typical sizes for garage bays?

[924RACR]

Hey there... not a new user, but been away for a bit - probably due to disgust with filling my current garage to the brim, in spite of fanatical storage and organization... just a matter of trying to fit a 5-car garage into a standard 2.5...

So now I'm back, as my wife and I are finally looking at taking the next step and upsizing - both the house and garage need to be bigger, neither has enough storage space and her kitchen pantry even takes space in the garage, that's how tight we are!!

To get to the specifics, one leading contender we're looking at has, simply put, a wreck of a garage - undersized 2-car that's slumping over a badly broken slab. Seems to me the only way to really plan to get any use out of the garage (let alone be able to work on my racecar and projects there) is to start from scratch - new pad and all.

Of course, that only opens up the options, in a good way; perfect opportunity to build what I want! I'm thinking something like a 3-3.5 car wide, by 1-1.5 deep would work great; sure, I've got 6 cars, but they don't all need to be inside (in fact, some of them need to be sold! ).

But I really am not familiar with typical sizing for garage bays; my cars also tend to be of the sports-car variety and therefore short; I don't want to construct a garage that's too short for a normal car and therefore screw potential resale value.

So what would a typical bay be in size, and/or how big would a typical (?) 3x1.5 be?

Amusing asides, the entire driveway is also concrete, and rather damaged (broken and lifted) by tree roots... ah, the joys of living in old communities with many trees. At least it's got a little less tree coverage to **** all over my cars...

Hopefully this will be only the first of many fun and fulfilling questions leading to the installation of a new dream garage in the backyard of a nice big house!

Cheers...

 

[RoadRunner]

Hey there... not a new user, but been away for a bit - probably due to disgust with filling my current garage to the brim, in spite of fanatical storage and organization... just a matter of trying to fit a 5-car garage into a standard 2.5...

So now I'm back, as my wife and I are finally looking at taking the next step and upsizing - both the house and garage need to be bigger, neither has enough storage space and her kitchen pantry even takes space in the garage, that's how tight we are!!

To get to the specifics, one leading contender we're looking at has, simply put, a wreck of a garage - undersized 2-car that's slumping over a badly broken slab. Seems to me the only way to really plan to get any use out of the garage (let alone be able to work on my racecar and projects there) is to start from scratch - new pad and all.

Of course, that only opens up the options, in a good way; perfect opportunity to build what I want! I'm thinking something like a 3-3.5 car wide, by 1-1.5 deep would work great; sure, I've got 6 cars, but they don't all need to be inside (in fact, some of them need to be sold! ).

But I really am not familiar with typical sizing for garage bays; my cars also tend to be of the sports-car variety and therefore short; I don't want to construct a garage that's too short for a normal car and therefore screw potential resale value.

So what would a typical bay be in size, and/or how big would a typical (?) 3x1.5 be?

Amusing asides, the entire driveway is also concrete, and rather damaged (broken and lifted) by tree roots... ah, the joys of living in old communities with many trees. At least it's got a little less tree coverage to **** all over my cars...

Hopefully this will be only the first of many fun and fulfilling questions leading to the installation of a new dream garage in the backyard of a nice big house!

Cheers...

Rule of thumb I used was 10' x 20'. A lot of new builds use this as a base, then you upgrade for larger size. Realistically, a 20' deep bay leaves little room to walk around the front/rear. And if you have a full size pickup with long bed, it wont fit. You will also see typical attached garages around 22' deep, but will have stairs or door on the back wall that needs clearence room.

 

[carcentric]

I think 10 x 20 used to be the standard, but 12 x 24 seems more typical since the early 1990's up here in the Pacific Northwest (that's what the house we had built in 1992 had - three cars, 24' deep x 36' wide).

I had a property-line setback to contend with when we built the new shop, so it's only 22' deep (x 24' wide) - but that's plenty for compacts/imports and that's what most people drive these days . . . .

 

[oldgoat]

Around here they call a 20 x 20 a 2 car garage, but it just barely is. To me 20 deep isn't deep enough unless you have a compact car. To min depth I would want is 24ft. Depends on how it can be laid out on the lot but just guessing I would think something like 36 x 24 would take care of at least 3 cars, but since you are talking race cars also I would go 36 x 30 so that I would have plenty of depth to use a cherry picker or put in a track overhead on one bay with a hoist so that you can pull engines.

 

[aaron51chevy]

On the web there are many standard plans for garages. I built a 24x24 and it ok for depth and width. The Bays will be constricted based on door size be it 16' or 18'. Also being in Royal Oak or surrounding area there are codes on the size of the garage based on amount of open land and home foot print. I couldn't build any bigger with out tearing down my shed.