)....Ive seen a few people build supports and jack up a garage and put it down on a trailer and move it across a property and let it back down....but when you factor in the risk, the jacks, the cribbing, the braces, etc, it might not be too bad to just have a company come do it...been told it really doesn't cost too much.....not sure what "not too much" is though....im betting cheaper than a new garage when i knock this one over trying to let it down on a trailer.....lol plus its a simple garage and needs to move 80 feet....not like its a huge house across town....

 

[neel2008]

You could also use a brick mold concrete form and just pore a 3 foot solid concrete wall to raise it up I have seen it done on old houses that were moved or just had a new foundation put under them looks like a brick wall & better than just plain concrete some were painted brick red to look even more real could not tell the differance from 5 feet away let alone from the street.

yes i did also think of something like this as well....deff worth looking into, cost is going to be as big of a factor as it not looking like the hill billy i seem to be.

 

[neel2008]

Do these help any? Mine is a 4' concrete knee wall with a 12' stud wall on top.

Outside views


Inside views on move in day.

yea, that does help give me an idea on what im looking at here, thanks a lot....I really like how you painted the inside to match....will probably steal that.

I like the thought of going 4' but i think it might looking funny with my garage because its smaller than your building, (maybe make it a little too tall and skinny) lol but ill deff figure up the difference in cost and go from there....Now the bricks that come a different color or shade, are they like that all the way through or is it just a coating that will come off years down the road?

 

[NUTTSGT]

I was also going to suggest using split face block if you're using block. Don't forget when you rasie it, you'll also have to move the header above the garage door.

 

[sublimate]

Seems like you could leave the header where it is and build a wall that hangs down from the header to the top of the garage door.

Would be a good time to put in a taller garage door though.

 

[neel2008]

yea I was thinking i would either leave the header and just build a lower header to move the door down....or just get a taller door....I do see military surplus trucks (most likely m35a2 or similar) in my somewhat near future so I might want the height....lol
pretty sure my door is only 7' right now....also thought about putting the current door on the back of the garage if i buy a taller door for the front....be nice for moving toys in and out of the back and make for good air flow in the summer...but careful thought would need to be put into the structural integrity of the building....but it would be less blocks to buy too....ha ha

 

[bczygan]

A block with a decorative surface will look better. Don't dry lay them. Mortar in place. Or use a stone facing. Don't forget a water table detail to define the change from masonry to siding:

 

[neel2008]

hmm i do like that as well....probably keep the siding in place better along the bottom as well....deff makes that edge look much better.....also like in that pic of the house there how they have some stone around the base with some light landscaping to dress it up a little.....

 

[sublimate]

yea I was thinking i would either leave the header and just build a lower header to move the door down....

I don't think you even need a lower header. The existing header caries the load of the roof. You mostly just need something to nail siding to.

 

[neel2008]

http://www.drystacked.com/sequence.html
Plan would be to pretty much follow this....pour slab with re-bar and i would assume long j bolts(still need to do research on this, maybe standard j bolts with coupling nuts and all thread screwed together and tack welded because I love overkill) then most likely 4 layers of block, re-bar about 1/4 way down from the top of the top block and j bolts extending past, then pour the cores full and prepare for the garage to be sat on top....

 

[neel2008]

I don't think you even need a lower header. The existing header caries the load of the roof. You mostly just need something to nail siding to.

yea i didnt really mean "header" I meant build a lower point so the door has something to mount too and frame in the gap above like normal.

 

[PittsS1]

http://www.drystacked.com/sequence.html
Plan would be to pretty much follow this....pour slab with re-bar and i would assume long j bolts(still need to do research on this, maybe standard j bolts with coupling nuts and all thread screwed together and tack welded because I love overkill) then most likely 4 layers of block, re-bar about 1/4 way down from the top of the top block and j bolts extending past, then pour the cores full and prepare for the garage to be sat on top....

If you're not sold on dry stacked, just lay the block as normal but use a bond beam for the top course. It looks like a "U" shaped block. Fill vertical cores every 4 feet (you knock out the bottom of the bond beam block for these so grout can go through), and then you can just put the J-bolts in the bond beam. This lets you use normal (8" or so) J-bolts- not sure you'll find 24" ones anywhere.

Also, on a related note- I had a house moving company jack my house up (1400 ft^2 rambler over full basement- 26'x50' plus a 14'x18' room off the back) and they charged $5600. This was two years ago, but I was surprised how economical it was. I'm sure for something like a garage it would be much cheaper (way lighter, shorter beams, not as much cribbing, etc.) Might be worth getting a couple quotes- I had quotes ranging from $5600 to $18000 (for the exact same thing... I guess the one guy really didn't want or need the business at the time...) We lifted it 3' to add 2 courses of block and a double sill plate using the method above- gained 19" of headroom in the basement.

 

[Ryan87LX]

Interesting. I'd like to jack my garage up to install a couple rows of block under the wood walls because the back wall is actually UNDER grade. I'll be following this thread.

 

[camarotoolman]

Me, I would would carefully dismatel the old garage. Just go up 10 ft. with the blocks for walls, use the old trusses and decking for the roof. The singles are al ready 10 years old,so they will need to redone before long. All the work moving the building, changing windows, doors, siding doesn't seem worth it to me. Block walls are stronger, easy to build, fire and termite proof.

 

[Bubbles]

I lifted my full house, best thing i ever did, went from 6 foot ceilings to 8 ft in the basement.

 

[neel2008]

yea, id like to get a couple quotes from some building moving companies and factor that in with what I want to do....then compare the price with a new garage, doing the block walls, etc...Instead of tearing down the old garage and really only using the trusses, I would probably just leave it where she sits and use it for storage and just build a new garage with block walls and scissor trusses....deff going to total up the price of each and make my decision then.....I also was thinking of doing a double sole plate if I do this as well....and for the longer J bolts, I would just use regular j bolts with coupling nuts and all thread to make them the length I wanted.....I really like the idea of the j bolts being in the slab, helping to tie everything together.....Ill have to look into the bond beam thing as well....on a side note, being that the garage needs to move sideways only 80 feet and it is level terrain....i did have an idea on how I could build some supports and braces and use my future 4 post 8k lift mounted to my 7k car hauler to lift up about 12 inches off the ground, pull forward, move over, back up to new slab, raise up, back the rest of the way in and set it on the blocks.....still have to do some thinking on that one lol from my quick research, the average 2 car 24x24x8 16" on center, standard truss garage weighs in around 4000-4500 lbs.....and I have seen guys build some pretty extensive "frames" inside the garage so they could sit it on a trailer or hay wagon to move it across their property and it worked pretty damn good.....but that's a whole nother can o worms....