New garage - looking for ideas, need to make some design decisions

[mikester]

I'm looking at adding a 30x50 garage with a second story and two double width doors for parking 4 cars.

I have local height restrictions max 8.0 m or about 24 feet to the peak. Ideally I am looking at an 8 foot finished ceiling height in the garage and a sloped ceiling on the second floor. For walls I want to go with ICF and the second floor to be steel truss with reinforced concrete so I am losing about 2 feet for the 2nd floor but will have clear span underneath. I also plan to super-insulate everything for my cold climate to make heating the space cheaper.

Question 1: Garage doors: I'm thinking of going with 16' x 7' insulated doors. Does anyone have any regrets going that size for parking pickup trucks and SUV's? I want to be able to park 4 cars comfortably...or at least comfortably enough for my better half to park ;-)

I find standard insulated sectional doors don't seal very well and are poorly insulated. Has anyone gone with bifold doors and have experiences to share?

In theory you can better seal and insulate these doors than the sectional roll up doors.

Interesting link for this style of door

Bifold Doors - Lift Straps | Better Hinges, Wedges & Trusses

Schweiss Bifold Lift Strap Doors have less parts, less problems, less maintenance. Schweiss certified installers will install your bifold door.

www.bifold.com

Differences Between One-Piece Hydraulic Doors vs. Bifold Doors

Schweiss shows the comparison between Hydraulic doors and Bifold doors

www.bifold.com

 

[B7510HSD]

The only thing I see is these appear to take up quite a bit of head space when open?

 

[mikester]

Differences Between One-Piece Hydraulic Doors vs. Bifold Doors

Schweiss shows the comparison between Hydraulic doors and Bifold doors

www.bifold.com

These guys claim less headroom loss can be achieved. You also lose headroom with roll up and sectional doors

 

[B7510HSD]

My roll ups are above my door opening these pictures they show not so much..

 

[KennyG]

8 foot ceiling? Are you going to do anything but park in there? My pole building has 12 foot ceilings and I wouldn't want anything less. I have 7 foot high doors on my garage and my F-150 antenna hits the door and I can't get the tractor in with the ROPs up. I park in the pole barn because of that.

I can see 7 foot doors and 8 foot ceilings in a two car garage but not in a 30X50 building.

 

[B7510HSD]

8 foot ceiling? Are you going to do anything but park in there? My pole building has 12 foot ceilings and I wouldn't want anything less. I have 7 foot high doors on my garage and my F-150 antenna hits the door and I can't get the tractor in with the ROPs up. I park in the pole barn because of that.

I can see 7 foot doors and 8 foot ceilings in a two car garage but not in a 30X50 building.

He is going to have a second story I think is why the lower head room

 

[KennyG]

I understand the two levels and the height restriction, but, if I was doing it, I would still get more headroom in the first floor. (It's always fun to rework other peoples projects.)

Anyway, with 24 feet allowed height on a 30 wide building, let's assume a 1 in 4 roof slope. That's less than 4 feet lost in the roof slope. Allow another 2 feet for rafter and joist thickness and you have 18 feet to work with. I would do 11 or 12 foot ceiling on the first floor. The second floor would have 6 or 7 foot wall height, going on to 10 or 11 feet at the peak. I would make the doors 8 feet at a minimum and would prefer to have at least one as tall as the ceiling would allow.

 

[D&D]

IME, I would use 4 doors. A 16 x7 doesn’t allow enough room to get a FS p/u and FS car in side by side . My p/u is 8’6” by itself
A decent sectional door can be well insulated

How Energy Efficient Garage Doors Can Lower Your Energy Bills | Amarr®

Energy efficient garage doors not only secure the largest opening in your home, but they can also lower your energy bills over time. Learn how to save energy.

www.amarr.com

 

[LD1]

Given the height restriction, as well as the cost of a clearspan and concreted second floor (which sounds astronomically expensive) just to have 3000 sq ft of space with an 8' ceiling.....why not just build a single level? 40x72, 40x80, 48x64, etc. Have half be your shop and half be for whatever you were going to use the upstairs for. Then you can go with 10' ceilings and comfortably do 8' high doors.

Not sure why you would want to do a second floor, and have both of them be height limited.

The steel truss and concreted second floor alone sounds like it will cost more than an entire building of twice the size. Not to mention the engineering that has to go into the walls/footings to hold the weight of that second floor

 

[ericm979]

Pole barn style buildings can be made with significant insulation. There's also a lot less thermal bridging through the framing than with stick frame. Unless ICF is really common in your area and pole frame is not, the pole barn is probably cheaper.

I agree with the comments about 8' ceilings being too short and the concrete and steel second floor likely being expensive.

 

[mikester]

8 foot ceiling? Are you going to do anything but park in there? My pole building has 12 foot ceilings and I wouldn't want anything less. I have 7 foot high doors on my garage and my F-150 antenna hits the door and I can't get the tractor in with the ROPs up. I park in the pole barn because of that.

I can see 7 foot doors and 8 foot ceilings in a two car garage but not in a 30X50 building.

It's a dedicated garage to park 4 cars, motorcycles, UTV, ZTR etc. I already have a barn with 18 foot clearance to the soffits.

I'd prefer 10 foot finished ceilings but can't due to local building restrictions. Same goes for the 2nd floor...I have to keep floor square footage to be within certain limits. Welcome to Canada and its excessive bureaucracy.

 

[mikester]

IME, I would use 4 doors. A 16 x7 doesn’t allow enough room to get a FS p/u and FS car in side by side . My p/u is 8’6” by itself
A decent sectional door can be well insulated

How Energy Efficient Garage Doors Can Lower Your Energy Bills | Amarr®

Energy efficient garage doors not only secure the largest opening in your home, but they can also lower your energy bills over time. Learn how to save energy.

www.amarr.com

Interesting link! I find sectional doors never seal up very well and are drafty. I don't like paying to heat the outdoors.

In Ontario our max allowed vehicle width is 2.6m or about 8'5". I'm surprised your truck is so wide unless you are measuring with the mirrors fully extended. Duallies normally max out at 8 feet.

 

[LD1]

Interesting link! I find sectional doors never seal up very well and are drafty. I don't like paying to heat the outdoors.

In Ontario our max allowed vehicle width is 2.6m or about 8'5". I'm surprised your truck is so wide unless you are measuring with the mirrors fully extended. Duallies normally max out at 8 feet.

Dont know what truck he has or where he is measuring, but its not uncommon up here to put a flatbed on a dually and the flatbed is 8'6" from rub rail to rub rail. Basically about 3" wider on each side than the tires. My flatbed is that wide as well.

And a 7' garage door is REAL freaking close. I have 9x7 doors at my house garage. Truck dont park in that garage but have had it in there a few times unloading stuff and its TIGHT. Throw in the fact that you are in canada....couple inches of snow and you may be scraping the top of the cab of a pickup with only a 7' door

 

[bigtiller]

A 16' door is not big enough for me.
I watched my parents deal with one for 20 years in a 24x28 garage. The door and the service door were both on the 24' side.

They had an F150 and a big Buick as daily drivers.
If one of them parked a little bit off kilter, the other one could not get in the garage.

 

[D&D]

Interesting link! I find sectional doors never seal up very well and are drafty. I don't like paying to heat the outdoors.

In Ontario our max allowed vehicle width is 2.6m or about 8'5". I'm surprised your truck is so wide unless you are measuring with the mirrors fully extended. Duallies normally max out at 8 feet.

Ram 3500, no way I would fold the mirrors every day I pulled in or out of my garage.
2.6m is 8.53 feet or 8 feet 6” and 181/500 . Makes me legal by a tad over 9 mm.

 

[EddieWalker]

I'm looking at adding a 30x50 garage with a second story and two double width doors for parking 4 cars.

I have local height restrictions max 8.0 m or about 24 feet to the peak. Ideally I am looking at an 8 foot finished ceiling height in the garage and a sloped ceiling on the second floor. For walls I want to go with ICF and the second floor to be steel truss with reinforced concrete so I am losing about 2 feet for the 2nd floor but will have clear span underneath. I also plan to super-insulate everything for my cold climate to make heating the space cheaper.

Question 1: Garage doors: I'm thinking of going with 16' x 7' insulated doors. Does anyone have any regrets going that size for parking pickup trucks and SUV's? I want to be able to park 4 cars comfortably...or at least comfortably enough for my better half to park ;-)

I find standard insulated sectional doors don't seal very well and are poorly insulated. Has anyone gone with bifold doors and have experiences to share?
View attachment 871541View attachment 871542

In theory you can better seal and insulate these doors than the sectional roll up doors.

Interesting link for this style of door

Bifold Doors - Lift Straps | Better Hinges, Wedges & Trusses

Schweiss Bifold Lift Strap Doors have less parts, less problems, less maintenance. Schweiss certified installers will install your bifold door.

www.bifold.com

Differences Between One-Piece Hydraulic Doors vs. Bifold Doors

Schweiss shows the comparison between Hydraulic doors and Bifold doors

www.bifold.com

I'm in the process of building a 30x42 three car garage. I grew up with two car garages with 16 foot doors that you could only fit one car in there because the opening was too small. You need some really small cars if you want to get two cars into a 16 foot opening. I went with ten foot wide doors on my garage, which is working out great.

Some of the things that I'm still dealing with is wiring it up for everything that I "might" need in the future. I'm running a 240 volt line for my welder and compressor, and I've recently decided to make it where I can add an EV Charging station to that line in the future if we ever buy an EV. As of right now, we don't want one, but things change over time and maybe we'll want one in 10 or 20 years. With the cost of wire being so crazy, I think it's better to pay for it now then when we need it.

I have three water spickets outside my garage. That seems to cover everywhere we might need water. I ran two rows of 4 ft LED lights on the interior. I bought a ten pack from Amazon for a good price, and it's like daylight in there!!!

I need to run a line for Natural Gas from one end to the other, and then to the other side of my house, where my utilities are.

I also want to install Security Cameras at the corners of my garage, so I need to get the cable and install that. I can buy the cameras later. I don't want cordless for this, I think there is a significant difference in picture quality by having them wired.

I put in outlets and water valves so we can have 4 refrigerators or freezers. I also have it plumbed for a sink.

The longer I take on it, the more things I add to it!!!

 

[LittleBittyBigJohn]

My shop is 50' on the gable end and 4/12 pitch. 12' side walls gave me 20' at the peak. The bottom of my free span trusses give me a little less than 11' of clear headroom along the walls.

Theoretically you could go to 16' side walls that would get you to max height. I'm not sure what your roof pitch requirement is. I assume you get snow there... We don't really get snow here... This is a not-to-scale sketch if it helps visualize what you would have with the maxed out height with 4/12 pitch. Dims assume leaving 1' headroom for trusses. Is it about what you were expecting? I have an 18' wide door and park a 3/4 ton and a small car in it. No issues with that size, but I just have 1 door and park the truck angled to the outside. I've never tried to park them straight and just the width of the door.

 

[KennyG]

The OP said he would like 10 foot ceilings but the local code won't allow it. I thought I had restrictive zoning but that boggles my mind.

 

[mikester]

The OP said he would like 10 foot ceilings but the local code won't allow it. I thought I had restrictive zoning but that boggles my mind.

The local zoning building height is restricted to 24 feet. If I do 10 feet in the garage that severely reduces the occupied space and head room on the 2nd floor if I use a sloped roof.

 

[WM75Guy]

We have 9' ceilings with two 8'X10' doors 30' deep and one 8'X8' door 23' deep. The 3500HD fits through the door with about 6"- 8" inches to spare on the mirrors. I would go with 12' wide doors if I had to do it again.