Garage-building: tips and thoughts?

I have shelves on wheels that usually park in front of the rear roll-up door. Air move through them, I roll them out of the way when I need to move something big through the door.

+1 on the fans, you can get a couple of these: http://www.air-n-water.com/product/9218.HTML

plus a couple of these

and you have a fan on the wall for cheap that moves a ton of air and doesn't take up valuable floor or bench space

I second www.garagejournal.com excellent site with awesome ideas related to this.

If you can, upgrade to more power. 50A 220V is nice, but if the power hasn't been laid yet, go for 90A using mobile home feeder wire.

Efficient use of space is paramount, shelves, cabinets, and brackets. If you have a attic, storing seldom used items up there somes in handy

I would totally rethink not having a sink... Adding water to my shop was one of the best improvements I have made... If I had to downsize... a sink would be a must even then... My wife never really liked the elbow deep greasy hand washing inside.. even in the mud room...

Now I have a curbside found bathtub hanging on the wall about sink height.. Next to the dishwasher.. errrrr parts washer and couldn't be happier... Clean car parts... the dog.. Pre shower before going in the house if things got really bad.. (mini water heater under the tub) I use that WAY more than I thought I ever would..

If space became a problem the air compressor would be in the dog house outside before I gave up some kind of small wash basin.. a simple lean to.. anything... whatever.. heck.. I have more than enough space and that is in my plans simply so I don't have to hear it... (just another project on the list.. )

Oh... and more lights... and receptacles...

Good reading - Shop Talk http://grassrootsmotorsports.com/articles/shop-talk/

Before covering the wall think insulation! Fiberglass is not expensive and it will pay for it's self in the cost of heating and/or cooling your garage. Use R19 in the walls and up to R26-R30 for the celling.

I have an attached 20X20ft garage with one whole side and 3/4 of another side heated by the house. The garage door is also insulated. I have 9 inches of fiberglass in the celling. So only one side is not insulated as it was finsihed by the builder with drywall at the time of construction. I live near Chicago and my garage never gets below freezing unless the outside temp drops below zero. I can bring the temp in the garage up to 65-70 on any winter day with a 30K btu topedo heater in less then an hour, and it stays comfortable for 2-3 hours after I turn off the heater.

Awesome stuff! Both for now, and a bunch of stuff that I'm going to have to save for the next house. The garage floor and driveway already exist, and the ceilings aren't high enough for a lift. (Sobs while thinking about the place we didn't go look at located between favorite pub and a cheese shop, with three-bay garage, one of which was RV-size...)

I'll have to think hard about how I'd add a sink. Digging up the length of the yard (again) to run water out there just isn't happening right now, but maybe I can facilitate that addition at the garage so it can be done later without so much pain (Gah, even if I ran a water supply out there, connecting back to the sewer seems really daunting across 30 feet of backyard and then under the house...). I really like the parts-washer notion, but had been thinking of basically putting a reservoir on top of a rollaround dishwasher so it could cycle back into itself through a filter.

Electrical outlets in the ceiling. You need a few for your garage doors; add a few extra.

David

I just finished my 16x20 with loft overhead. I was limited in footprint through negotiations with the wife.

-insulate

-ceiling outlets with cord reel

-Wire for teh interwebs or ensure your router reaches

-think about built-in speakers

-consider the sink

-I think you have plenty of power. Even for a 220v tig welder.

-I like windows, but to each their own. I gave up a lot of wall space for windows.

Mostly think about future-proofing it. I think I did a pretty good job of this, but there are a few things I might have done differently. I included 220v, sink, gas, and cat6 from the house.

ransom wrote: Or rather, I'm afraid it'd try to displace the air compressor,

put the air compressor in the attic or the basement. Bam, there's your space.

Infloor radiant heat. If not now, at least put down some insulation down and get some PEX tubing in the floor for later.

In reply to John Brown:

I'd never thought of the attic... I'd worry a little about overheating the compressor, and even more about turning the entire ceiling into a resonator, but there must be ways to address those concerns, and I dig the use of attic space for items I don't need to get at often...

Being that you're in Oregon, as far as heat goes, look into the recycled oil burning heaters - They will burn all your used motor oil and even gear oil

Is this an off the radar build or are you going to pull permits? Keep in mind that lack of permits can come back to bite you if and when you sell the house.

I am paranoid about the city taking an interest in my life. Hence I did all the 220 wiring after the inspector had signed off. Easy to remove when I leave.

I stayed way clear of running water or a drain since it would have invited no end of environmental concern.

I insulated and finished the inside after the city was done with all the inspections. They saw a nice stud built storage unit with 110 outlets and 2 single light fixtures.

Windows in my mind are a bad idea. Bad people use them to make your stuff their stuff.

I spray foamed the structure. Not only is it cheap to heat, but it does a great job of muffling the angle grinder at 2:00 am.

I heat with a radian infrared tube type heater; takes the shop from just above freezing to comfy in about half an hour. As a bonus you can keep your beer out of the radiant field and it will stay cold!

NOHOME wrote: Windows in my mind are a bad idea. Bad people use them to make your stuff their stuff.

Easy fix, just put some window tinting on. I'd like to have windows in the garage simply because it makes it easier to air out the place with all the fumes that you're likely to produce when working on a car.

NOHOME wrote: Is this an off the radar build or are you going to pull permits? Keep in mind that lack of permits can come back to bite you if and when you sell the house. I am paranoid about the city taking an interest in my life. Hence I did all the 220 wiring after the inspector had signed off. Easy to remove when I leave.

It's all being permitted, and we're working with an architect. The wiring was originally 110 just tapped into the same circuit as the house bathroom. We hired an electrician to add a circuit to the house's breaker panel and run it out to a new panel we had them add in the carport.

I stayed way clear of running water or a drain since it would have invited no end of environmental concern.

Yeah, that's seeming like a big can of worms. I'm thinking it might be nice to run basically a second hose spigot underground out to the shop and future potting shed, but trying to install a drain sounds like a fiasco. Next shop...

Windows in my mind are a bad idea. Bad people use them to make your stuff their stuff.

I won't say I'm not concerned, but I really like the idea of being able to look out at my backyard from the shop while I'm working, and to get the extra light.

I spray foamed the structure. Not only is it cheap to heat, but it does a great job of muffling the angle grinder at 2:00 am.

Interesting. I'd been assuming just fiberglass, but I hadn't researched contemporary options at all... Anything that allows me to tinker a bit later when needed is probably a good idea.

I heat with a radian infrared tube type heater; takes the shop from just above freezing to comfy in about half an hour. As a bonus you can keep your beer out of the radiant field and it will stay cold!

Nice! I am torn between using the dorm fridge I've got sitting around vs planning to just come back into the house to use the kegerator... Maybe just keep a few in the dorm fridge for when I'm too filthy to go back in the house and too frustrated not to take a break...

What kind of roof? Back in Pa I had a 2 car garage that had an attic. I used an electric chain hoist mounted to a roof rafter to haul up parts (diffs, diff housings, spare blocks, body panels, and many many other parts)

Helps with the clutter if you have a place to put stuff you AREN'T using

In reply to oldeskewltoy:

I think others have hinted at it, but I'm finally starting to think this part through... I've been planning to sheetrock the garage ceiling, but I think maybe I should plan to put in some amount of OSB floor on top of the joists. There won't be a ton of room up there, and the (existing) joists are spaced such that the opening is going to be a bit of a mail slot, but hopefully I can make it reasonably convenient to get things into and out of the "attic" and to get at them while they're up there...

Drop down storage over the garage door. I have four pieces of 2x4 sticking down through the drywall in the ceiling from the ceiling joists that I attached a frame to. It is great, I keep hurricane shutters, lumber, tubing, and cardboard over my garage door out of the way.

Will it be a garage or a shop? If primarily a shop, think about double 4x8 carriage doors rather than an roll-up garage door. Can seal and insulate better and gets rid of the overhead tracks of a traditional garage door that can be a nuisance.

I heat my shop with a small propane (converted natural gas) furnace, and use a 30lb propane bottle to feed it. I only heat it when I'm working, and a bottle lasts me quite a while, even in the middle of winter. Used furnaces are cheap, I bought mine for $125 when it was a year old.

In the summer, since it gets unbearably hot in there, I have a fan on a timer blowing the cool night time air in, and close the windows during the day.

My biggest complaint about my garage (my first in 10 years!) is that it's either too hot or too cold a lot of the time. Mainly too hot. Whenever I get the time, I'm planning to insulate and drywall the walls, and insulate the ceiling, but leave the roof joists exposed for attic space. I'll also install an extractor fan way up high to pull the hot air out of the attic. I figure that and a little ventilation (I have two windows with not-pretty bars, but they do the job) will keep it bearable in the summer, where it's now routinely around 120° - no joke.

The secondary complaint - not enough outlets or light fixtures - will be addressed before the insulation goes up.

If I was going to build my shop again there are a few things I'd do differently.

I figured how much lighting I thought I would need and added 50%. I should have doubled it instead. You can wire the lights to two switches if you think you won't want all the lighting all the time (but you will).

As with the lighting, I decided how many outlets I needed and almost doubled it. I should have more than doubled it. I'm in a 12'x16' shop with three double outlets in the ceiling and 10 wall outlets. I'm almost constantly wishing I had more outlets. Run a couple outlets outside too. I ran two outlets outside that can handle my welder. I can't get a car in the shop so these have been life savers, since you can pull a car in these may not be as needed.

And of course to power everything you need amperage. I went with 60a 220v and so far that's been enough but if I could do it again I'd go with more.....and I'd run a phone line.

I debated on insulating and ended up skipping it to save money and time. Mistake. Spray foam the roof and walls.

ransom wrote: I'll have to think hard about how I'd add a sink. Digging up the length of the yard (again) to run water out there just isn't happening right now, but maybe I can facilitate that addition at the garage so it can be done later without so much pain (Gah, even if I ran a water supply out there, connecting back to the sewer seems really daunting across 30 feet of backyard and then under the house...). I really like the parts-washer notion, but had been thinking of basically putting a reservoir on top of a rollaround dishwasher so it could cycle back into itself through a filter.

You are over-thinking the sink. Do it, but do it basic.

You don't need to dig up the yard. Run a hose from the hose bibb on the house. You can consider digging up the yard later.

You also don't need to tie into the sewer. Here's what I did. I used a full sized slop sink. The sink drains into a 5 gal bucket buried in the yard. The bucket is full of gravel with holes drilled in the bottom, buried in sand. A mini septic/ leach field. The piping from the sink to the bucket includes a tee with 2 isolation valves. I can shut off the valve to the leach bucket and open a 2nd valve which has an open pipe on it. I can hang a slop bucket on this pipe to catch anything rather than dump it in the ground.

Generally I need the sink for nothing more than occasional hand washing. I have no problem dumping this directly into the ground (I keep some eco-friendly soap nearby). If I have to do something weird like clean a paint brush, I switch the valves, catch the slop in the slop bucket, and then properly dispose of it. It has worked perfectly for about 4 years without backing up, etc.

For heating, may I strongly suggest overhead radiant heaters. I picked up a couple at Lowes for $40 each. They have two 750w fiber tubes and a two-position switch so you can run them at 750 or 1500w.

With a concrete floor, modestly insulated walls, and drafty doors, heating the air is kinda pointless. Heat the surfaces (like youself).