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new house: garage build thread

8K views 49 replies 10 participants last post by  NickD 
#1 · (Edited)
Bought a house, my fiancé and I are first time home buyers and I get the detached garage, she gets the house. :eek:ccasion14:

Doesn't look like much now, but once I'm done finishing the walls and floor, I can start working on the storage and tool stuff. Its supposed to be a 2 car garage but one Cruze barely fits lol. Mid-size car Vehicle Car Luxury vehicle Automotive exterior
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#4 ·
ill definitely reuse some of it, but i want to insulate it and hang drywall, so it all has to come out first. whoever built it must've had a lot of things to hang, because there is a ton of peg board on the wall. ill probably rehang a small portion of that, and keep one of the work benches. my only real problem is the garage door, it opens OK, but the door opener isn't connected and looks like it was self-installed by someone who didn't watch the YouTube video on how to install a garage door opener first.
 
#3 ·
Not having a garage is one of the biggest complaints about living in an apartment I have. Although my living room is starting to look like one, between the workbench, extra material, benchtop mill, etc that resides currently.

Where are you located? The greenery and lack of snow looks nice, particularly with that drive (looks bad for ice)
 
#5 ·
ive lived in a few apartments, and i am so glad the one we are moving out of is the last one, especially since its my first upstairs apartment (NEVER AGAIN)

we are just outside of grass valley, california. it does get snow occasionally, but we are just below the average snow line. i plan on getting some de-icer for the cold snaps.
 
#6 ·
Hmmm, how come I don't have a refrigerator in my garage. Was already 30 years old when I got my first garage, military, then college, then earning enough money to buy a home with a garage. But for whatever reason, waited until I was 60 years old to insulate and heat it, really getting soft.

Looks like you can installed a wider garage door, but they tell me you are suppose to be a certified garage door installer to do this. Always did this myself, they do terrible work. And winding up those springs is practically effortless, not quite like some industrial springs I worked on.

Little nicer to have an attached garage, don't have to walk out in the rain or snow, but maybe you don't have this problem in California. Congratulations in your purchase and new wife. Now have to load it up with kids, LOL.
 
#7 ·
actually the fridge is for the house, i just dropped it off in there to clean it out. but a mini-fridge mod sure does sound like a good idea... :signs015:

kids are coming some day, but i wanna finish the garage first :grin:
 
#9 ·
good question, i will measure it tomorrow. i parked the cruze as far as i could to the right and there was probably enough room to park a civic or something else small next to it if those benches and storage racks weren't there. there is very little room in front or back of the car, though.
 
#10 ·
Actually prefer two nine foot wide doors, center post need only be 16" wide. Son got a new house built with a three car garage. Builder was using a double and a single wide door. Suggested he go to three doors and even drew it up for him. Ha, the only house in his neighborhood that has these. The envy of his neighbors.

Standards around her are either 24 by 24 feet for a two car garage, 24 by 36 feet for a three car garage.
 
#11 ·
Congrat's on the house and the garage.

Head over to the the Garage Journal. It's one of the best forums out there for everything garage related. A ton of great ideas over there.

The Garage Journal
 
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#13 ·
That site can be dangerous...it fills you with a lot of cool and expensive ideas. :)
 
#14 ·
I love neat ideas. You almost need to make your garage plan and then go from there. That way you don't start adding a bunch of stuff you really don't need.


Sent from the sexy electrician
 
#15 ·
BEER FRIDGE FTW!

That garage is a GREAT starting point! it will make for a very nice garage and a half, with room to park a car and still work on stuff.

I wish I had that kind of space... my townhouse garage is a cozy 10 x 20. I have, however, built it into something functional for working on stuff OR parking a car, either or, not both at once:



The small bench on the left folds down flat to the wall. I made the bench on the right, it's 3 x 8 and folds UP so the mirror of a car fits underneath it when it's stowed, and it has gas struts to help lifting the load (it's HEAVY).

At the rear up top are floor cabinets mounted on the wall (deeper with heavier shelves than the matching wall cabinets), to the right is an upright cabinet, all these cabinets are mounted to 1/2" ply and supported by an internal 2x3 running inside, this allowed em to fasten them however I wanted and still hit the wall studs. This leaves a nice large space for my 56" tool chest.

Up top on the left are two more floor cabinets wall mounted on 1/2" ply, under which you can see a hook which holds my light 5' step ladder. In this pic I had just installed my IR heat lamp, a patio heating unit, suspended from the cabinets using a custom piece of steel angle. Behind that is my router table.

Up top on the right are my tire racks with two sets of summer tires (my Eco and wife's BMW) as well as a widened rear wheel for my Vette... which is a project I've had on the back burner for about 7 years now. Oh well.

Not seen in this pic is a shelf that runs along the top of the garage side to side in front of the door opener. The ceiling has a drop in it, a perfect storage spot.

This is what it takes for a geek to survive in a TINY garage. You've already got 50% more space than I do by the looks of things, so your garage can easily be 50% cooler than mine. :)
 
#18 ·
Best photo I could find of a garage I built in 1969, lot was only 75 feet wide, so had to put it in the back yard. Concrete was 9 bucks a cubic yard so poured it myself clear up to the road. With grade A studs costing around 45 cents, and 2 by 8's just as cheap, total cost for the garage and concrete was something like 900 bucks.

View attachment 138970

Was going to finish the interior, did run natural gas and 240 V out there, but a job change stopped this project.

Here is one more photo, yep, those are my kids, use to be anti-fiberglass with boats.

View attachment 138978

View attachment 138994

More recent, gosh 15 years ago is a back yard garage. Large enough to store a vehicle, but mostly to get junk out of my main garage like bicycles, lawn mowers, garden tools. Had an old garage door opened I rebuilt so push a button going out of the back door of my main garage so walk out to an open door. Store bought sheds use barn doors. This one also cost me 900 bucks. My design criteria was to minimize waste. Ha when watching construction workers around here, throw away more than they use. Only had a small box of blocks left over, that window cutout is part of a shelve.

Building code would allow me to build a 24 foot square, now I wish I did this, can always use more space, or maybe get rid of more junk.
 
#20 ·
Oh man I can't wait for spring. I keep the heat off in my garage because there's no point heating a room I'm never in for longer than 30 seconds to put the garbage out there. Once it gets warmer I'll be able to sit out there and fool with it for the first time.


Sent from the sexy electrician
 
#21 ·
Some type of heating solution is the next thing on my project list. Because of the sleds, I'm out there a lot during the winter and I'm sick of freezing my butt when I'm out there.

Also going too paint it as well. I sheathed it with 7/6" OSB about 6 years ago (Based on recommendations from the Garage Journal). I need to lighten it up a bit.
 
#25 ·
Ha, for years was working on my cars outdoors even in zero degree weather, didn't seem to brother me, but getting slightly older doesn't help. Just use three electric heaters in my insulated garage, costs me about 35 cents an hour to run them, but much cheaper than paying some mechanic 85 bucks an hour. And I know the job is done right.

Son's friend added an electric heater to his garage but suddenly, his electric bill jumped another 300-400 bucks a month, runs it all the time and keeps it in the 70's. 50*F is fine for me, nice working temperature. Son got a bug to install a heater in his garage, he didn't wait 60 years like I did to insulate it in his new home. So I suggested natural gas with a closed combustion chamber. Worked out most of the details on how to run a 65 gas line in a finished basement and proper venting. But somehow this project died.

Guess now they have closed combustion wood stoves, didn't back then, was in places like this. A good way to shorten your life. But most cities are banning this now. Been out to California many times, just don't recall it getting cold, but could be losing my memory.
 
#28 ·
My buddy's Dad used to heat his 33 x 66 shop (16' walls, peaked roof) with a wood stove. We would break up a couple of old skids and lighter up, the chill was gone before you knew it. Burning wood makes lots of heat very quickly.

You'd be hard pressed to get that kind of performance out of most other forms of heating, and they would all likely cost more.

He learned a HARD lesson, though. I showed up one day and the wood stove was on its side in the driveway, and in its place was the electric "furnace" he'd removed and upgraded in one of his rental properties. I almost fell over in disbelief. He thought it would be "handy" to be able to click a switch and pre-heat the shop while he was eating breakfast. Haha... I wish I was there to see the look on his face the first time he tried that out! He ended up putting another wood burning stove in the following year. :)

That was a big shop, but still... an electric heater on 120 barely takes the chill out of the air in my tiny garage. No way was any practical electric heater going to heat that place!
 
#33 ·
This is the biggest disappointment about living on a military installation, no garages. I can only wash my car at the on base car wash which is a pull in and do it yourself with the pressure washer and soapy brush, not my favorite way, I always hose down the brush before I use it on my car to make sure I get off all the grit that the last person had on their car. I do prefer it to a pull in and let the machine wash it for you. I do stay under the shade if its not a busy day and dry, polish, and wax the car.
 
#34 · (Edited)
Lot depends upon where you live as to how you can heat. Wood has been banned in my city because people couldn't see where they were going in thick smoke, plus for your family like smoking 25 packs of cigarettes per day. Only choices are natural gas or electric.

Some have gone with geothermal heat pumps and if their equipment does hold up, may take 20-25 years to break even. Would be cheaper if they would let us dig two water wells, pull water out of one and dump it into the other, but against the law. So have to dig around a ten foot trench and bury pipes, also need a lot of land for this.

We are currently paying around 75 cents per therm of natural gas, fuel oil was running $3.50 per gallon, not sure what it is now. Last year with shortages, a gallon of LP, 90K BTU was running as high as 7 bucks a gallon. About ten times the price of natural gas.

Can talk about wood, but do you have a source? Sure did when living out in the sticks, somebody told me what it cost today to have a cord delivered, can't recall the price, but a heck of a lot higher than natural gas. Then you really have your work cut out for you. Another reason why wood was banned, people were burning down their homes.

Have to see what is available before making suggestions. But you definitely want closed combustion in a garage.
 
#37 ·
With only electric and natural gas available in your area (nick). Would it be cheaper to run a heat pump (300% efficient) or natural gas (70-80%) with the cost of each factored in?


Sent from the sexy electrician
 
#38 ·
Would cost me about $30,000 to have a geothermal heat pump installed plus the cost of electricity to run it. Have a very well insulated home, 4,000 square feet, thermal windows, storm doors, 18" of ceiling insulation, high efficiency furnace. Average heating bill is about $1,200 per year. So would take a long awhile for a payback. 25 years just on the installation. Longer for the electricity. Then most new plants are burning natural gas anyway.

Then the reliability of this new stuff is going way down, using a lot of imported components, meeting people with only 5 years of service when their AC systems have to be replaced. And electrical failures are far more predominate than natural gas failures. If you lose electrical power, you are screwed. Do have a natural gas, gas logs, electrically independent for backup. People don't think about back up.

Many people think a cord of wood is 2 by 4 by 8 feet, not saying you are one, just around here. Actually twice this, and a lot depends on the quality of the wood where the BTU value can vary between 5-30 million BTU's for a full cord.

Using an average value of 18 million, equivalent to 180 therms of natural gas. At our rates, would cost $135.00, but try and find a wood burning stove that is 97% efficient. Burnt wood a long time ago, temperature control is miserable, can't leave your home, will freeze up, and a heck of a lot of work.

Our cell bill is 900 bucks more than our heating bill, if anything goes first would be these darn things, still have to buy our own equipment and paying a fortune for microvolt signals. But nothing beats our property tax bill. Back in the 60's a home like this was 150 bucks per year and the only conceivable services I am getting is picking up a half a bag of garbage each week. But I guess we have better politicians today.
 
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