garage shop choices

[joshkoltes]

I have a few options upon me but would like suggestions

I just bought a crappy house with a little garage and hardly any property.

I don't plan on being here forever so I definitely am not interested in building a blown out shop like I want just to have to do it again.

as it sits is too short to drive my pickup in and even if I could its too long to shut the door. the floor is messed up with big pits chunked out of it. it had a flooding problem and the previous owners answer to it was to drill 1" holes all over randomly to drain it out. however I do get night crawlers through em!

I have a plan in my head ofjacking it up for a new floor and gaining clearance. but no one has any thing good or bad to say about pouring 4" of concrete on top of 4" of set concrete. I think this would be the cheapest route

or I could tear it all down and rent a storage unit for all my crap and start over with maby a 30x40 or 50 nothing too big

I wish I had enough space to just build new

what would you do

 

[sledheader]

I have a few options upon me but would like suggestions

I just bought a crappy house with a little garage and hardly any property.

I don't plan on being here forever so I definitely am not interested in building a blown out shop like I want just to have to do it again.

as it sits is too short to drive my pickup in and even if I could its too long to shut the door. the floor is messed up with big pits chunked out of it. it had a flooding problem and the previous owners answer to it was to drill 1" holes all over randomly to drain it out. however I do get night crawlers through em!

I have a plan in my head ofjacking it up for a new floor and gaining clearance. but no one has any thing good or bad to say about pouring 4" of concrete on top of 4" of set concrete. I think this would be the cheapest route

or I could tear it all down and rent a storage unit for all my crap and start over with maby a 30x40 or 50 nothing too big

I wish I had enough space to just build new

what would you do

Structurally speaking, you wouldn't have any problems pouring concrete on top of old concrete, but you need to stop and look at the economics of what you're talking about. Can it be done? Sure. But would you be better off to start over? Most likely. What kind of shape is the building in? How high are you going to lift it? If you need 6 inches for clearance, if you put a new floor in, you will need 10. That's alot. Then you are going to run into problems in front, because you will have to build a ramp to get up the extra 4 inches so you don't have a huge break in grade. The best way to do this is a concrete apron rather than gravel so it doesn't just bounce out. Not a big deal, but concrete is expensive to buy. Have you poured concrete before? Are you going to do this work yourself? If you are paying for it to be done, you will be baffled at how much labor will cost, and in the end, you will still have the same garage as you had before.

Do you have clearance issues with the whole garage or just the door?

 

[warreng417]

Make a sea can garage

 

[joshkoltes]

Well your right on all that but it seems it'll be expensive both ways. I was thinking of raising it two feet four inches. The apron that's there now is part of the problem its uphill and runoff flows right in the front door! But yes I'd still be in the same garagewhich is a little short to put my ford all the way in
Cost wise I'm assuming starting over I could do the demo but pay for some storage for the duration of the build, pay for excavating a pad, pay for forming the pad, then pay for the pour. Then buy a building which I have the ability do erect slowly

Where as raising it I have no excavation, the forming I would build into my raising stilts and just the materials for the two foot rise in the sheeting and the new door which I need either way.
Six one way and a half a dozen the other either way I don't end up with what I want.

As far as sea cans, no way I don't see the appeal of them and I have no room to do that build correctly.
As in they would need to be stacked double high to get the clearance I want so that would be 16 grand in just containers, then add special cut rafters and you still don't have either end wall or a door. Yes you get dry storage on both ends and could build an office in one but I'm also loosing sixteen feet of floor space on each side. I just don't see the appeal of them

 

[joshkoltes]

It was $120 for a steel beam for my stilts to raise it. Wood for the forms, new sill, and studs could get kinda pricy. And the concrete probably in the 5 grand range

Vs

The demo, the rent 100$ / month, the prep and concrete who knows? And the building around this size is max http://m.ebay.com/itm/141674329186?nav=WATCHING_ACTIVE

 

[BLITZKRIEG]

Find a recently divorced rich cougar that took the house and husbands shop.
Move in, be her cabana boy, take over her ex husbands shop!

 

[Scott]

Put a urinal in it.

Dolley and channel on the ceiling with a hoist to put your sleds on the loft for the summer.

Dog door for the indoor kennel.

Make it bigger than you want...and then add 20' out the back. Then add one more stall.

NEVER smaller than 10' wide doors.

Slant the floor for a drainage. OR put in a floor drain.

 

[joshkoltes]

Well I just measure my use able space and it looks like the max I could build new is a 30 to 40 wide x 35 long maximum if I did 40 wide I wouldn't be able to get around it with a vehicle

If I stick with what I have this is what I need to deal with

 

[Mafesto]

I see a dump truck in the back ground.
That truck is your friend, put it to work.
Your floor space is more valuable than the clutter that you are working around.

 

[slash]

dozer time start over mtl building , you don't need to drive around it just build it in the corner .

 

[joshkoltes]

Hey none of that crap is junk for the dump truck its all parts, tools, sheet aluminum, steel stock stacked in a cluttery mess. I need to keep it all but have no room for it yet. I'm trying to get a coworker to sell me his 10x 12 garden shed for storeing all this crap and my air compressor.

"Just put it in the corner" this yard is so small there is no corner. .17 acre its only 42 feet wide. And yes I do need to get around it to park trailers and sweet dump trucks off the street. With my original raising plan I was thinking of graveling a through drive way so I could leave my trailer hooked up off the street, my neighbors all ready complain about the trailer. The only place I can park it in the yard totally blocks their entire view out the back of their house.

After all I doubt I'll be here forever so just making everything more useful in the cheapest way possible. Especially since I way over paid for the house I don't want to go backwards there but I probably already have


Any suggestions on electrical I need to totally change it around, pretty much start over from a different pole. They way they have it now is so so stupid.
I have ideas as usual
I need 200 amps in the garage and 200 amps in the house.

 

[LoudHandle]

...................
I need 200 amps in the garage and 200 amps in the house.

What the hell? Are you growing weed?

My welder alone can draw 100 amps but I have never had more than a 200 Amp service for both. Typically 100 Amps allocated to the garage and 100 Amps for the house.

To use 400 Amps at once you'd have to have the entire 0.17 Acres two or three deep with grow lights.

 

[joshkoltes]

What the hell? Are you growing weed?

My welder alone can draw 100 amps but I have never had more than a 200 Amp service for both. Typically 100 Amps allocated to the garage and 100 Amps for the house.

To use 400 Amps at once you'd have to have the entire 0.17 Acres two or three deep with grow lights.

well yeah!!! id hate to run out!

haha well I was thinking if I was running a washer drier base boards refrigerator and waterheater in the house and my 7.5 hp compressor kicked on while I was air arcing wide open on my 400 amp welder, its better to have more than I need

 

[LoudHandle]

I forget you guys live down there where electricity is cheap, so you opt to run everything off of it.

I'm in rural Alaska where it is generated via diesel generators, so it is so expensive, you don't willingly waste it. If I weld at all, my monthly Bill can easily be $500-$1000.

Sorry for the swagway, back to topic.

 

[joshkoltes]

im thinking something like this on the back of my garage
http://www.homedepot.com/p/Siemens-...-Socket-Load-Center-MC0816B1400RLTM/202276340
with two of these one feeding the garage panel and one feeding the house
http://www.ebay.com/itm/HOM2200-NEW...987?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3f4c3e645b
im not sure what wire to use im guessing this the ticket?
http://www.ebay.com/itm/171648797379?_trksid=p2060353.m1438.l2648&ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT

as it sits now I could half azz the entire electrical project by just adding the breaker I have listed above to my current panel. then running that big wire to the garage panel. problem is my incoming service line runs right through the neighbors yard and is such a long run its only 10-15 feet off the ground in the belly. it also runs right up against my big pine rubbing the trunk. my new plan would put my new meter directly across the ally from a pole it would be much cleaner.

I guess im looing for imput from electrical type people. well that and maby some of you have some of this stuff for sale in a used fashion!

 

[Mafesto]

Hey none of that crap is junk for the dump truck its all parts, tools, sheet aluminum, steel stock stacked in a cluttery mess. I need to keep it all but have no room for it yet. I'm trying to get a coworker to sell me his 10x 12 garden shed for storeing all this crap and my air compressor.

"Just put it in the corner" this yard is so small there is no corner. .17 acre its only 42 feet wide. And yes I do need to get around it to park trailers and sweet dump trucks off the street. my neighbors all ready complain about the trailer. The only place I can park it in the yard totally blocks their entire view out the back of their house.

I am not intending this to be mean, but it looks like if you build a shop twice as big,
you will hoard twice as much chit.

Rent some storage for the stuff you think you need to save.
If it costs too much.....then there is your answer.
If you think you can build cheaper than you can rent, especially when you know you will not stay there long, you are only fooling yourself.

I know that was harsh, sorry.

 

[joshkoltes]

I am not intending this to be mean, but it looks like if you build a shop twice as big,
you will hoard twice as much chit.

Rent some storage for the stuff you think you need to save.
If it costs too much.....then there is your answer.
If you think you can build cheaper than you can rent, especially when you know you will not stay there long, you are only fooling yourself.

I know that was harsh, sorry.

Hey what's wrong with hording crap!? I want to have a junkyard someday they are fascinating!

Not harsh at all everybody's entitled to their own opinion. You just don't have all the facts. I just moved all that crap out of my other shop 700 miles away. It just looks like a mess cause I haven't bothered to organize since I'm going to do something with the building, no sense building shelves just to tear them right back down to insulate or bulldoze. The pile is all metal stock square angle rectangle pipe sheet channel and bar aluminum moly titanium and steel. I'd hate to buy a new sheet for a two inch piece. Besides like I was saying before a garden shed for the air compressor for sure I definitely don't want that inside, I'll just build it a little big for a steel rack on one side and several parts shelves on the other. I bet I can do that for around 5-600 I already have the shingles and ten 2x4s and etc.
I think storage rent down here is like $100 a month?

 

[bholmlate]

Hey Josh
Not sure any of this applies to you and i am not sure if you haven't already figured this stuff out. but building lots usually have set backs and easements and height restrictions associated with them. Also septic system with leach fields, gas, water, sewer lines can hamper where you can build on a lot. Not sure how rural or urban your lot is but that can also play a part.
All of this might help dictate where you buid on the property and how big. Again you may already know all this stuff or don't care because building requirements might be minimal where you are just thought i would throw that out there

 

[joshkoltes]

Your certainly fight there. I wonder where I'd find the rules for town? There's no city hall here. Maby Sheridan city hall would have something on it?

I drove around town earlier and looked at what other people have done and did see a very small yard like mine where the guy built a garage right on the property line and the corner closest to the house actually touched the house corner. Weird

 

[bholmlate]

Good place to start would be either to talk with the town engineer Chris Johnson, the town clerk Kathie Stevens or even Kepley Tracy with the Department of Public Works. I just pulled their names off the towns web site so the people may or may not still be in that position. Ask a bunch of generalized questions about where you can find information regarding building accessory structures which a detached garage is usually categorized as on a existing lot or doing any type of improvements to existing structures on your property. just tell them you are doing some research to determine what can be done but don't get too specific at this point. You will have plenty of time for that later.

They can probably steer you toward resources that may help. Each town, city, and/or County have their own different requirements and usually vary depending on where you are as i mentioned before urban vs. rural. Where I am we have city requirements for the urban areas and as it becomes more rural the County requirements will take precedence.

http://www.ranchesterwyoming.com/Default.aspx

under city -government there is a link to municipal city ordinances