SLJ, I envy you that facility!
I don’t even have a garage… When I bought the place, almost 40 yrs ago now, I planned to build one into the hill where I live, but shortly thereafter the county passed regulations forbidding building on grades as steep as mine… And more rental storage is pricey.
But dang, that place of yours! You could hold a barn dance in there!
I just ended up burning the remains of a set of work stands almost like those (only painted & with 1X4 uprights) after they rotted at the bottom from sitting outside for 15 years. Next ones will have pressure treated 2X4 for the base. Which pristine Bell is that?
PJC: That’s a Bell wildfire I bought for my wife this Summer She didn’t like it. Then sold it and got her a Placid Spitfire which she loves.
Yea, having inside storage for all the vehicles and toys is great. Also have an old two car garage next to it I rebuilt into a shop. Cost a lot to build but it was worth it in the long run. Main goal was to get the motorhome out of the sun and snow. Everything lasts a lot longer.
SJL…nice garage . I recently added a garage with big doors. But what I thought would be a roomy garage is now full. Just works that way I guess. I especially like tall doors. I can back the truck in with the kayaks on the roof racks.
I now regret that I did not choose to have my own new similar metal garage built with the taller height and 10’ door on the one bay like you have. At the time I did not know I was going to be buying a 9’ 10" tall motorhome shortly after it was built early last year.
So I am now paying $55 a month to store the camper at an indoor commercial garage 40 minutes away instead of 3 blocks up the road in my own garage.
I chose to have a vapor-barrier sealed concrete foundation for my metal garage/shop – that cost as much as the 32’ by 20’ building itself! But at least I am not tripping over canoe and kayaks in the basement any more.
Maybe it was crazy to pay $80,000 for a house and lot (now rented to tenants) and then another $20K to build a garage, just to have a place to stash my fleet. But I have the same geographic challenges that PJC suffers at my own house: lot too steep for a garage or even a driveway (one has to descend a flight of 6 steps to get from the sidewalk to my front yard and the back third of an acre could be an intermediate ski slope).
Overstreet: I learned that if you figure out how much space you’ll need, increase it by 50%. Everything is in there in the Winter but it’s tight. Having a 12’ ceiling is great to hang the boats from though. Slide them onto the platform and crank 'em up. Glad now I added a second floor for storage. Motorhome has about 6" to spare on the door. Left the second floor above the RV clear so I can work on the roof inside.
willowleaf: My floor is 6" re-enforced and cost about 12K for 40x30’ including the excavation and base. Cost a little more to chop into and slope the rise in the yard behind it so water wouldn’t poor into it. It was a project. Saved a couple grand though doing the electric myself and just having it inspected.
Garages are just like flat spots. They rapidly collect stuff. We just cleaned ours out and it immediately gained a kayak and a refrigerator.
I can’t remember when it had a car in it.
I would love to have an outbuilding like either of SLJ’s or willowleaf’s. We have enough space on our lot in the back but we aren’t allowed to build on it.
We all have lot limitations. I have a 60 ft wide lot. The garage with RV port sits 90 degrees to the 60 ft dimension. I have a 54ft rig (truck and trailer) Backing in could be interesting. But I use a two wheeled battery operated tugger. It takes 20 ft out of the problem.
On space, I learned in my years of working military and civilian that the “universal closet rule applies.” It doesn’t matter how many closets the new house has you’ll always find something to put in them.
Anyone else here have “big” boats besides the kayaks and canoes? Winter is boating season here in FL although the weather this season has been pretty bad. So far I have retapped then stanchion bases and replaced the 22 year old lifelines, rig inspection and tune, and am about to start the yearly varnish refresher coats. Then its rebedding some portlights and then hopefully calling it done (for now) and getting some good sailing in March thru May (best time of the year here for weather IMO)
My foundation was similar: 24’ by 32’ and on a slope so it was extra thick on the one side. Cost me $11,400 in the end. Unfortunately, once the excavator started we discovered that there had been a small brick building on that location that had been knocked down and they had just crushed and buried the debris. So every bucket full of fill they brought up was full of chunks of cemented bricks and large pieces of dressed stone from a foundation. The house on the lot was built in 1890 and when I went looking for old plat maps I found it was owned by the foreman of the coal mine that was dug into the hill at the back of the 1.5 acre property and that little brick building had been the miners’ pay office!
I still haven’t wired it up. I had the concrete guys stick a 2" PVC elbow into the pour on the front right corner, nearest to the house, which has a walk out basement 30’ away – running a 30A subpanel out there will be easy (other than digging the slot for the underground conduit in that rock and brick strewn soil) . You can see some of the debris in the photo (taken before I had the new driveway, which is out of the picture to the right) extended to the garage bays. Looks kind of shabby compared to yours, but it’ll suit my needs, especially if I eventually decide to eject the tenants and move over there myself - it’s only 3 blocks from where I live now.
Since the crew came and erected the garage the same week as the Covid shutdowns began in March, and my tenants (who share space in the garage for their landscaping equipment) are not terribly careful with public health guidelines (hanging out too much with their extended family and having friends over all the time throughout the pandemic), I have not wanted to work over there until I have the vaccine in me. I had hoped to get the building all fitted out last year but have only been over there to load and unload the stored boats, maybe a dozen times, Once I feel safe working around the tenants I’ll put in lighting and convenience outlets plus a couple of baseboard electric heaters that I picked up at construction salvage for the workshop end of the space. I was a licensed “sparky” (and BOCA electrical inspector) for a couple of decades but let the badge lapse when I moved into project management (and the city jumped the annual fee from $35 to over $1000 to renew). My small borough is pretty casual about permits and the inspector (a guy we share with 3 other boroughs) by now usually just tells me he “trusts” me when I notify him I am doing a little wiring or even plumbing – all I had to do for the garage build was pay $40 for an outbuilding permit (no inspections around here if it does not connect to the house) and that it be set back 10’ from any property boundary – the back yard is 99’ by 110’.
I like how the metal buildings have the clear-span space overhead. I will probably build a couple of pulley hoists to get some of the boats up in the air. Down the line I may insulate the workshop side with mineral wool and build inner walls to section it off from the two garage bays. I’m already pretty annoyed that the tenants let their nasty mowers and a crappy ATV they stored in there leak oil all over the pristine concrete floor. I’m not a clean freak (it is a work space) but seriously…
I did get wall racks put up to hang a couple of the kayaks and found a pair of sturdy 6’ long sawhorses at our local ReStore that support one kayak and the solo canoe for now. Kind of a bummer at the moment that being able to get the building ( my big new “toy”) set up is so fraught.
