Upgrading the garage

[shepner]

I thought I would share my garage build project here.

We bought our house >20yrs ago and most of that time Ive been complaining about the garage for various reasons. Not big enough. In rough shape. Broken concrete. Too cold in the winter. Too much stuff to actually work, etc.

I finally decided to do something about that.

There arent too many pictures of the old garage but here are a couple soon before work started

Here is my overgrown weedy mess:

And from the back minus the retaining wall I pulled out earlier:

 

[shepner]

The general idea for the new garage large enough space to hold all my stuff, AND doesnt require an hour of shuffling stuff around so I can work. Oh and have heat so I can actually work in the winter. And I really want a lift because Im tired of laying under a car. And I really want to park all 3 cars indoors. And, and, and.....

 

[shepner]

Since moving wasn't really a realistic option for me, I went with the the largest the city would permit on my (very small) lot. In this case, that is 27' W x 28' D x 19.5' H. I ended up going with Worldwide Steel Buildings for the kit because I needed a clearspan design so I could have a really tall lift with the 3rd car stored on top.

The main limiting factor for the height is that a garage is not permitted to be higher than the house. Unfortunately, my garage sits slightly up a hill so I couldn't do a full 2 stories. To get enough storage space, the plan is to install a mezzanine over the areas where the lift is not located. All the lesser used stuff can go up there and the tools can stay below.

 

[shepner]

Around Jan 2018 or so I was making arrangements and the plan was that Id have construction start the beginning of June. In early mid May, I managed to get the really big stuff out of the old garage with the help of the car club and all was going fairly well. The next weekend, when I was out of town, the city was kind enough to send us a letter saying they were going to replace our ally the following Monday. The letter arrived the Friday before, that afternoon they sent a Bobcat through with a jackhammer, and Monday morning was when the bulldozer arrived. This was just the beginning of the delays and problems

 

[shepner]

Around mid July, the city finally finished with what they claimed would be a 4 week (ha!) replacement of the ally. Thats when I was able to get the remainder of stuff out of the old garage. Apparently I didnt need to rush after all because I fell off the work schedule because of all the delays.

July 20 is when the garage kit arrived.

Finally got stuff going again and July 31 is when demolition of the old garage started. Notice what is lurking on the side:

I have to say that there is nothing quite like the pang of coming home to find a Bobcat sitting on the remains of your garage to really drive it home that your now fully committed to the project....

And all gone:

 

[shepner]

Things started moving quickly. Next day the subgrade was in and the forms were mostly complete.

The day after that they had the forms complete, insulation in place, and the Pex run.

They also dug the trench which unfortunately went right under my wife's lilac next to the house. (yeah, Im going to have to replace that....)

That black pipe is the insulated PEX. That was a pain to fish through the hole in the wall. The small conduit is for power. The others are extras for stuff like network cables.

Over the weekend I hooked up the manifold and pressure tested the Pex.

 

[shepner]

The inspector had them add more insulation and rebar in some spots which added a day. It was interesting and somewhat alarming watching them lift all my PEX up along with everything else so they could dig out underneath. Fortunately there were no problems.

After that was a couple trucks worth of concrete for the pad. And a third for the apron (and the stuff the neighbor had done). The thinest spot is 6".

At the end of the day, the forms were off and now I get to wait again.

 

[James-W]

Looks good so far, but if you could make the pictures a bit larger it would be nice.

 

[shepner]

This should give an idea of the size:

This is where the next round of issues crop up. Less then a week from the start in the beginning of Sept, I suddenly found myself without anyone to actually build the garage. The biggest problem I found with this whole project is that its incredibly difficult to find anyone willing to work on a residential metal frame building. Its not worth the time for the commercial people and the residential ones wont even consider it. The places selling these kits tend to gloss over this little detail. The 4th place that would even consider talking to me was who we ended up going with because all the others backed out. Fortunately, this guy has done this type of construction before and knows what he is doing

As an aside, I find it interesting just how much wood actually goes into this metal building....

The columns are up! After everything that has happened, this was the happiest day

Roof joists are going up:

They did an excellent job making sure the columns were perfectly aligned. The holes lined up perfectly and nothing is stressed. The concrete was pretty good too. Aside from one spot, very little shimming was needed

Now with the bulk of the girts and purlins installed:

 

[shepner]

Looks good so far, but if you could make the pictures a bit larger it would be nice.

oops, apparently the photo album was exporting as size "medium". Lemme try to fix that...

 

[shepner]

Lemme try to fix that...

And apparently this site is also limiting the image size. I guess I need to get them hosted somewhere to avoid this issue....

 

[shepner]

OSB on the roof:

Side door and the windows framed:

I had a series of issues with the windows. They ended up being slightly larger then intended and they were sideways. I also had to move the door slightly from its originally planned location which in turn displaced the 4th window to the North wall.

Here is with the garage door frames in place:

This was another bit of 'fun'. The door people wanted a different frame then what was called for. The concrete curb was also a couple inches longer then it should have been. The door people said no problem, they will adjust the order so the curtain will go between the jambs instead of the back. I wasnt happy with the loss of width but fine. All of this caused for a bit of a last minute scramble but in the end we build the frames as they asked.

Finally got to park my car "inside":

Tyvek, windows, and door. The openings at the top will be for the exhaust fans

The first wall of siding is installed! This was another really good day:

 

[shepner]

More siding:

It took a while but they are finally getting to the roof:

Skipping ahead a bit, roof and siding is on and the trim is being installed:

And now the exterior is complete:

 

[shepner]

The door installation took a day each door and unfortunately I didnt get many pictures of that.

Interior view:

Exterior view:

So remember when I was talking about the changes to the door? Well, that didnt happen. Instead the crew just trimmed the concrete out of the way and installed the door. This was fine but the studs werent oriented the correct direction and I now need more flashing:

And here we are with both doors after the electricity was installed:

 

[shepner]

And we are now caught up to the present. I still need to get that flashing installed along with the snow bars. I also need to followup with the gutter people to see why I havnt gotten a quote yet.

The biggest issue sofar is that I discovered a *really* slow drip from the ridge. They are going to look into it later this week. Ive also discovered that the door openers dont work so well through a metal building and a metal car. I have to find a better way to deal with that.

I fenced off the parking spot next to the garage so the dogs can have a bit more room. They think its really neat that they now can go inside with me to 'help' me.

The next round of major expenses will be:

1. Insulate the roof
2. Purchase the car lift
3. Build the mezzanine
4. Insulate/finish the walls
5. Install the lights

 

[shepner]

For a while now, Ive been trying to decide how the mezzanine should be designed, how much weight it needs to support, where to put stairs, etc. Here is my current idea:

the gap by the garage door is because the hood and motor stick out a couple feet and are right where the floor would be.

This design is assuming engineered joists and LVL for the headers. Id like to limit to 1 post. The floor would be at 10' up which I think should give enough room underneath.

Feedback would be appreciated for better ways to engineer this, better layouts, etc!

 

[Mr. Roboto]

This all sounds great from the text... but the pictures aren’t showing up for me FYI!

 

[53PontiacSD]

Yep sounds good to me too, but no pictures here either.

Billy

 

[shepner]

Now on service #3 for the pictures. Lets hope Flickr works better then the previous ones

 

[53PontiacSD]

Oh, now I see them. It all makes better sense now with pictures. Nice building you have going there.

 

[Mr. Roboto]

Pics coming through now, nice! I may have missed it in the description, but why the 2 different height doors?

FYI, after the Photobucket fiasco where they held everyone's formerly free pics hostage, I just host everything directly on garage journal now. Works great.

 

[captain14]

Very nice build. I’ll stop back and see what’s happening later this week.

 

[shepner]

but why the 2 different height doors?

Yeah. I forgot to mention that one. And yeah, there is a bit of a story behind it....

I originally wanted to have two lifts with the mezzanine only in the back of the garage and both doors at 9'x9'. Since that wouldnt leave me much room, I started looking around for coil doors. This was an exercise in frustration because most of the places wouldnt even talk to me and the rest politely told me that they dont install in residential.

Eventually, I found a local Overhead Door installer who was ok with the residential thing and was willing to work with me. Then he gave me the quote for one door. There was no way I could afford to buy two of them. After I picked myself up off the floor, change of plans. Ill do a conventional door and extend the mezzanine over that half of the garage. Ill be limited to 3 cars (really wanted to store 4) *BUT* Ill have a ton of storage space (which I really need). Not too bad of a tradeoff. All of this was going on while I was in discussions with the manufacturer. Eventually, it was all drawn up, approved by the city, and they shipped me the kit.

Fast forward a couple months. The garage is starting to be built and Im calling around to update my quotes. This time, oddly enough, I was having better luck getting responses and it came down to a place selling Overhead Door and another selling Cookson. The features, functionality, and prices were near identical. Oh and the quotes were coming in at around HALF of what I was originally given.

As it was, the expenses were really piling up. Mostly from labor fees (which is yet another little detail that these manufacturers omit or dramatically downplay). I had been trying to figure out how to deal with that door because the mezzanine was going to have to wait till I can get the cash together but this changes things. I was unfortunately committed to the door sizes when the new quotes came through, but I budgeted for the higher cost and this solved a problem.

FYI, after the Photobucket fiasco where they held everyone's formerly free pics hostage, I just host everything directly on garage journal now. Works great.

That is what I tried first but GJ just resized them all and they were basically unviewable. I happened to have them in iCloud so I switched over to the image links but those only lasted for a few hours. Apparently those change. This latest round is with Flickr which I had forgotten about but used in the past. If I run into any more issues, Ill likely end up posting them into AWS S3 and seeing how I can limit access so I dont end up with a $10k charge because someone went nuts downloading.

 

[shepner]

Question for the group. Has anyone done gutters on a gambrel roof like this? Id like to put galvanized half round gutters on but the gutter place at a loss for how to attach anything on there much less keeping the snow/ice from stipping them back off again.

Here is a closeup of the roof (yes its snowing a month early):

Same view without the exterior:

Basically, how are gutters attached to a barn? I know Ive seen them when I was a kid but I didnt pay attention and there arent exactly many where I now live.

 

[shepner]

For reference, the upper portion is a 3":12" pitch and the lower is a 72":12" pitch. Not quite vertical, but close

 

[Mikkeli]

Nice looking garage project, I'm looking for your future updates. Sorry can't help you with the gutters.

 

[Welcometmnm]

I’ve been looking at Worldwide steel bldg’s, any words of wisdom?
The contractors around here are through the roof on quotes, so I’m left with myself.
Nice garage!

 

[shepner]

Thanks!

The contractors around here are through the roof on quotes, so I’m left with myself.

yeah, that was the problem I ran into as well. Most of the places wouldnt even talk to me and the ones who would were providing, IMO, outrageous quotes. One place came in at what I thought was reasonable but they backed out at the last minute. Was recommended a guy who also gave a similar quote who also backed out at the last minute. Unfortunately, I ended up going with a crew that charged a higher rate but Im happy enough with the quality of their work. Long story short, find someone to do the work before buying anything. Plus, after I got to this point, I found that I could have gotten the same thing without buying a kit. Long story short, find a trustedbuilder first and work out what you want to do before putting down the deposit.

I’ve been looking at Worldwide steel bldg’s, any words of wisdom?

Here is a whole pile of semi-random thoughts:
The company was easy enough to work with and was able to accommodate the delays I ran into. I had to rent a forklift (an adventure in itself) to get it off the truck. The scissor lift was barely powerful enough to lift my joists so keep that in mind if your going to build something larger. The original design did not include the extra supports for the girts nor the plywood for the roof and possibly a few other things. Those were changes we made on-site to strengthen the structure but arent strictly necessary if you want to keep the costs to a minimum. If you plan on insulating, the design is an un-vented cathedral ceiling which, in this area, requires R25 worth of foam before your fiberglass for a minimum of R40. Unfortunately, the purloins I have are a bit short for this and so it will work out to about the same cost to just do spray foam. Their mezzanine option only attaches to the columns which doesnt work for my purposes. The instructions are pretty good and are intended for DIY. We had a couple phone calls into them and all were promptly answered. I had to provide the column anchor bolts (which were rather expensive). The foam they provide is basically worthless for keeping out drafts. There was a bit of contention around the garage door frames because of the doors I got. Most of it was likely from misunderstandings and miscommunication on various fronts but we were able to get it worked out. The biggest problem is (still) gutters. Im seriously thinking of doing french drains.

On other notes, now that winter is over, I now have the snow bars installed! And before long it should be warm enough to seal the concrete, cover the exterior insulation, etc

 

[Welcometmnm]

Thank for the quick response.
Yeah I seen those lifts, I think those are the ones, trades use in commercial buildings for the tight hallways. Basically for two men and a light bulb.
I’m not really a carpenter guy, I like the nut and bolt idea. That’s what has drawn me to the Worldwide bldg’s. They also seem to have a a good detail on how it all needs to be snapped together.
I am a little surprised at how much would goes into their steel buildings!

 

[wasfast]

Just a quick Google search shows 2 placement options; at the transition to the most vertical section and the bottom of the vertical section. Your vertical section is much steeper than the traditional barn look. Most also have a kicker at the bottom which you're does not.
Attachment wise, I think your best bet is to pull the little mini soffit metal and add a 2 x 6 nailer, put on a normal K style gutter and then reinstall the metal.

 

[shepner]

I am a little surprised at how much would goes into their steel buildings!

So was I. The metal was a surprisingly small pile tho the bundles of siding were deceptive.

The construction is quite straightforward but requires good precision over long distances. Having someone who knows what they are doing will really speed things up. It might be possible to build (if slowly) 2 people but 4 would be better. There is also a point in the construction (right after the trusses go up) where you need to work fast because the structure isnt very stable at that point. The manual cautions about that but you dont get it until you order.

Im also more of a mechanic then anything. I do think I likely could have built it (assuming I had any friends with similar skill levels AND free time) but it likely would have taken a year and wouldnt have been as good. On the other-hand, it likely would have been cheaper to do. tradeoffs

 

[shepner]

Just a quick Google search shows 2 placement options; at the transition to the most vertical section and the bottom of the vertical section. Your vertical section is much steeper than the traditional barn look. Most also have a kicker at the bottom which you're does not.
Attachment wise, I think your best bet is to pull the little mini soffit metal and add a 2 x 6 nailer, put on a normal K style gutter and then reinstall the metal.

yeah, much of that is due to the city's requirements and my need for clearance. Its a bit unconventional but it works.

Do you have a picture or link of a kicker? Im not sure what that is.

your gutter recommendation is pretty close to what had been going through my head. The french drain idea is partially out of frustration but also because its easier to dig a trench.

 

[wasfast]

What I termed a kicker is labeled a sprocket in the wikipedia entry. Look at the second illustration:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gambrel