Building Three Car Garage

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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

[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