Garage Thread

[dr bob]

Off the cuff, my $0.02 thoughts: I've always felt you a need two car garage to properly work on a single car so that you have enough space to swing both doors open without hitting anything. Add another single car bay as a wash station and be sure to take drainage into account. Then storage for yard work items, parts storage and space to pull and work on an engine and not disturb the car from which it was removed, add 50% to standard depth. Don't forget heat and cooling. If you are thinking a hoist, you could utilize the height for a small balcony for parts storage as well....but your first statement of wanting a functional working 1 car garage with a 2 post lift somewhat contradicts my suggestions.

Can't agree more! Plus, have a separate garage or at least a defined section that's for 'normal' garage stuff like cars, lawnmowers and the like. In the workbay section, by the time I added cabinets, workbenches, some storage on the sides, plus room for the lift columns, it was almost 25' wide. I wrestled with the architect some on this, but more on the depth. He kept expanding the MBR's bath and walk-in closet space each time I moved the workbay garage door further out. There was a moment of clarity when I reminded him clearly that the workbay needs to be min 30' between the back wall and the inside of the garage door. And there needs to be turnaround space plus 12' of driveway between the workbay door and the retaining wall. The next door neighbor was the HOA architecture and landscape rep, and signed approval on all the drawings. Then got a bit clogged up when work started. She had "no idea it would be that much space". I had generated 3D perspectives to go with the architect's plan and elevations, mostly for Karen to bless, but the same packages went to the HOA as went to city planning and building depts.

One of the other 'moments of clarity' happened when the vehicle images that the architect was using were discovered to be three-quarter scale, as were most of his furniture and appliance library items. He mentioned "too many lights" and "too bright" quite a bit too. There's no such thing... I'll use dimmers if I have to. So far there are no dimmers out there. but there are separate switches for get-around lighting and actual workbay work lighting.

Do place all your utilities in the walls. Power for bench-height outlets, air compressor, refrigerator, dust collector or shop vacuum hanging high up, water heater, welder, lift. Plus plumbing for water where it will be needed, hot and cold. air 'stations' by workbenches, plus overhead hose reels in key places, and some knee-high outlets, and one over each lift column for drops to power and air stations where they will be handiest.

Lots of insulation, plus full HVAC capability. Even if you don't install the HVAC on day 1, doing all the prep in advance for mini-split head units inside and a pedestal outside will make the decision to install easy.

There's plenty more in this thread and in other places. Do it like you mean it.

[P_Coastal]

Off the cuff, my $0.02 thoughts: I've always felt you a need two car garage to properly work on a single car so that you have enough space to swing both doors open without hitting anything. Add another single car bay as a wash station and be sure to take drainage into account. Then storage for yard work items, parts storage and space to pull and work on an engine and not disturb the car from which it was removed, add 50% to standard depth. Don't forget heat and cooling. If you are thinking a hoist, you could utilize the height for a small balcony for parts storage as well....but your first statement of wanting a functional working 1 car garage with a 2 post lift somewhat contradicts my suggestions.

@Belgian951
Planning is really key.
Define Zones, and what goes / happens in each Zone.
Can never have too much storage, or workbench space.
Ceiling Mounted Racks help get things off the floor.
Sketch everything out, I used Visio.
Light Colours are easier to illuminate and live with long term in my experience.
As big as feasible with space and budget constraints.
Good Luck, keep us updated.

This is my recent project:

https://www.carpokes.com/viewtopic.php? ... 420#p35824

[ROB III]

"He mentioned "too many lights" and "too bright" quite a bit too. There's no such thing... I'll use dimmers if I have to."
TOTALLY AGREE on that. You can dim what you have but not really add what you don't....
The final inspection bay in most automotive assembly plants have an inordinate amount of light for detailed exterior inspection review. And it helps for interior when you open the door or check marks/tags/stickers in the engine compartment when the hood is up.

[ReidMcT]

After radically downsizing my life, I no longer had complete control over my garages. The poor lighting is the greatest hindrance... much worse than single-space cramps. I've had to do some jobs outdoors, just to avoid the frustration of bad lighting.

White walls help a lot.

Here's my old shop. Nice and bright.

Desmo Service 24 March 2018.jpg (2.2 MiB) Viewed 3456 times

[dr bob]

"He mentioned "too many lights" and "too bright" quite a bit too. There's no such thing... I'll use dimmers if I have to."
TOTALLY AGREE on that. You can dim what you have but not really add what you don't....
The final inspection bay in most automotive assembly plants have an inordinate amount of light for detailed exterior inspection review. And it helps for interior when you open the door or check marks/tags/stickers in the engine compartment when the hood is up.

A real inspection and detailing work space would have multiple light fixtures on the walls to help find the tiny places that need attention. Like better paint spray booths. But that means no other cabinets storage or work surfaces as you would like in a 'real' mechanical workspace. My compromise in my now two-ago space was a couple four-tube florescent fixtures vertically on a rolling cart. Just wheel it around the car as needed. It's OK to get creative. There are a lot of theater and studio lighting options to consider if you need to mount them up above head height. Some serious LED panels can be had for not piles of money if you shop well. Multiple projector heads will help eliminate shadows but spoil inspection-by-reflection.

Space, the final frontier...

[Belgian951]

Hi everyone, thanks for all the great input. Bigger is better, I hear! The main issue with that philosophy is however budget and planning permission. It's an old listed building (not fully fledged on protected, but we need permission for everything that changes the look and design of the building) so it complicates things.

I hear you that ideally I build a 2 car garage to work on 1 car. Google says a 2 car garage is 24x24 feet (288x288 inch).
Perhaps it's easier to show you the current design of the garage.

In the picture below you'll see the garage with a four post lift (should be a 2 post lift). Above it you'll see the mud room and on the left of that room a storage room. As you can see, the main hallway on the left of the garage (with the stairs, toilet and washing room) takes a bit of room (44 centimeters or 17.3 inches over a length of a bit over 4 meters or 157 inches) from the garage.

IMG_20250210_204223 (1).jpg (3.34 MiB) Viewed 3483 times

The current design is for a garage that's 507 centimeters (200 inch) wide at its narrowest point and 769 cm (302 inch) deep. That are some strange numbers that seem arbitrary, but if you notice the blue lines in the drawing, that are the outlines of the current building. In Belgium, sometimes the city demands that you stay in or roughly in those extant lines. We will see what the city says.

Note: this is a high ceiling garage, in an upside down V shape. This should we think allow for a 2 post lift that can lift a car all the way (how high should the ceiling be for this to be 100% sure?).

Additional questions: should I position the lift in the smack dab middle of the garage? Or should it be off center? I plan to have 1 big automatic gate. How is a lift powered? Should the cables come from out of the floor or from the ceiling?

The walls (the nook created by the main hallway and wash room; and the wall on the right side of the building) will allow for storage. Basically they will be lined with cabinets, although I'm unsure I will need that many cabinets.

But given my need (there is no space in the house itself) to store ALL my tools in the garage (plus lawmower etc and engine out repair!) I wonder if this will be enough.

Additionally, there may be some loss of space because we may need to put in a staircase that gives access to the attic/shelf that will be created above the mud room/storage room (and perhaps a bit above the upper side of the garage). This gives additional storage, but will also cost some shop floor space that I can use for cars, engines, bikes, and heavy stuff.

Thanks in advance!

[dr bob]

<<...>>
In the picture below you'll see the garage with a four post lift (should be a 2 post lift).
<<...>>

Ceiling height is a function of the height of your largest/tallest vehicle and also the type of lift you are using. For my current workbay, there's a two-post lift, so height calcs assume that the car will end up with the jack points at lift-height above the floor. With a four-post, the car will sit at lift-height from the tires, plus you'll want to consider how you might use an axle lift/jack while the car is at full lift height. Stuff on the ceiling needs to be considered too; if you plan on surface-mount lighting rather than recessed, the thickness of the installed fixtures will come into play.

For my compact "Max-Jax" two-post lift with 4' height at the car's jack pads at full lift, a couple SUV's that are ~~76" at roof height but 6" between the floor and those jack pads, and 4" of light box above, the minimum ceiling height is (48-6) + 72 + 4 = 118". I stretched that a foot to 130" so I could use some 2"-thick indexing blocks on the lift pads, plus have a foot of future expandability for a taller vehicle.

-----

Because we were working on a remodel/expansion of an existing home, the extra foot of inside height was achieved by excavating the floor, while maintaining the original outside gutters height. It took taller garage doors, but unless I point it out a casual looker wouldn't notice. I also replaced some existing support beams in the ceiling with steel wide-flange, adding to available span and allowing the beams to disappear into the ceiling rather than stay in the workspace. The main beam has 2500 lbs. of spare capacity mid-span for a chain-fall or other overhead hoist. I can add a 6" steel center beam between two new steel beams up there if I want a hoist on a trolley, but haven't needed that yet. Easy to have in the design, rather than trying to retrofit something later. It will fit in that space between light fixtures, minus the trolley and hoist height. For the 928 anyway, I'm more likely to lift the car off the engine than lift the engine out of the car, should engine-out be needed. That's getting beyond my enthusiasm level at this point in life, honestly.

[Tom]

I built my dream garage about 5 years ago. I still love it unconditionally but if I were doing it again, I'd probably incorporate more bench space, with storage below. Flat surfaces have a way of filling up fast! I'd also probably add a ladder or steps to get to the loft area. I rarely use it because it's high and hard to get up to. Shop equipment takes space fast too, so I'd probably add more width to the side of the car bays for things like welding tables and blast cabinets and 3D printers and brake presses and drill presses and.... I also wouldn't let the concrete guys go wild on the slope, especially if you are getting a lift (they like it flat). The code has a range for garage slopes, and my guys took the high end, whereas I would have asked for the low end had I known to ask at the time. One of the things I did without thinking much about was adding a railing around the walls. We did it mostly for esthetics at the time, but they really come in handy to put things down when detailing or doing little projects. Other than that, I second all the advice above -- more space, more benches, more storage, more lights. Also, don't underestimate the value of a good floor. We did porcelain tiles and it really makes the garage seem like more of a room in house. Oh, and on that point, a good HVAC system is worth its weight in gold. And another thing...

[zooklm1]

I have a 10k 2 post lift in my shop. It will lift approximately 6 feet from floor. The ceiling height is approximately 160 inches. The specs for the lift typically provides minimum installation heights. While most spec require 4 inch minimum thickness concrete under the lift, I have always been conservative, usually creating a 24 inch x 24 inch x 8 inch thick (with rebar) pad for each post.

[dr bob]

Since we were excavating for more effective ceiling height, and I wanted a continuous pour for the whole floor, it was easy to spec extra pad thickness under area where the lift bolts down. I asked for 6" min, and the contractor added a few mo0re just because it was easy. The design section is a rectangle that extends across between the columns, and at least two feet from column centers. So four feet wide. There's an extra layer of rebar under that section, under the mat. Like Tom, the floors are finished with 12x24 porcelain tile, and specifically with epoxy grout in narrow (1/8") grout gaps. Oil and brake fluid and coolant and... love to stain conventional cementous grouts. Tom has previously shared guidance on the non-slip requirements you'll want to follow when shopping.

My tastes in cabinets and such exactly but independently parallel the choices Tom made, even down to color choices.. Baldhead Cabinets is right here in town, so it was way too easy to get cabinets exactly the way I wanted them. Mine sit up off the floor, leaving room to store large stuff like ladders and some larger tools underneath. Easy to clean under there too.

I'll echo Tom's comment on drainage slope. Monitor that carefully in design and again in execution. We live in a desert climate, with less than 12" average annual precipitation. Most of that tends to be snow, and the driveway slopes immediately away from the garage, so there's less worry about floodwaters needing to escape. Meanwhile, if you intend to wash stuff inside, slope for drainage is a good idea.