Hey guys,

I'm a young gun here on the site at not quite 24 years old. I'm an engineer, and I'm looking to purchase a house next year.

I'm going to try for something out in the country, but lets just assume lot size wont be a problem.

Ideally, I'd like to build. I'd like to build a garage/shop first, with a apartment inside of it (just myself for now) and then add a house later on down the road.

I'm looking for some ideas where I can see different garages, and even start looking at a pricing.

I've got 5 vehicles plus a motorcycle. So i'm going big with this garage. Room to have all the vehicles on the ground and both doors all the way open. Work area, benches, welding area etc. 2 lifts, 1 2-post for working on cars, and 1 4-post for storing additional cars in the air.

I guess I don't really know where to start to find out how much this will run me.

Geothermal heating/cooling for the entire thing etc.

Any advice? Place to look for pricing?

 

solar panels

and i always wanted to do the apt thing above a garage idea, but i met my wife and she hates cars so that flopped, but they actually make kits than you and some buddies could build

 

that's exactly what I'm looking for!

Between, myself, my buddies, my dad and grandfather, we've done it all. I've got access to heavy equipment to even clear out everything. Brother in law installed his own geothermal since he operates those drills at work, just borrowed the machine for FREE

that'd be the ticket!

 

I have a book at home that has anywhere from a one bed to a three bed above the garage and you order the blue prints from the publisher...ill get you the name if you would like

 

that'd be great, thanks!

 

Add a paint booth! Mine has one now and its AWESOME.

Make sure you have a room out back for your air compressor and then pipe the perimiter with tubing. or just do an over head ditribution with retactable hoses from the ceiling.

DONT do the standard floresant tube lighting for you main lights, use them as secondard for over your tool box etc. use High bay metal halide, they last forever and you dont need as many. ive got 4 in a 1200 sqft garage and they are extremely bright and I havent had to change the bulb in over 8 years..

If you get to a point in the design where you think you have enough outlets, double it. you can never have to many..

Make sure you think about heating and cooling for the garage. I think since your doign geothermal (great idea btw) you should def do radiant heat. since your more than likely going to have high ceilings make sure you add some regulare house fans to recirc that air and get it back down to where you want it.

of course you need to make sure you have drains in every bay, as well as the paint booth.

for the apartment your going to want to make sure you add plastic sheathing to the walls between the garage and the living space, or better yet CMU block wall, also think about doing and air lock style entrance from the living area to the garage(think double doors..) this will help keep the stink out of the house, also the CMU wall is a great fire wall (may be required by code).

If you have the room I would def have it broke up into two rooms, a dirty room for welding, grinding, sanding, general wrenching and the other for things like detailing, or storing cars or even just an area to hang out, maybe a fridge, a sink etc.. this is one thing I wish I had.... everything gets COVERED in dust... If you really wanted to be pimp you would have a car turn table in this area Install some big bay windows looking out to the shop with your latest creation spinning on the turn table is a beautiful sight!

Be careful with the storage areas, if you make them big you will collect a ton of ****... keep them small and you will find that your **** stays neater and you rdont acumulate so much!

Thats all I can think for now, The biggest things I would say you HAVE to do are compressed air distribution and lighting.

 

now where do I find some nice building plans?

 

Def. caught my eye with this thread! I've been wanting to do this for quite some time now.. Tricked-out-toy...Damn you have alot of usefull info! Some things i wouldnt even have though of..but makes alot of sense. Found this pic on ebay while looking for sleds last year. Pretty much what i had in mind with taking one side of it for the living area. Maybe 2 story or just a half. I've got a few hook ups with framers, plumbers etc.. I'm just sick of not having enough room for **** And this would make me complain about not having enough **** to put in it Thats what friends are for right..lol

 

I built mine (dream garage) but in a residential setting. I suggest looking at plans but designing your own. I spent 1K on plans and it saved me a ton of work. I got a custom design that met all the constraints I had. It covered all the engineering work and addressed all my zoning issues. I ended up with a bigger garage than my municipality wanted to approve after my architect pulled out the specific section of building code that said he was correct.

Also, I only found out after it was built that I could have save about 1/4 by shopping around more. I only had my framed and roughed in and the roof done. Can you imagine saving 25% there? I had some independent carpenters say they wished they could have built it. But, I also had no headaches dealing with an established builder and it took them almost 3 weeks for a 900 sq. ft. building with a 3-4 man crew. Not sure if 2 guys could have done it.

--JMarsa

 

So it is a 30x30? I'm sure they could have..and for the price diff. a few more weeks would have been worth it. Learn from our mistakes right? Hopefully some more people chime in..its nice to get some ideas and what not to do's

 

^^^ wow saving 25%?? how much was the whole bill... if you care to share? what state are you in?

 

Solar panels are a great idea. My friend's GF has one on here home and it provides more than enough energy for her whole house. She's recently been having problems with it actually over heating the water to where it's been boiling / evaporating.

My apartment is set up pretty much exactly how you mentioned. It was actually built with the garage as the first story and the second is the living space. A lot of normal people wouldn't like it because the garage is larger than the living space.

The garage will fit two cars if we angle them correctly. We can fit one in there right now because of all the extra engines and transmissions I have sitting around. You can't forget to build a bar or something that will hold liquid refreshments. We have one of those giant stand up gas station style coolers with the racks inside of it. It's on a small carpeted area that we're working on turning into a fully stocked bar.

I still want to get a compressor, air system hooked up in the garage, and a MIG and TIG welder. We don't have an sort of ventilation system because it doesn't get cold enough down here to require it. Even in the summer we're only a block from the beach and can just throw open the doors on both ends. It makes a wind tunnel and cools everything down.

Tool wise I think you can figure it out. Some suggestions I have would be definetly doing a clean / dirty room. If you do a lot of engine work keep the tools seperate. Get a specific set for doing engine work to prevent contaminants from finding their way into a fresh build.

If you plan on putting a lift / lifts in make sure you pour the concrete thick enough to meet / exceed the necessary rating. If you don't end up putting the apartment on top defently do a drop ceiling with insulation.

 

Here's a pic. I'm in the wolverine state.



Not quite a 30x30. It's got two 14' wide bays. The one on the left is 36' long and the other is 26' long. I've got a weird lot line I had to account for. It has 11' walls and scissor trusses so I can put a lift in at some point.

I forget what I paid the builder. twenty something I guess.

--JMarsa

 

awesome, keep 'em coming!

 

If I was in your position I would build a 50'x100' metal building with 16' eave height. You could build a 2 story apartment that's 20' deep on one side for a total of 2000SqFt living area and still have 80'x50' of shop space.

 

I think you're after something like this:

https://ls1tech.com/forums/7826230-post250.html


--JMarsa

 

I was thinking 60x80 but that sounds even better Anybody wanna guess the size of the building i posted above? Looks just right to me..

 

HOLY SH*T!

Yes! exactly like that!

 

For the extra 8-10K for the extra 200 sqft you will be kicking your self later you didnt go with the bigger building... Do it right the first time! I plan on building a 50X100 for mine, with a guest/pool house inside.

 

Like Tricked-out-toy says about putting your air compressor outside, and double your outlets. The other thing to remember you never have enough air fittings around the shop. They are either in the wrong place or not around so add a bunch to that as well.
Also, have a dirty room and a clean room for engine assembly. If you can't fit the other lights, try the new T5's they are very bright too.
Cabinets, storage shelves, plenty of drawers and a good flat table is also a plus. If you like to weld or fabricate things you can appreciate that.
One more thing too, don't forget about putting as many as possible 220 outlets around incase you move things around you won't have to add more later. Plus put as many things on wheels, easier to clean when you can move things around.

Good luck