Uncle Chachies Garage Build

[gumbudah]

Well, the time has come to start construction on my new garage (at least so long as the city gives me my building permit tomorrow!!!). I've been at my current residence for 10 years, and all the long have wanted a bigger garge. I currently have a 16x32 which is a nice single stall shop, and an older usta be horse barn turned into single motor carriage barn turned into two stall garage. That one is 20x26 and will be going bye bye in the process (if you're in superior wi and want a free garage let me know... as long as I wake up one morning and it's gone I'll be happy!!).
The old one has to go... My current truck is 20.5' long, and the garage is only 20' deep... enough said.
So what I'm planning to build is 30X52 and doing all of the work myself that I can, with a couple rather consistent helpers. So some of the details:

• 5" slab with #4 rebar 2' grid O.C. with 10"x10" thickened edge
• 2" rigid foam
• Hydronic system, pex in slab
• 1 or 2 courses of block
• 9' wall including block
• 4-9'x8' doors
• Hopefully budget will allow 4 liftmaster 3800 openers
• 2x6 walls with unfaced fiberglass and poly linder
• 1/2" high strength rock intrerior
• 2 floor drains piped to sewer
• urinal, toilet, sink
• 8/12 exterior roof. 16' of it will be scissor trusses, the remainder will be attic trusses.
• Vinyl siding
• plain old three tab shingles
• Hot/Cold Water
• Air line to other garage
• Ethernet
• Cable
• Telephone
• half dozen other miscellaneous communication conductors
• all metal cabinets

Well, sooner or later I'll post some pics. Right now, the area where the garage is going, is totalled as I needed to do a bit of foundation work on the house in order to build this garage... long story for another day.
Anyway, I plan to start pushing dirt this weekend!

 

[gumbudah]

Ok. Well I've finally got around to getting some pics sized right.
Before I get to any real pics, I thought I'd post this one of what I think is a bobcat track in my yard. Living within the city limits, this is a bit disturbing.

Before I could actually get to the garage building, I needed to take care of a small foundation modification. When I moved in, the rear portion of the house you see didn't exist. I added it on. The addition was 10' deep by the width of the house, and I placed it over what was a cellar, which had a concrete cap on it. I knocked off the concrete cap, and constructed the addition, cantelevered over the founation. This worked fine, but I began loosing sleep at night over resale value of having a cantelevered section of house. Sooo, I decided I needed to square off the foundation.

Next, I cut through the old foundation into the existing basement with a gas powered concrete wheel saw. That is 5 year dust (It'll take me 5 years to get all of the dust out of the basement.

Of course I then had to pour a slab in it. Way too small of a job to order in redi mix, so of course, we bag mixed it, and brought it down 3 gallons at a time.

In the process I added a bunch of wirsbo to transfer heat and fluids to the new garage. Fluids meaning I wasn't sure at the time whether to put the heat source for the hydronic in the house, or in the garage. As a result I put in enough tubing to run it from the house just in case.

One last shot of this little project wrapping up.

That's all I dare put in one post. hehe more coming.

 

[gumbudah]

Now, moving on to the garage.

I took off all of the topsoil, and brought in about 150yds of sand while I compacted, compacted, compacted.

Right around this time, I had to leave my truck parked out front of the house which is when of course, some huligans stole my ipod by breaking the window of my truck. The kicker, is that the passengar door was rolled down that night, as I forgot to roll it up... bleh.

Next of course was plumbing. I have a stand pipe outside of my house, which the plumber elected to tie into.

The rest of the plumbing was then installed for floor drains, sinks, toilets, etc.

Then I moved on to creating the form work for the in floor scissor lift. I know I broke the cardinal rule of "don't pour until you have your lift in hand" but I didn't have much choice. I dug up the best dimensions I could and went with it. Any changes now when my lift arrives will have to be field fit with a grinder or mortar.

Then came the insulation, wirsbo, and rebar. I learned a few things here. First, insulation under a floor isn't a vapor barrier. I didn't learn this in time so I don't have a real barrier. Second, put the wirsbo directly down onto the insulation. I lost many hours of sleep thinking about how I was going to cut the slab. The end result, I didn't cut it.

By the way, the white stuff you see in the above pic is snow. This was the first day I was "supposed" to pour the slab. I got up at 5 am, looked outside and swear to god I saw 6" of snow on the ground. turns out it was less than a half inch, but it was enough to make me call off the pour for the day.

Packing all the wirsbo together where the heater is going was a job and a half.

That's it for now, next, the pour.

 

[gumbudah]

We then poured. 5000 PSI, fiber reinforced, rebar 2' on center.

Of course there was a lot of work in between, but here's the finished product (or close anyway)

The next bit went rather quick. In the course of about three weeks, I put down one course of perimeter block, built walls, and set trusses. This of course was near our wisconsin gun deer season if you can't tell.

This was back in november or so, since then I've done a bunch of work but of course not much to show for it, aaaand I havn't taken many pics recently. Sooo this is it for now!

 

[gumbudah]

In case you're wondering that's an 8pt white tail.

 

[Danimal]

Nope, wasn't wondering.

Garage looks great! The foundation repair made me tired just looking at it...

Keep the pictures coming.

-Dan

 

[Mustanger]

Keep the pics coming...Looks great so far!!!

 

[kizer]

You killed Bambi you brute.

Nice looking garage or I should say its going to be a nice looking garage with all the thought you are putting into it.

 

[jktruck150]

Unless you have kitties, there isn't any need to be disturbed by a bobcat. Also, you generally will not see toenail imprints on a bobcat track. It does have a lot of similarities, but I think it is a dog (lookin at the nail imprints). Nice garage and nice deer!!!

 

[Sawbladz]

Probably a good call on not cutting the floor. We installed a heated driveway with interlocking brick on top of it and one of our guys cut just a bit deep and nicked a line. That was a few days waiting for the guy to come repair the line and then just fixing the mess. I can't even fathom how hard it would be to repair that inside a foundation.

 

[onewaydave]

ditto on it being a dog print.

 

[gumbudah]

So it's been a while since I've posted. Lots of work this summer, including placing insulation around the perimeter of the slab. Also note how close my other garage is to the new one!

I was in the garage workin one day last fall... A lady drove up and asked if she could have my old garage...!!! I was planning to tear it down, so I said sure. Well it finally happened. It's gone.

With it gone, the garage sure looks like it's got a buuuunch more room.

 

[SteelArt]

wow nice 4 door

 

[gumbudah]

Well, the garage is going to have some interesting/uniqe features. First is a ridge beam over the section that has the scissor trusses. I figure I should be able to load it to about 1000 lb rather safely, but don't much plan to exceed about 800lb.
It's attached to the ceiling by custom fabricated brackets that load the top chord of the trusses, using the rebar in nearly perfect tension. Also on this pic, in the background you can see a number of "T" brackets sticking out of the wall, which I made to create a floating shelf.



The shelf brackets are made by welding a piece of 2" angle to a piece of 3/16" flat bar, and bolting to the studs. I weight 250lb, and can hang off the end of each one of these brackets (that's called "The Adam Test", if I can hang off of it, it's strong enough). Since the brackets are about 32" on center this gives me about 7.8lb /inch load rating which equates to 93lb/ft minus the weight of the shelf, maybe 8lb/ft leaving a total tested load rating of about 85lb/ft. Sooo I figure I should have no problem around 40lb/ft. These brackets are out of level by maybe 1/8" tilted toward the wall to prevent things from rolling off. My plan is to hang roll up bamboo blinds from the ceiling to use as doors, that way, I can roll all of them up and put reaaallly long stuff up there.



Last of the pics for now, is one of the bathroom downstairs. As you can see, it'll have a toilet, I also plan to put a small urinal in, and an even smaller sink, barely large enough to rinse your hands. If you look against the wall you can make out a vertical 4x6, to the right of this will be a small closet, that I'm going to put a bit larger utility sink in, as well as general shelving. Also in this closet will be my main pressure regulator for the garage as the compressor will be in another garage with a tank pressure line coming over to this one.
Also, to the left of the toilet you can see a plywood door with an angular top. This door leads under the stairs and stair platform. Two uses. First this is where there is a cleanout for the upstairs drains. Second, this is the perfect little cubby to put my jack stands and jacks into!!!




I've got more done since these photos, but have obviously been slow in updating this thread. However, over the next few months I should have a bunch of time to update this thread.

 

[gumbudah]

Well this last post (or maybe just one more) should bring me up to speed with what's been done to date.
So, I've added some painted aluminum to the bottom over the insulation, then sided the works with the help of my dad, father in law, and a good buddy.



Siding is done, WOOT!
I mentioned in a previous post how I attached the beam to the roof, here's a slightly better shot of it.

Here's a few of the many conduits connected to the garage. Electrical, security, low voltage, A/V

How about a liftmaster 3800

Some of my beautiful plumbing, no this isn't done just yet.

Lastly, a shot of the garage in it's meesssssy state!

 

[gumbudah]

Last for now, the floor is finished for now. I put down Scofield Lithocrhome Chemstain, in an Antique Amber base, with Padre Brown dark spots. Turned out ok, not quite as bright as I was hoping.

 

[wagonmaster]

Lookin' good! I'd like to see some more pics when you get it finished up in there!

 

[gumbudah]

Well, just wanted to post and say I havn't done a darn thing (well maybe I've done a couple things) on the garage. I have, however reworked the stairs on the deck, and I'm nearly done with the deck railing. Just have to put up the balusters.
I'd like to work more on this thing through the winter, but I'm gonna be a bit *******. My daughter has leukemia. She originally got it in 2008, and had a relapse in October. sooo we've spent countless hours in the hospital, and have many many more to go. She'll be getting a bone marrow transplant in February, hopefully she'll be able to come home by the end of May. Soooo, not to sound material and downplay that, but this isn't necessarily the forum to labor on about that subject.
Getting back to the garage, (Not to downplay leukemia or put my materialistic garage project ahead of it, but this isn't necessarily the forum to labor on about that subject) I prolly won't get much done until early summer. I guess another reason, is I live in northern wisconsin, right now days are short and the snow is getting deeper every day. It'd prolly be a bit easier on the gas bill to just wait for summer also!

 

[RbrtAWhyt]

Have you gotten your lift yet?

 

[gumbudah]

Yep, I've got the lift, but havn't put it in the holes yet. I've only got as far as measuring it. It appears that the holes I made are maybe, possibly, exactly the right size. I used dimensions from another post (I forget which one), and compared them to the factory drawing. I then messed around with the gap a little, and made the boxes to put in the floor. Unfortunately, I had to do all this prior to receiving the lift. I think I measured the holes at about 3/16 wide, and about 1/64 long, buuut I think I might could push the lift extension in a little, so it should work out just about right. They are definitely deeper than needed tho. That's ok, nothing a few shim blocks cant take care of. That'll be nice anyway, as I can figure out the shims, put the anchor bolts in, get the lifts set, then pull the lifts, leave the exactly perfect shims in place, and pour a bit of a contoured floor in the holes to take up any extra low spots. Not to mention it'll leave a little extra room for some outlets.
P.S. Congrats to me for my 100th post!

 

[gumbudah]

A quiick update. No pics. Sorry.
I've got all of the rough pvc in that's going to go in for now, 2 sinks, 2 toilets, 1 urinal, 1 shower, 2 air line drains.
I've started installing the copper for the air lines, and have it probably 20% done.
I've also been doing a lot of shopping. I've picked up a modulating boiler for the wirsbo, which also has a domestic hot water side. I'm glad to finally make that purchase, getting the expens out of the way, about $1700...
I picked up the other 3 liftmaster 3800 door openers too! That means I've got all 4 now.
I got all the hoses/wires needed to install my floor lifts, that job needs some concrete grinding done prior to install. bleh
Lastly, I also picked up the security system that will be placed in the house, but also cover security for the garage as well as heating, intercom, and a couple other things. By the time it's done, I'll be able to control the heat in the garage from space!!!

 

[Bib Overalls]

The drywall guys are going to love your "floating" shelves.

 

[BPJOOP93]

I love the way the floor turned out. Shes comin along nicely. What are you using for the walls? Drywall or particalboard?

 

[gumbudah]

The "drywall guys" are me. hehe so I'll be taking on the trouble there.
The floor will be rather uniqu, I'm hoping I can light the whole place up enough to overcome it's darkness.
As far as the walls, they will be smoothe drywall, with the possible exception of the ceiling. I'm not sure if I'll go with smooth or some sort of knockdown on it. Right now I'm definitely thinking smoothe.

 

[scott37300]

The drywall guys are going to love your "floating" shelves.

Those brackets won't be that bad, I used to be a drywall hanger on commercial jobs like hospitals so we delt with all sorts of this stuff. Just measure were the cutouts are for the angle iron and cut them out. Then just cut the sheet across the angle cutouts, hitting each one. Now you have a top and bottom to just screw on and then tape and mud. Pretty easy and will look great!

 

[gumbudah]

This just in, This just in, My lifts are in the ground!!!
Earlier today I did a final bit of grinding, and got the lifts to sit down into the holes. Man do I have a lot of learnings from this.
Their in place, and could prolly lift something really light, but i still have to grout/anchor bolt them in place.


I've spent another good part of the day cleaning the rest of the garage getting ready to work on other stuff/electrical/some air lines.

So some learinings:
1. If you can, wait until you get your lift before creating the depressions.
2. Go a bit oversize on the depressions, even a bit bigger than you think.
3. The end with the hydraulics, on mine anyway, the base plate sticks out farther than the top does.
4. somewhere here, one of yall created just one large hole, and built a steel table for the middle. That would prolly be a better idea, from a servicability and installation perspective.
5. The manual *****.

 

[gumbudah]

Just a quick update. I've got all the air lines plumbed in, red label 1/2" copper. I've got most of the electrical boxes placed where their going to go, but havn't really started running cable. I've been doing a bit of figuring lately too, and finally figured out a good way to drop wires for flourescent lights. I plan to mount them perpendicular to the trusses, but I don't know which ones I'm going to buy yet, so I'm not sure where in the 4' long fixture I should rough in the wire to land, so my plan would be to drop it right in the middle of the fixture. I guess if I went and purchased all of the 20 lights I need right now I could be a bit more precise but it might be 6 months before I get to actually hanging them, so I'm gonna wait a bit before dropping that cash. Anyway the plan is to locate where the centerline is, then using some "Ape Tape" a nylon pipe hanging tape. the plan is to stretch it tight between the trusses at the location where the light will go, then make a slit in the middle, where the wire can drop through. that way, when I go to rock the wire will be "exactly" where I want it.
gotta go out of town for a couple days, and of course have the weekend filled up with family fun. Hope I can get back to do a little bit of work on sunday.
I think next my intention will be to finish placing the rest of the electrical boxes.
After that replace the electrical service to the house, replace the vent on the heater, and locate the lights/rough the wiring for the lights on the shop end of the garage.

 

[gumbudah]

Wow this is awesome in a rube goldberg way. Today ive been working on a list of outlets switches lights etc, anything with a box. Well turns out i have over 100 boxes of various sorts in the garage!!! Holy **** thats a lot.

 

[morfmedia]

Looks like a nice workspace! Keep on going with the updates

 

[gumbudah]

Well, I been able to put a bit more time in as of the last week or so. I'm starting to rough in some wiring. I think all together right now, I have about 30 boxes roughed in, out of about 150. Sooo, I'm makin some progress. It should pick up a bit more as I go, as I've gotten some of the more difficult areas done. I've got 12 of the 32 fluorescent light hangwires in place, so that's a good percentage, and their the tough ones in the vaulted part of the garage, the others left to do are are in the area with just the flat ceiling.

 

[Kevin54]

Well, I been able to put a bit more time in as of the last week or so. I'm starting to rough in some wiring. I think all together right now, I have about 30 boxes roughed in, out of about 150. Sooo, I'm makin some progress. It should pick up a bit more as I go, as I've gotten some of the more difficult areas done. I've got 12 of the 32 fluorescent light hangwires in place, so that's a good percentage, and their the tough ones in the vaulted part of the garage, the others left to do are are in the area with just the flat ceiling.

Why so many boxes?

 

[gumbudah]

I guess its 150 including just about every electrical termination point on the garage, Lights, Switches, Receptacles, Junction boxes. Off the bat, theres 48 lights alone, including inside and out.

 

[gumbudah]

Quick update.
I been workin on re-piping my vent for the furnace to exit the garage a bit closer to the peak of the roof to avoid needing 7' of pipe above the roof! I think that job is pretty well done. Soo, i just moved on to doing my "finish" install of the garage door hangers. I'm using 1.75" od tubing welded to a cross bracket in the ceiling. It should be slick, but is a pita to install. got the brackets made, but need to now weld them together while in place.

 

[gumbudah]

I've been working on electrical a bit, I have one bay done. I'll post more of that when It looks a bit better. Right now, I just have wires roughed in, not even curled up in box etc.
My two major projects lately have been to finish all of the door support brackets and putting in the wirsbo for the second floor heating.

The wirsbo went in AFTER the brackets below, wanted to get the welding done first. Anyway, the wirsbo has been a pain in the **** to put in, as I don't have an uncoiler, so yeah, I'm that guy, big rats nest of pex tubing in the garage hehehe. It was not a pretty sight, but its mostly in. I think I have two bays left, I ran out of staples. I'm doubting I'll even need to use this run as I plan to keep the garage at 45 or so, which should keep the upstairs prolly closer to 60.




The hangers are made from four pieces. First I cut 2 pieces of 3/16x2" flat bar about 8" long. Drilled 5/16" holes in each end and one in the middle. Then I cut a piece of 1/8" x 1.5" angle iron to length (generally about 22-1/8" depending on which truss cavity I was working in. Welded the two flat bars to the end of the angle irons. Then cut the down tubes at 45 deg angle on one end, and cut to length. Drilled 5/16" bold hole through 45 degree end.
Before installing, I already had the door rails up and leveled/squared using brackets about 2 feet closer to the doors so they were out of the way, and held the rails in position.
To install, I bolted the downtubes in place, tightened bolt. Then I placed the hanger bars (the angle iron piece) in rough position, and held them in place by a clamp on either end. I then swing the hanger tube up, and leveled it, by tapping the hanger bar one way or another. Once the hanger tube was level, I rotated it down and out of the way. I then drilled 1/4" holes through the trusses and the 5/16" holes in the hanger bars. Insert 2.5" long bolts through holes, add washers and nuts. Once they were tight I removed the clamps.
I then rotated the hanger tubes back up into position and clamped in place.
My wife then helped me double check the squareness and separation of the rails one last time. Plumbed the down tubes, then welded in place. Remove the old/temporary hanger brackets, and I was all done!

I have one bay that has scissor trusses. The brackets for these rails were a bit more difficult. The one rail closest to the end of the attic trusses required me to run a tube through the wall and attach it to two trusses. Welded a tab on the end of it, and bolted in place.
The other one was the same as the ones described above, except perpendicular to ceiling instead of plumb.





Also, I made a guide for the hose and cord reels. I'm planning on furring the ceiling down by 3/4 inch, so this should work out just right to sheetrock over. Once the rock is up, I'll make another guide to go over the hole. I was going to use roller hose guides, but their $20 each!!! six holes, that'd be 120$ for all of them! bleh. So, I'm going to buy a 1/2" thick teflon type cutting board for $10 and make some Guides out of it. 3.5" diamter disk of it, drill 1.25" hole in the middle, three smaller holes around the perimeter for screws, then hit the edges with a roundover bit on the router. Hope that works out.


Some day I'm going to go through and edit all of these posts, in a nice neat organized fashion and make a good journal of the construction.

 

[gumbudah]

Had a real good couple of days. Got a lot of electrical done including the most difficult part around the boiler. Still got quite a ways to go but insulation here we come!!!

 

[gumbudah]

Wow, feeling overwhelmed... Still dont have wiring done... Garage is a mess, and to boot, I just added two stalls worth of stuff to the garage... Now i need to figure out how to clean it out again to get it done... Still have a little electrical to do before insulation. what i really need is a 24x24 next door to move all my stuff into, then hire out the insulation, rock, and tape.... Bleh.

 

[gumbudah]

Mini win for me! So my father in law passed away three weeks ago. He was a mechanic. We moved all of his stuff from his shop into my new unfinished garage. Lots of tools, lots of general stuff. My mini win tonight was to get a bunch of it moved into my old garage. The place is an absolute hole, I laugh at myself every time I bring more stuff in there. The point is though... I'm getting that much closer to drywall in my new garage. This evening I moved probably 30 boxes of stuff. Lots of big stuff to go, and I still need to have a sale to get rid of some of the items... But I'm happy with an evening's moving stuff from one side to the other. If anyone in superior wi has some cheap to free storage space let me know!!!!!!!!!!

 

[gumbudah]

Well, just a little update. I know I'm massively overdue for pictures, but I've really only been working on wiring lately. The good news is I've head a few good hours to work on the garage. I'm hoping/thinking that I'm getting pretty close to finishing the wiring. I've probably got about 6 runs of low voltage wiring left, plus a lot of wire stapling and terminations to do.
I've been simultaneously working on a room in the house to house my security system. the drywall work is done, just some woodwork and paint to do. I'm hoping a few more hours work there and it'll be done.
We decided it was time to take the kids to DisneyWorld! Sooo that'll take a weekend out of the mix this month, as well as another weekend for bowling and easter at mom and dad's. I imagine we'll go camping one weekend, so all in all I think I'll probably have one good weekend plus a bunch of weeknights to work on it this month. Mini goal-Have all wiring done by the end of the month! hmm do-able... I think... maybe...

P.S. Yay for me on my 200th post! Thanks to everyone for all the useful advice, I'm very sure that the overwhelming majority of my posts are asking for advice rather than providing the detailed responses so many of you are good for!!!

 

[ephotrod]

Pictures are needed. We would like to see what was passed onto you.
Josh

 

[MajorLeeGassole]

In case you're wondering that's an 8pt white tail.

I hope the next pic of something hanging from the rafters is the ***** that stole your iPod and busted your truck window... followed by the bobcat. In that order.