I think it's finally my turn! My grosh build planning. Come offer your 2p on my planning.

I've watch you guys build your groshes, workshops, and other buildings, and I think it's finally my turn to build the garage of my dreams(and budget). So as with anything of this size, the more eyes on the project the better? Looking for all manner of advise here from concrete types, to siding options, to door handles that don't suck.

I'll give you the run down on what I have going on so far.

I sketched up a general idea of the location of the shop and how I want it to end up. Local zoning looks pretty clear since I'm over 40k sqft on the lot and not zoned historical or other wierd restrictions. No HOA so I'm pretty free on building materials.

Lets start with the plot.

With this location I'm away form the easement on the south and I will have a 10 foot speration between the corner of both buildings. Planning on putting in a fence section there once it's all done with a gate.

Plan to concrete the main driveway and the landing area.

I just had 2 giant trees cleared out to make room for this thing, so here's how the site looks today.

The pile of wood chips is where tree #1 used to be.

So that's the lay of the land right now.

Here's the rough design I threw together in SketchUp tonight.

30x40 with 12' walls, doors are 10x10.

I'm thinking a 4 post lift on the south stall so i can store 2 cars there, then an infloor dual scissor lift in the middle stall, and nothing in the last stall.

I'm going to be collecting steel building quotes, and guess I'll start looking for stick building plans too so I can figure out pricing options there also. Also will need to start looking for concrete quotes, knowing my lift desires what should I be looking for PSI wise and thickness?

So lemma hear what pitfalls I need to avoid and how you would do things if you were back at the planning stage doing it all agian.

My 30x40 with 14' side walls has a 10x10 and a 12x12 door. I really like the 12' wide door for backing in a trailer.

If you do in floor radiant heat like mine mark where the tubes are and plan for your lifts if they are going to anchor to the floor. Because I don't know where the tubes run I don't want to drill in the floor and risk hitting a pipe, so no 2-post lifts for me.

Stick built or pole building you are going to get trusses, so your ceiling is at the height of the top of the walls. All steel you may have ceiling all the way to the peak, which makes for a lot more headroom for the lift or for a storage loft.

Consider French doors at the back of one of the side walls. They will let you get stuff in and out in front of a non-running project.

I went for a gas furnace hanging from the ceiling, because with my luck I would drill into every PEX line anchoring machinery. Plus, I'm too impulsive to turn in-floor heat on the day before I go out there, and I can't justify leaving the heat on all the time. In 10 minutes at the bottom of a Canadian winter, I can be in a t-shirt (though the cheapskate in me really only runs it up to 15°C).

For siding and potentially roofing, I recommend matching the house appearance. It will look more uniform and "I thought this through." May add resale, especially since they will be sitting right beside each other.

I have a single 18'x9' door - two less vertical strips for heat loss, and makes ingress and egress fantastic. 18' because one post of the hoist is aligned with the middle of the door. Make sure you have enough room around the hoist post next to a wall. I have 3' and wish I had more.

My garage build linky

I see that the concrete parking pad encroaches onto the utility easement. Is there a chance that the utility people are going to have to dig to get to power lines/etc under the easement? If so, maybe cut off the edge of the parking pad so that it doesn't go into the easement, so you don't risk it getting torn up.

I just had a wood-framed metal building put up this summer. The first thing I can suggest is to verify with your local government that this building can be built. We had to make some small changes to placement and overhangs after submitting our plans. Make sure the footprint, height, and location are all allowed. We ended up going with shorter walls and scissor trusses to avoid having to get a variance with the county for having a building that was too tall. I prefer the aesthetics of the lower building as well. YMMV.

For dimensions, it might make more sense to use measurements divisible by 8 since most building materials come in 8 foot lengths. For me, it was cheaper and faster to put up a 32 X 48 ft building than it would've been to do a 30 X 50. Less material cost, lower labor, less waste, and faster turn around. As a bonus, I got 36 more sq ft.

The more doors/windows/etc that you have, the more the cost goes up, and you get less properly insulated wall space. You have to make it functional and flexible for your needs, but that has ripple effects on things like HVAC needs, etc that have to be considered.

Keep in mind that different building materials will require different building techniques as well. If you do an asphalt shingled roof to match the house, you'll need to pay more attention to ventilation than you would with a metal roof, etc.

If you're going to have lifts, and your roll up doors will have tracks, make sure that they are placed as close to the ceiling as possible to avoid potential space conflicts. IF the doors will have powered openers, then a wall mounted unit like the LiftMaster 8500 will eliminate the need for a long arm and chain that would hang into your workspace too.

Do your best to have a well defined plan for lots of lights and outlets.

I built a 24x36 two years ago. I wish I would have gotten itemized quotes for everything that I could have ever possibly thought of. How much more would it have cost to make it 28' deep? I did all my own wiring, but maybe the contractor would have charged an amount that made sense to spend my time elsewhere.

Also, I put all of my outlets at 4' high and spaced them 6' apart the whole way around the garage. I wish I would have also put them at ~18" for instances where I don't want a cord running across the top of a bench.

The biggest thing I've learned using my garage is that working and parking in the same big space sucks. The cars you want to park inside are not the cars you want to be pushing an engine hoist by or getting covered with grinding dust. My ideal garage has a work space 1.5 cars wide and two cars long separated from the main parking space with a wall. That space would have a lift, a crapload of shelves for parts as they come off the car, a parts cleaner, and all that sort of stuff as well as a drain in the middle of the floor so I could hose down parts of the car and the floor when a project was done. Things like oil changes and basic maintenance can still be done on the "storage" side, but all I can think about now is separating my work space.

Okay now that I'm not posting from insomnia land I can add some more details I am thinking of putting in.

Like mazdeuce suggested I am thinking about a drain in the bay that does not have any lifts so I can wash cars in the winter and parts without dragging them outside. Though I will have to look into codes for this.

I was thinking about a couple large industrial curtains that I can run between stalls to keep grinding and other dust making activities from leaving such a huge mess all over the shop.

Liftmaster 8500's where also on my list for garage door openers and running the rails as tight to the ceiling will be in the cards too.

As much as I would like I don't think I want to put a toilet out there and have to run the drain for it. I will be running water though for the garden hose and maybe a sink but not sure how to route the drain water from that.

Also on lighting. I want to try and get as much natural light into the shop as possible. When I built my shed I installed the translucent panels in the middle for a big skylight effect. I love it, I can see in there with no electric very well and it's in the shade. So I think I'll try and get about 9 foot wide sections above each bay. Windows I will probably do later as I find good units on Craigslist.

So do I go T5HO or LED in there?

Oh and the daily drivers will go in the 2 car attached that is currently occupied by my projects.

This is kinda what I am going for with the natural light.

If I need to turn the lights on then fine but I love all the natural light available in this shop.

If you find a good industrial curtain solution, let me know, I'm very interested.

Since it's difficult to insulate when using the translucent panels, I'd go for LED lights as they tend to perform better in various temps.

For water supply, what about a rain barrel instead of traditional plumbing? A large roof can fill a 55 gallon drum really quickly with an inch or so of rain. You can string them together for increased capacity. I'm on a well, and couldn't realistically plumb my shop into my well and a second well was out of the budget, so for minor water needs, a rain barrel seems like it would work well enough.

The light tubes are a fantastic option for a big space like a shop. You can install them right at the peak, with the ridge cap overlapping the base on the up roof side for essentially no leakage risk. Then route the tube to your ceiling and done. Even just one on the sunny side of the roof would light it up inside.

Led>>fluorescent for high ceilings.

If you're on a city sewer system, they really don't like to see floor drains in garages due to the pollution from cars.

Rain barrels need treated for parasites and mosquitoes, they're not a low maintenance solution for sure.

I love LED shop lights. Costco has them for $25/ea. Instant on, super bright, and dead silent. Long bulb life, too.

dculberson wrote: Rain barrels need treated for parasites and mosquitoes, they're not a low maintenance solution for sure.

Having the water run through a screen before entering the barrel keeps the mosquitoes out and only requires occasional cleaning to eliminate any blockages. Of course, water from a rain barrel should always be considered non-potable and it's use should be limited to other purposes. For normal garage type uses such as rinsing parts or washing vehicles, are parasites or bacteria a serious concern?

In reply to STM317:

I don't mind plumbing the incoming water to the shop. it's the outgoing waste water I have an issue with.

If I did a rain barrel I suppose I could always plop a chlorine tab in there to shock things like in a pool. A small solar power agitator would also keep the mosquitoes away I would think.

mazdeuce wrote: If you find a good industrial curtain solution, let me know, I'm very interested.

Yeah they seem a bit pricey but I'm trying to roll all this stuff into the total package so it doesn't hurt as much as doing piecemeal afterwards.

This is what I had in mind

https://www.curtain-and-divider.com/product/stocked-industrial-curtains/

Okay draggin this back up. Getting ready to get some concrete quotes. What should I expect to hear/tell these guys about thickness and PSI ratings. Also need to talk money, I know never to pay for the whole thing up front, what's the usual split for payment 25% up front 75% on finish?

RE Garage Floor Drains: If you call it an Automobile Parking area, you should be able to get away with a floor drain with a sediment bucket. If you talk with anyone from the city, don't call it a service garage because then it usually pushes you into oil interceptors. At least for commercial buildings that is.

Either way, get a floor drain with sediment bucket and you should be fine.

http://www.zurn.com/products/building-drainage/floor-drains/area-drains?ATT_BuildingDrainage_Application=AutomobileParkingArea

4" of 3500psi should be fine for most lifts. Double check with the manufacturer.  Plan where it will be exactly so seams and crack cuts can be planned accordingly..

 Make sure the contractor is buying the concrete,(in writing). Heard many stories of home owners getting stuck with a bill unexpectedly.

So I finally made it to the zoning and permits office today to see if I can indeed build the size building I want.

So I have good news and bad news on this.

Good news - I can build the size building I want, and put it where I want it to go in my plans. It doesn't have to match the existing structure for finish, so I can go with the steel building like I wanted.

Bad news - I'm in the flood plain and thanks to new regulations after our giant flood of 2010 I would either have to build it 5 feet higher than the driveway currently sits at due to where I sit in the flood plain. The other option would be to seek a variance to the stormwater minimum finished floor elevation rule.

I'm currently reviewing the process for getting the variance, because I'm not going to be able to build a garage 5 feet in the air and still be able to drive a car into it.

This is frustrating, trying to go over all the government forms that were not written with the average homeowner/layman in mind.

I also got some quotes for the concrete. The average is about $20k for the driveway, turn around and slab. the driveway and turn-around is about $11k of that price itself.

If anyone has had to get a variance like this, your input would be most appreciated. I had planned on staying here for 10 years, but if I can't build this garage then it'll be time for me to start house shopping again.

The biggest mistake I made on my garage was not making it deep enough to park two cars deep.  I figured park one and have plenty of room to work and walk around.  Plans changed and now the cars are crammed in there.  Wished I'd gone just a couple of feet longer.

What ever size you build, it will need to be a couple of feet longer.

In reply to t25torx :

Holy crap 5 feet above the current plane? I could see like 18 or 24 inches but 60?

Talk to your zoning people to get a feel for how hard the variance will be. Given that it’s an accessory structure and the primary residence is already there with a finished floor at or near grade I bet you'll able to get the variance readily. Sometimes the building departments are easy to talk to. 

Talk to your insurance company too.  They might get cranky about paying any sort of flood claim. 

There is a flood plain just outside Saskatoon that has new houses built on man made ten foot hills.  One guy refused, and it was a long and noisy court battle for years