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Designing New Garage

121K views 247 replies 52 participants last post by  macrobert68 
#1 · (Edited)
I planning on breaking ground on my new Garage/Shop in June 08.

I thought I would start a thread here and update it as the project progresses.

Right now I am in the design phase so comments and suggestions will be appreciated.

First, I am posting a picture of a gas station that is the inspiration of my design:



I am planning on a 24' X 48' building with a 19' X 14' drive through. It will have a 10ft. ceiling throughout and the garage doors will be 8' X 8' (Edited 1/6/08 to 9ft wide by 8 ft high)
Here is rough sketch of my plan:



Here is my floor plan so far:



The room on the east will be for my "Clean/Dirty" work area. Sanding, painting, etc. I will have no tools or furniture in that room so it can be cleaned out easily.
The 3 rooms in the back from left to right will be the bathroom, compressor & dust collector room and the beadblaster & parts washer room. The rest of the area will be the main work area.
 
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#53 ·
well, I want to move to your neighborhood. in Palm Coast to get 4 acres it would be 16 lots, and at around $40,000 per lot... well, you get the idea.

the garage looks great. I would suggest individual dedicated exhaust fans.

it may still not be too late to do a vaulted truss to get that lil extra space if you should ever wind up with a lift.

is the front 18 by 18 for parking or porch? I have seen a few shops / barns and a raisd front porch seemed to add a bunch of character....

the other thing I have seen, in a great garage in Hastings florida (owned by the local bank president) was a glass wall separating the clean room from what I would call a entertaing / living room.

I suggest that perhaps a sliding glass door could be put in the clean room wall. you would have to protect it during certain operations, but it is just a thought.
 
#54 ·
fatboyman05 said:
well, I want to move to your neighborhood. in Palm Coast to get 4 acres it would be 16 lots, and at around $40,000 per lot... well, you get the idea.

the garage looks great. I would suggest individual dedicated exhaust fans.

it may still not be too late to do a vaulted truss to get that lil extra space if you should ever wind up with a lift.

is the front 18 by 18 for parking or porch? I have seen a few shops / barns and a raisd front porch seemed to add a bunch of character....

the other thing I have seen, in a great garage in Hastings florida (owned by the local bank president) was a glass wall separating the clean room from what I would call a entertaing / living room.

I suggest that perhaps a sliding glass door could be put in the clean room wall. you would have to protect it during certain operations, but it is just a thought.
The sliding glass door is an interesting idea. I'll have to give that some thought. The porch is the drive through area between the building and the gas pump island. It will make a good place to wash the car out of the sun. I had given a lot of thought to a lift and decided that I if I ever got one, it would be a Kwik Lift and I don't need higher than the 10' ceiling for that.
Yes, it is pretty cool that I have a 4.1 acre lot within the city limits of San Angelo. This part of town is zoned "ranch and estates" and lots are 1 acre minimum.

Here is a partial plat of my lot showing the location of my new workshop in relation to the house. The front of the house faces south. Most of the trees in the front of the house are pecans but some are oaks. The back fence splits the property in half and this plat doesn't show the whole 2 acres of the north part. The north 2 acres has been pretty much left natural. It is a corner lot so access to the rear of the property is through the gate on the west side. It looks tight to drive around the workshop through that gate but it is not. The entance to the house attached garage is on the rear side of the house (North Side).

 
#55 ·
79C10 said:
Roger ,
as a concrete foreman with almost 2 decades of experience , I can tell you --- once the slab is poured , it goes along much quicker.
Getting to that point sometimes seems to take f o r e v e r , though . :sweat:
Best of luck with this endeavor. One day you'll thank yourself for all this headache/hard work .
:thumbup:
Mike
Get this!

It's Sunday evening (about an hour ago) and my foundation guy calls me from jail. Says he needs $451 to get bailed out.
So, he says if I'll come down and pay it, he will finish all the rebar work tomorrow, arrange for the inspection, and have it poured on Tuesday. (We'll see.)
I still owe him $1,200 of his original bid, so I went ahead and got him out. (Am I nuts for doing it?) I told him no more money until it's finished and cleaned up. (I am paying the for the actual concrete separately from him.)

Mike, I wish you worked in San Angelo!

Hmmm... Just looked at the forecast. A 50% chance of rain tomorrow and 20% on Tuesday.
 
#57 ·
Looks like we are back on track.
The ex jail-bird has the foundation ready to pour. Told him I didn't want to know what he was in jail for.
Inspection tomorrow at 8:30 AM and concrete trucks arrive around 11.

 
#58 ·
I hate to say this, in 28 years of working construction I have never seen a slab prepped like yours.
What is under the poly?
It may be deceiving but it looks like a lot of the rebar is laying on the poly.
There should be two #5's min. in the thickened edges, rebar should have a min. 3' clearance from the dirt.
If you streach a string line from side to side, what do you have for concrete depth?
 
#59 ·
1ownerT said:
I hate to say this, in 28 years of working construction I have never seen a slab prepped like yours.
What is under the poly?
It may be deceiving but it looks like a lot of the rebar is laying on the poly.
There should be two #5's min. in the thickened edges, rebar should have a min. 3' clearance from the dirt.
If you streach a string line from side to side, what do you have for concrete depth?
Dirt is under the poly. You are right, the rebar is on the poly vapor barrier in the pic.
Plastic chairs will be installed before the inspector arrives getting the rebar up the correct distance. There are 4 #5s in the beams, 2 low and 2 high. Strings were stretched and it is 6" minimum concrete depth.
The beams are 24" deep and 12 feet apart which exceeds the code for San Angelo.
 
#61 ·
The beams are 24" deep and 12 feet apart which exceeds the code for San Angelo.

Not dissing.. :D ....Just comparing codes and differences in different parts of the USA ;) I have never seen beams built under the garage floors like that, unless the beam was going to support some excessive weight like a lift attachment point or monstorous machinery mounting point. (of course, I am taliking about garages with trussed roofs and no load bearing walls inside)

Here in my state, a hobbyist garage might go to 6" thick floor, but surely never having beams out in the middle like that....and it's super rare "here", to see rebar either! I think the concrete mix is special to allow no rebar...I am pretty positive on that. Residential garages are likely 4" with no beams, just frost walls on the perimiter only.

We have codes here for frost wall depths of 42"... but there is supposed to be a new system around here to allow buried rigid insulation placed at 45* angles downward around the perimiter, that allows way less of a frost wall depth.


Hey Roger, I've been following your build from the initial planning. You yakking about the old service station look, now has me hooked on trying to put a similar facade on my existing shop....a porch overhang with that same roofing :cool: ...and one of those nice doors you showed ;) ..thanks for the inspiration :D
 
#62 ·
1ownerT said:
I hate to say this, in 28 years of working construction I have never seen a slab prepped like yours.
What is under the poly?
It may be deceiving but it looks like a lot of the rebar is laying on the poly.
There should be two #5's min. in the thickened edges, rebar should have a min. 3' clearance from the dirt.
If you stretch a string line from side to side, what do you have for concrete depth?
I think some areas are requiring prep like this to prevent subterranean (sp?) termites. They've been a problem in Ca. when building over old orchards. The soil is treated, covered and then concrete laid. Don't know about Texas tho... :D
 
#63 · (Edited)
dinger said:
I think some areas are requiring prep like this to prevent subterranean (sp?) termites. They've been a problem in Ca. when building over old orchards. The soil is treated, covered and then concrete laid. Don't know about Texas tho... :D
Termites are a horrible problem in San Angelo.
That's why I went beyond code. I used 2X8 forms when only 2X6 were required. The vapor barrier wasn't required either but I wanted that and I did do the termite treating prior. The 2 beams going across the short side weren't required but the one down the center on the long side was.
It seems like when doing a foundation, it is better to err on the side of overkill vs. the other way around. This is an expensive foundation tho.
Should have a couple more pics today of the pouring. I am out-of-town on business today, so my wife will be conducting things. She just called and said the city gave us the green tag. I hope she gets some good pics.
 
#67 ·
Coming along

Still don't have the pump island poured. My concrete guy has skipped town.(Or maybe back in jail.) Others have chipped in to help us get that done. Hope to get it poured by Thursday.


 
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