YAGAT: yet another garage advice thread

We have a property- well outside of town- that we would like to build a garage on for the tiny number of cars we have accumulated (19....).  I know in a budget plan I will be looking at twice as much for concrete and grading work, as the metal building will cost,but what are things you guys would not forget if you had it to do over?

I know I won't be able to get all the cars inside, but 6-8 with room to work on them would be nice.  I have myself fooled into thinking 30x50ft might get me there.  Getting the structure up will help feed the sunk cost fallacy for any further improvement, but what would I need to do before it gets constructed?  Plumbing/drains/reinforced areas of pad for lift(s)/etc...? Lighting suggestions, wiring advice, and other tips all gladly accepted.

Aside from the obvious fact that you will wish it was at least twice the size of whatever you settle on, Make sure you plan for an overhead door tall enough to get whatever equipment  you might want to get into the building allows for the concrete-- big fail on my wife's horse barn.
 

Though, if we replace the trailer AC unit with a low profile one, it might fit.  We'd even made sure there were 30 amp 110 and 50 amp 220 outlets for a trailer, but there are always other uses for that. 

Bathroom, hot water for the sink, and if you possibly can, shower. It will make cleaning up after working a billion times better especially if you have to get in a car to drive home after and you don't want to ruin that car with your greasy sweaty self. 

Winch on the back wall to drag car carcasses inside. 

Twice as many lights as you think are too many. 

There are 2 former houses on the property and the long term plan is to fix one of them up as a place to move into, but we certainly can't do that and build any satisfactory vehicle storage in one fell swoop.  We definitely could get the plumbing and electrical fixed in one though to have shower and toilet facilities near the garage.

I certainly appreciate the lighting need though.  Every bulb I have added in the house garage has only served to make the dark bits worse by comparison...

Have you considered doing an oversized 2 car garage, like 24x30, with concrete and utilities etc and then either a separate building or separate part of the building as just a huge storage area with gravel floor? If concrete and grading costs twice what the building would, seems this would be an easy way to get 2 bays to work in and roughly 15 storage bays instead of the 6-8 bays currently planned.

Mezzanine to store stuff and keep the work area clear.

In reply to travellering :

What are your plans for construction?  If you plan to do the work yourself or with some cheap help. I can make some suggestions about saving money there. 

In reply to frenchyd :

Anything that can be done by hand I am intending to tackle.   Grading and concrete on this scale would not fall in that category, and hopefully I can work out the actual building erection into a reasonable cost, but all fit out work I'm game for.

I don't know what your goal is but I did two things that really added value at a minimum cost. First if you want fire proof walls consider ICF's. Insulated concrete forms.  They're  a big foam lego's that my 25 year old daughter and sister in law put together for me. Neither had any previous construction experience .    A 30x50 single story building would have taken them two days to set up and a morning to pour.

    I give you details if interested.
       Second. I bought timbers. I got real fancy but you won't need to. You can lay them out on any flat surface and put them up with just about any forklift.   If you use a surplus wood  ash? Elm? Tamarack? Etc. they sell for about 40 cents a board foot.  So a 2x6 inch timber  (actual 2"x6" ) 20 feet long will cost you $16 the sawmill will likely sell the off cuts ( 1" (actual 1") thick boards various widths, lengths)  for even less  making it cheaper than plywood by a whole lot!!!!!

    To be fair you'll have to search a bit to find a sawmill without a lot of markup willing to sell a small volume like that but they are out there. Ask I'll give you directions how to find them.  

Drains in the floor and hot water taps so you can wash cars inside.  Big sink so you can clean yourself and stuff up.  Bathroom is nice...

Having all of this plumbing sounds nice, but might mean new well and septic systems, which could add serious money to this project. I'd probably skip it if you've got a house there already with functional bathroom. Or, try to build the shop where the house that you don't want currently stands so that you could maybe tie into the existing well and septic?

Pay extra for decent overhangs and gutters.

Since most building materials come in 8ft lengths, it can be faster and less wasteful to build with dimensions divisible by 8. A 32x48 was cheaper for me to build than a 30x50 would've been, and I got 36 more sqft of of the deal.

If possible, I'd have doors on at least two sides so that you could pull through, or get things in/out more easily.

You might be able to cram 6-8 small vehicles into a 30x50 if they're on wheel dollies, but there won't be room to work on them and getting them in/out will be a pain. A larger footprint or smaller number of vehicles (LOL) would really make it more user friendly. If you really want to keep concrete costs down, there's nothing that says you can't have something like a 40X60 with half the floor in concrete for your working space and the rest in gravel for general parking.

The quote I got for concrete was for a 40x80 pad, expecting to need space outside for alternate storage(tractor/air compressor shed/et al).

It's a pretty even split on vehicle sizes from classic minis to a Citroen station wagon, so considering them all to be average passenger sized vehicles works.  I expect to need a couple on storage lifts to make it work.  

What I am trying to improve on is having cars here, there, and another there even further away.  3 minis in our split-level's 2 car garage is not ideal, as any paint, cleaner, or gas fumes go straight up into the bedroom.  The only convertible we have is a few years past needing a new top, so it has to stay indoors and is currently at SWMBO's grandparents' house about thirty minutes from ours.

I'm paying a very low price for storing five other cars in 2 bays of an old boat factory about 55 minutes drive away.  One bay seems to be fine, but the other is in a taller and more weather damaged section of the building, and the cars in that bay have seen water intrusion, mold, and rodents in the time they have been there.  They are indoors from a theft prevention standpoint, but possibly faring worse than outdoors from a preservation standpoint.  

The property we want to put the garage on is only 18 minutes from our door, and plenty large enough to eventually fix one of the houses or add another to move there in future.

We are in the Southeast US Appalachian mountains, so hard freezes are rare.  I doubt environmental insulation is as necessary as in many other parts of the country.

In reply to travellering :

Also the wider the building the more expensive the roofing will be. I would suggest 2 16x48' with space between them to  store stuff. 
  The ICF's aren't really for the insulation factor although it will keep it cooler in hot weather too. It's for the ease of construction.  Foam LEGO blocks. How hard is that to assemble?  The pour will be harder but what I did is hire two teenaged bag boys from a local grocery store for a 1/2 day. Those hoses and vibrators are hard work but $20/hr each had them really working.  Something new, an adventure,  physical work and see something created by their hands kept them busting their butts all morning. ( that and caffeinated pop ) 

but 5 hours later I gave them each $100 and they went home sore and happy.