What size garage and heigth ?

[73 stingray]

The borough I live in has a building max heigth of 15' to the peek for a detached garage and 1000 sq. ft ground cover without going into land water runoff issues.
I would like help in deciding on what size and interior heigth garage to build.
I want to put a 4 post in it
Plan on using the pole style of construction.

Any help or ideas will be appreciated. I live in Ephrata,Pa

here are some pics i have been looking at

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[Yardgoat]

24x40=960 sq ft. I like the metal building,bottom pic. But i dont live in your hood,it would be best to try to match your house design with your shop.Just makes it look more stylish,the metal building looks more comercial.Its your pick on size also because only you know what its used for and what you need.Good luck...........JB

 

[73 stingray]

Thanks for the size 24x40 is a good size.
I plan using the garage to store and work on my 2 vettes.
I am not sure if 24 is deep enough with moving around cars and tool boxes ?

I am not sure if 10' inside heigth and 24 or 26 deep with a 4/12 pitch will get me under 15' max

 

[willymakeit]

The height will be close. Can you bring the cars in on the 24' end ? Assuming you are using sicssor truss's.

 

[Scout Driver]

24' deep is a little shallow if you are going to put a bench or storage along the back wall of the garage. 28' deep would work better IMHO. One idea would be to measure one of the Corvettes and do some scale drawings. That would give you the best indication of how much "working area" you would have around the cars.

Scott

 

[73 stingray]

The garage will be somthing like one of the pics above due to set backs.
Thanks for the thought.
I will measure heigth of the 69 which is in my attached 2 car garage. The 73 is out in my current 1 car garage surrounded by 30 inches deep of snow

26 deep might work with 10 interior height and 4/12 pitch and scissor trusses
but may be over 15' on the top ?

 

[mad57]

I have the same deal here in my town my build is 30x80 and 15 to the peak, i bought the extra scissor trusses. i have a 9 foot wall height thentowards the center it goes to 11.4 i still wanted to put my van on my 4 post so i took out 1 center section of the one bay beam my are 8ft on center and rebuilt it and it works fine for my 4x4 van. you could easly do vettes in yours as well, i can now put my 57 chevy car up so high i cant even reach it. i have the byb over height /extended lengh/ width lift. i posted pics on here do a search. good luck mad57.

 

[rodnok1]

Bump outs, cantilevers, bays are not considered square footage, consider building work benches into bumo outs. Have you considered a hip(barn style) roof. It would add more head room for lift and not drastically change the look. At your size of building it probably will be cheaper and easier to use conventional framing, esp if you are going to side it to make your house anyways.

 

[Stuart in MN]

My garage is 24x40 and the depth works fine for me. If you were working on an extended cab pickup truck it may be a little tight, but I'd think with your Corvettes you should have a decent amount of space all around. I'd recommend talking to the local lumber yard to get some dimensions of a scissors truss, and then sitting down with a pencil and ruler to draw it out on paper to see just how much headroom you can get inside. Remember that if you're only going to have a lift in one stall, the rest of the garage can be done with regular trusses (or, you may be able to use storage or attic trusses to gain some storage space, although I'm not sure they're available in 4:12 pitch.)

 

[346ci]

I'm going to do a 30X30 for the same purpose, installing a lift. My ceiling height will be at least 13ft. The lift posts will be 12ft. so that would leave me 1ft. of clearance. The lift is a 2 post and will be almost centered in the middle. As others have mentioned, I'd go deeper than 24'. You will want that extra space if pulling engines or working on trucks.

 

[76rich]

I don't know your full intentions or needs. My old garage was 24 X 36 X 9 and my door was in the end. My four post lift took up one quarter of the garage. Since my trusses were at 9', I positioned it so the roof line of the car was between the trusses and I could lift cars up high enough to stand erect easily. I could still fit 4 cars and work benches in it. I had 2" blue board put under the roof, therefore insulated roof with trusses showing. I also had 2" blueboard on the walls and filled them in with additional styrafoam insulation. The garage took little to heat and cool. One of my cars was a Vette and I assure you they are much lower than most cars. That will help you on ceiling height. Good luck.
Richard

 

[crewchief888]

i recently moved from a rented 30x45 building back into my 19x22 garage.
with the wifes saturn vue, my s-10 blazer (in pieces), my harley and tools, you can barely move in there.
my plans are to build a new garage, behind the old one and then demo the old garage.
i'm hoping they (zoning) will let me go 30 ft deep. that extra space makes a HUGE difference. maybe then i could get all the tools/toolboxes and tables out of my basement, and back to work

 

[73 stingray]

Thanks for all the replies and thoughts! I like the idea of a 9' ceilings and scissor trusses in the lift area and some kind of storage truss or attic truss in the other half.

What do you guys think of the pics.?

Should I go with 2 standard garage doors or a 16 and 8' garage door look

Lift will be on the left side with my vettes there.

 

[Yardgoat]

With the lift you will need 12 ft height for the lift.Vettes are low,but if you have a drive on lift you might need room to park under it with your other one.Also it never fails that someone you know will want to use it just to see what that noise is and put a truck on it.Another thing to think about is if your going lower than 12 ft you will need a convex mirror so you can see the top of car so you dont hit the ceiling.If it isnt a problem i would realy go 14 ft hight under the lift,cause some day you might want a bigger lift or own a van or ? or? or ? ect.A good mirror is a important part of my lift,mounted high on the wall in front of lift its easy to see where your driving or if something was left on the lift and you dont run over it or kids running around ect,i have one on the rear wall above the door to see when i back up and works great to ck all your lights on blinkers ect,car/truck....................YG

 

[73 stingray]

State will only let me go 15' high on outside to peek or max.
Pa codes ****!!!

 

[Stuart in MN]

I have a four post lift in my garage, and the ceiling is about 9'6" high. A couple winters ago I stored a friend's C5 Corvette on the top of the lift, with my 5 series BMW underneath. We had to take the wheels off the Vette and set the chassis down on blocks on the lift, and then there was just enough room to park the BMW underneath. Another six inches and we could have left the wheels on, and another foot on top of that would have gotten the lift high enough to work underneath it without stooping over.

The point is, while you obviously want to get as much headroom as much as possible, 11 feet will work if that's all you can get (plus it will give you a good excuse why your friends can't mooch off you to work on their trucks.)

Is the 15' overall height a state rule or a city code? There was a similar city code here when I built my garage, but I was able to get a variance to make it taller - it was a lot of messing around, but I proved it can be done. Having said that, don't count on it; I may have been lucky, as there have been several reports here in the past from other people who tried and failed.

 

[rwhite692]

I built a 24Wide x 36Deep with scissor trusses. It is 10 feet at the interior walls and 13'6" high at the interior peak. This gives an area at the center 8' wide, which is all 12' high or higher.

The exterior roofline is right at 15'. Pictures at the link below.

 

[Daniel Dudley]

26x38. I have 26 and it is a good depth. I don't like an 8' door, you cannot get a truck or SUV in. An 18 and a 10 or a 16 and a 10 would be good, and you should go with an 8' height on those.

 

[Kevin54]

28'x36' yeilds you 952 sq.ft. I went with a 28' depth due to the fact that at the time I had an X-cab truck with an 8' bed. It gave me ample room in front to work under the hood even with the compressor at my back. I now have a GMC Jimmy(like a Blazer). I can park my Compact Tractor across the front and park the Jimmy in and still have room to get around.

 

[rburke65]

Well even if you have a 28' depth the 4/12 pitch truss would be......rises 4" for every one foot of "run", so....4" x 14' equals 56" or 4' 8", so with a 10' ceiling, your peak will be 14' 8" high......I think!

 

[BPJOOP93]

mine is 24 deep 36 wide 10'6" ceiling height, total height is just a tad under 15'. i think its got 4/12 pitch. should have gone with a raised center for the trusses so i could put a lift in. screwed up there. 24' deep is not deep enough. a buddy of mine has a 4 door short box Dodge ram and we have to pull it in at an angle to work on it. if you can go 28' deep.

 

[FlameOut]

I just built a 28w x 34l, and was also stuck with the 15' height limit. After I had it inspected, I asked what would happen if I had built it to around 16' to the peak (which would have given me 11'3" floor to ceiling)

The inspector said he wouldn't have cared. No one would even notice. Bad think is, it would only have cost me about $100 more to go that extra foot.

If I had it to do over, I'd closer to 16' and probably 36 deep. I do have a lift, but it's the MaxJax half height lift

 

[Garage-Art]

I like the third one with a side door entrance. Max out all that you can.

 

[bucs012]

I looked long and hard to find a STICK 50x30 garage. It's hard to do! Found only a a few on the internet. I put the 50' side looking into my backyard with the 30' side facing the street. It looks like a normal garage from the street and blends right into the house and neighborhood.

I ended up going with 9' ceilings. It is just right. Don't feel like the ceiling is coming in on you at all. I also put in 9' high garage door on it did a single
18x9. Here are a few pics. You can also check out all the pics during the build on my link below.

What you would see from the street

I called it Noah's Ark at this stage

 

[73 stingray]

You guys have some nice garages!

after all looking at some of your garages 9' will be my ceiling height with scissor trusses in half the garage with one cut out like i think flameout did.

Still not sure of garage door sizes though ??