Building Three Car Garage

[Coursey]

I am getting
ready to start building my 32'x46' three car garage. It wil have 3-10'widex8'tall doors on the
46' side.

We have decided to turn the garage doors toward the house, and
the garage will be 67' from the house. The only issue I can see with this is
backing a trailer up into the garage, which might be hard to do or maybe
impossible.

It will have an attic bonus room with stair access over two
of the bays. One bay will have a vaulted ceiling to allow clearance for a future
two post lift.

Is there anything that I may be missing that I should try
to make provisions for?



I will post progress pics as soon as we
start.

[Tom Welch]

in my opinion, all cars should be able to be in the garage with both doors fully opened with room to walk carrying a big box between the doors. It may not seem like much until you attempt this, but it really helps when working on a car when there is plenty of room to move around. I'm envious by the way.

[srh3trinity]

Sounds great. I would wire it for 220V in certain places for compressors and welders. Even if you don't need it now, you may buy something down the road. I would research lifts and recommended slab depth. I have heard you need to poor your slab thicker in the area where you would anchor a lift. As a luxury, air hardlines throughout would be really nice.

[shortrack]

Have no windows/entrances that can't be seen from the house.

[Coursey]

Have no windows/entrances that can't be seen from the house.

That is one of my reasons for turning the garage door toward the house

[astroracer]

Sounds nice. My original barn was 30 x 48. I put one 16' door on the long side and one 9' door on the short side. Like Tom mentioned, consider the walk around room and how much work you plan to do in the shop. I set my doors 6 feet from the side of the building. That leaves room for a work bench or equipment storage along the wall and still be able to walk comfortably around the cars AND open their doors. To me six feet is minimum. Your spacing will leave you with less then 4 feet on the ends because of wall thickness.
Just a side note. I watched a guy build a garage on my way home form work at night. It is 34' wide and very deep. He put three 10' doors on the 34' side.... That leaves less then a foot on the side walls to walk or open the doors and only a foot between vehicles if the middle stall is occupied... Way to close to be efficient as a work space.

[protouring70]

Also remember if you want put your air compessor on the outside. Keep it covered and plumb air lines into the shop. Wil be quieter and don't take up space

[Coursey]

Will have 4' then 10' door, 3'3" then 10' door, 3'3" then 10' door, then 5'6" to wall. Then entrance door will be in the 5'6" section

[TheJDMan]

You may or may not have plans to install a 4 post lift in the building but just in case you think you may want a lift in the future I recommend at least a 12ft ceiling .

[damannhw]

My Dad placed floor drains on one bay of his shop and plumbed in water. Works great for doing body work or washing cars when the weather gets cold.

[JustJohn]

You could go 2 deep, leave yourself some extra storage and only buy 2 doors...

[Bryce]

You could go 2 deep, leave yourself some extra storage and only buy 2 doors...

Looks great! I see you shop at costco, I have the same roll away.

[dropit69]

when you do electrical put outlets between the garage doors..told my brother this while building his..he said ill never use it..guess what he uses it more than any other outlet..my new house doesnt have one there but ill be putting one in for sure..

[protouring70]

Also......if you can go at least 1 block high. So you can wash out the shop. Had it in my last shop works great

[JustJohn]

Actually, outlets everywhere. +1 on next to the garage door, I use it all the time plus outlets along the wall ABOVE your work benches. I don't think I've pulled out more than a 10ft extension cord anywhere since all the electric was put in.


when you do electrical put outlets between the garage doors..told my brother this while building his..he said ill never use it..guess what he uses it more than any other outlet..my new house doesnt have one there but ill be putting one in for sure..

[BonzoHansen]

My Dad placed floor drains on one bay of his shop and plumbed in water. Works great for doing body work or washing cars when the weather gets cold.

floor drains are against code in many places.

[shortrack]

floor drains are against code in many places.

yeah X2....I put a floor drain in that I covered with a big piece of plywood under the boat until the building inspector signed off and left. My shop is a separate outbuilding. I inquired about putting in a washroom and shower (essentially installing running water/drains), no dice. If I did want running water it would suddenly become a "residence", long story short the building permit would have been denied and unable to build without a variance ($$$) because you are not allowed to have two "residences" on one lot.

Another thing, check your local building codes VERY CLOSELY! they vary wildly between municipalities. In one municipality I was looking at you could get around the shower/washroom deal by building an enclosed "breezeway" sort of thing to connect the house to the garage therefore it's merely an extension of the house so you can do anything you want, washroom, shower, anything. When I asked about doing that in my town (the next town over) the guy sighed and said "YES!! Im aware you can do that in _______ but you can't do that here!!"

[shmoov69]

About 30 more feet!! LOL! Seriously!!!

What everyone has said here plus a wood stove for cheap heat in the winter. Make sure you won't have to move cars once their disassembled to get another one in there. If you can't have a floor drain, then have at least one stall with enough slope to drain the water out the door. Have one stall almost perfectly level for suspension setups. LOTS of lights that you can turn on randomly with different switches. Wired for TV and stereo with a place to mount it all out of the way. And a Big Ass Fan.
My .02!

[Todd in Vancouver]

You could go 2 deep, leave yourself some extra storage and only buy 2 doors...

Oh my, that looks AWESOME!

[Ishmael]

I just built a 30 x50. I put 2 doors on the 30, a man door on the side and another 10x9 on the back so you could drive right through. Attic trusses got me a 50' x 13' room upstairs with 8 feet of head space. I park small toys under the stairs. I designed with 2x6x10s on 24. With the 16" concrete wall, bottom plate, double top plate and 10" of 2x6 I have almost 12 feet which is enough for a lift. Plus 2x6s come in 10s so no cutting.
I put a wood stove about halfway down the 50" wall. I also used slider windows tall and wide enough to sit a box fan in. May want to paint cars in there so there are 5 windows on each side. I have water between the doors. It will get plumbed for natural gas and I'll be insulating the hell out of it. Make sure your concrete is plenty deep where you will want a hoist. I'm putting in plugs along the ceiling and using hanging t8 flourescents so when a ballast goes I can just unplug the light and hang a new one or fix it on the ground. Don't forget a plug above the hoist area.
I can fit my wife's ford 500 and my xj in the front with room to walk around or barbque, two firebirds, and my truck in there in the back plus two benches, plenty of room around the stove and toys under the 4" wide stairs so you can carry whatever you need to upstairs.
Check code over and over before you pay for any plans. Have someone who knows what they are doing and is versed in code do the plans - it pays to have a planner. Just because you think you are doing something that is going to be cool doesn't mean it will work out that way when codes come into play. Seriously, sit down with some kind of designer as they should know code and how things are built and where you can't skimp. Which leads me to the last thing I have learned. Don't skimp. I haven't yet and I don't plan to but you'll regret it.
My regret. Should have gone bigger. I would have had to knock down trees and my wife would have been pissed but she's pissed already because its taller than the house and looks bigger. That's cool though because once I get the electrical hooked up I plan on living out there.
I don't like it when she calls it my "man cave." I don't hibernate out there. Its where I get work done (and then put my feet up in front of the stove). Its the best thing I have ever done other than help create my son. Enjoy it.

[shmoov69]

I forgot, actually put another overhead door on one of the ends so you can pull a car in or unload parts in a pinch and not have to move one of the "projects" that is, um..... Well, in process!! LoL!!

[snappytravis]

Post some pictures shop sound nice

[regal454]

I would decide on the lift you are going to use before you start on the garage. You will want to have a thickened slab under the areas of the lift. This will be needed to distribute the additional loads of the lift.

[Krazed]

Very cool! I can't wait to have my own shop. In the mean time I get spoiled with my parents though. It's big enough for their Twin Beach (55ft wingspan) Helicopter, and a bunch of stuff they loaded in there when they moved down from alaska. It has shop space in the back for my dad's hotrod he's been building, and has a loft above that big enough for a pool table, chairs, table, workout equipment, etc. Has its own bathroom, shower, two sinks ... its well equipped. And ontop of that.. they built ANOTHER hangar (same size) attached to it just to show off their nice stuff. This one im showing you is the "Maintenance Hangar"

They started off with a 60x65' hangar. 24ft tall ceilings, all hand built by a family friend whi was a long time fabricator/construction guy. This man... amazed me at the time of building it. Especially since him, or 1 other guy did the whole thing. It has a Virtical folding hangar door on the 65' side, a 20ftx10ft rolling garage door on the back, and a manned side door facing the house. All steel doors, the only windows are up high (you can see in the picture below).

It has a "Pit" you can drive over with removable 2" Thick wood planks, reinforced, can support an F250! Great for pulling up on, removing planks, changing oil, inspecting undercarrage for some reason. Very handy. It's plumbed with electrical and air made into the concrete.

It has Florescent lights every 10 ft. strung in rows front to back approximately 50' long each. Each one is on its own switch.

Full air plumbing all around the hangar. 2x60 gallon air compressors in series.

Electrical every 10 feet around, at about 4ft high (above work benches and out of the way). Lots of shop fans on the ceiling for circulating air... they're just normal house fans but MAN do they make a difference in the Arizona heat!

It has room to work on his hotrod in the back and not bump into anything.

Lots of space, I love working on things there.. I'm trying to talk them into a lift but they like open floor space. Hell.. my dad's 73.. I figured he could use a lift since they have 6 cars/trucks between the two of them and he still does all the maintenance.

There's lots of things to consider when building... and you having foresight to ask first will make your shop That much better.

Last thing I can think of, is a metal topped table for fabricating and welding. its nice to just clamp a ground to the table and weld on the table.. it also gives your magnets something to hold onto and makes welding SO much easier.

7220572206

[1red68]

FYI: when lift shopping i ran across a few Bend Pac lifts that were 145" tall (12 ft 1 inch).. may want to do some homework on that..

[Coupe]

Go over to the garage journal and look into radiant floor heating. It is without a doubt the best thing going. At the very least insulate under the slab and pull enough loops of oxygen barrier PEX to use in the future!

[shortrack]

Go over to the garage journal and look into radiant floor heating. It is without a doubt the best thing going. At the very least insulate under the slab and pull enough loops of oxygen barrier PEX to use in the future!

When I built my shop I thought of radiant but man you better have thought of EVERYTHING your're EVER going to install in that shop and install the loops accordingly. As it stands now between the lift, drill press, compressor and grinder I have sixteen holes drilled in the floor and that doesnt count the tire machine that I want to get. You wouldn't want to drill into one of those lines and the location of the individual machines and the layout of the shop probably changed three times from the planning stages to where it ultimately ended up. Once you get the shop up and its an actual building you get a different perspective on it than you did while looking at it on a piece of paper.

https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2013/03/HomeAug11014Small-1.jpg

[BonzoHansen]

FWIW you don't need to bolt down a tire machine. and that is a beautiful looking garage!

if i ever get to build a garage and needed heat i think i'd look hard at over head radiant heat.

[shortrack]

FWIW you don't need to bolt down a tire machine. and that is a beautiful looking garage!

if i ever get to build a garage and needed heat i think i'd look hard at over head radiant heat.

Im a heating/cooling contractor and radiant tube heaters are an excellent way to go. In my shop I installed an old forced air gas furnace I got for free out of a customers house and made up my own metal round tube duct system. I got maybe $250 into the whole system lol. Ive found the key in this type of system is to never let the interior space go below freezing. The concrete slab is a giant heat sink. I used to turn the heat off when I wasnt in there and it would get into the mid to low 20s inside at times. When I turned the heat back on to to warm the place up on the weekends it took forever to heat it back up and it always felt cold. It would finally warm up nicely by Sunday AM, then I would shut it off Sunday night. I could then go out Tues morning and even though the heat had been off since Sunday it still felt warm. Its the slab keeping the heat! So now I keep the stat at 45F and it will heat up quick to 55 - 58 and feel warm. It takes a tremendous amount of heat to to bring that slab from below freezing through dew point.

Of course radiant tube heaters heat objects instead of air so heating up that giant heat sink/slab will be much faster but tube heaters are not cheap!

[Coursey]

Well the garage was going to be 32'x46' inside. Now since the footer was dug wrong it is 31'3" x 45'3".

I did not catch the problem until the blocks were already laid on three sides and I went over to help layout were to put garage doors.

The guy that done the footer was also supposed to do the garage floor and driveway. I may be looking for a new concrete guy.

Anybody know a good concrete guy in Western KY?

[woody80z28]

FWIW you don't need to bolt down a tire machine. and that is a beautiful looking garage!

if i ever get to build a garage and needed heat i think i'd look hard at over head radiant heat.

Exactly the heat I've been looking at. Gonna cost over a grand to do it right! I think if I cheap out I'll be kicking myself in the ass though...

[lftnwhls]

I built mine 50' by 48' with 13' ceiling. 16' x 10' roll up doors. Hydronic Radiant infloor heat. 100A service. and a Bendpack two post. Best thing I have done to date. Having the Hoist and the space has been so great while restoring my Camaro.73116

[srh3trinity]

I was thinking it would be nice to have an overhead chain hoist too.

[Coursey]

I think I am going 10' ceiling over 2 bays, and scissor truss over one bay for the lift.

[ho428]

I forgot, actually put another overhead door on one of the ends so you can pull a car in or unload parts in a pinch and not have to move one of the "projects" that is, um..... Well, in process!! LoL!!

I did something similar, and it helps a lot.
The overhang gives me an outside covered area to work in when needed, the double doors are for getting stuff in-out. The space behind the double doors is the engine shop.

[Coursey]

Friday Progress

https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2013/04/0C9F5E35ADEF406EA4B6FE2AD36C23BC11870000-1.jpg

[astroracer]

Progress is good but it looks to small already... :)

[audioman]

Ill be following this post since I just purchased 4+ acres and will be putting a garage for my latest builds, 69 C10 and Chevelle Convertible