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Garage Remodeling Planned, Need Advice

Laurie S.

Laurie S.

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I've had it with my garage and now that the main part of my house remodeling is done, I'm moving ahead with plans for the garage. I want to put a car lift in there so I can double deck Murphy and Trouble. That will give me loads of working room and also room for a new Mustang when the urge strikes me, which won't be long now.

The problem is that the garage has a finished ceiling, so I don't know how much space actually is available once it's ripped out. Fortunately, my cousin is an architect and he's coming over this weekend to assess the situation and come up with plans for a couple of other things I want to do outside (extend porch roof for shade over driveway, create trailer parking spot next to house).

I have two questions to help me out with this. First, what brand of four-post lift would you recommend? I don't want a moveable one because I have nowhere to move it to. Second, how thick a concrete pad is needed beneath it? I'm assuming that the garage floor will have to be broken up and repoured to support the lift.

I'm trying to minimize the work needed, so I'm hoping I can just redo the floor and ceiling where the lift goes and not the whole garage, although it does need a drainage problem fixed.
 
I have no experience with a 4 post lift, but I am envious...does that count?
 
Rotary makes some of the best stuff out there.

I would think the pad that's in place would support a 4 post ok. I'd verify that with your cousin.
 
Congrats Laurie!

I assume that your existing garage ceiling is at roughly 8-9'? What is the "pitch" on the roof over the garage area?

Pitch = # of feet upward divided by # of feet from outside load bearing wall to center of peak (all converted into 12ths). For instance, a low pitched roof would be a 4/12..... 4' up for every 12' inward. A high pitched roof would be an 8/12.... 8' upward for every 12' inward (you wouldn't want to try walking across an 8/12 roof).

The roof pitch will help determine how much attic room that you have available to make usable.


The concrete pad in your garage is likely 4" thick. Depending on the "feet" on the 4 post lift, this in my opinion may not be enough thickness. If each leg/foot of the 4 post has large, thick steel plates to help spread the load over a 2 square foot area, I'd be more comfortable with the existing 4" concrete. Any 4 post lift is going to require less concrete thickness than a 2 post lift.

What size garage door do you have? 9' or 16' are the standard sizes. Any 4 post lift inside a normal attached garage is going to permanently eat up a LOT of room. Yes, you'll be able to store a car "up above", but depending on lift placement, you'll likely be tripping over the lift inside a normal garage.

A picture of the front or side of your house showing the garage would definitely help....
 
Yes, that's about the ceiling height of my garage. Here's a picture of it. I plan to remove the shelving that's on both walls. The lift would go where Murphy is in the picture. The cabinets at the back wall would be removed and possibly placed on the right wall, at least some of them would be. My compressor is located next to the cabinets, below the street signs. The dark spot at the garage opening behind Murphy is due to the water that drains into the garage. That has to be fixed.

I'll get a picture of the outside of the house so you can see the roof. I don't have one online right now.

You can see how confined I am right now. And where would I put a 2010 Mustang?


garage1.jpg
 
Last edited by a moderator:
And where would I put a 2010 Mustang?
Click to expand...


The questions are getting much easier....

I'd kick my son (and his car) out and you could park where his is parked.

Seriously though, there are much larger considerations that you have to consider first.....

The kitchen and bathroom re-models WILL add value to the house. The additions that you're now considering likely will not add and may actually detract from the homes value. If nothing else it would limit the list of potential buyers to more or less "car guys". Are more houses on your street "owned" or "rented"? If more are rented out than owned, it may be time for you to do the same. As I remember, you're living in your Dad's old house? Built in the 70's/early 80's? Either way, that's coming up on/over 30 years. It's likely that the number of renters in your area will eventually outnumber the number of owners. With renters usually come problems. Not always, but usually it's bound to happen. Ask yourself.... is your street on the "decline" or is it getting better? Once it starts to decline, it's difficult to reverse.

I'd just hate to see you make ALL of these improvements and get the house exactly the way you want it, only to move within the next few years.

You are cramped for room in the garage, but have you thought of putting Murphy in a "home"? A local storage facility with a 24/7 key carded access and a 10x20' storage unit wouldn't likely run more than $1k a year. How much do you expect the shop renovations to cost? $10k would be 10 years of storage.

I'm not trying to detract you from your idea, but want to talk through everything before-hand.....
 
I'm in a highly desireable neighborhood in Tucson that has few, if any, renters. At least I've never seen a sign offering a house for rent or heard of any. It's a very stable neighborhood where when a house is up for sale, it moves very quickly, even in this economy. We've had real estate agents tell us this is their dream subdivision. It's a closed neighborhood--only one street for getting in off the main drag and I'm a mile back from there.

I had thought about moving in five years, maybe, certainly no less than that. But, I've been thinking more about it lately. I have one of the best views in Tucson out my back windows, the house is paid for, I like the area, and I just did a whole lot of improvements that make it much nicer. So, I'm probably staying put.

I'd never want to put either car in storage. It gets very hot here and there aren't many places where you can store a car that have a/c. I'm paying about $1,200 a year right now to store my trailer outside. I figure if I can redo the yard on the east side of the house, I can put the trailer there and save that money.
 
Alright, we've covered the neighborhood and your plans for moving, so let's get back to business!

I like the idea of recouping the trailer storage fees by parking her alongside of the garage.

Where is your "air handler" for your HVAC system? Hopefully not over the garage....
 
Nope, there's nothing over the garage. The heat pump is on the roof on the back of the house. The house really doesn't have an attic, either. The builder just blew the pink insulation in and so you sure don't want to crawl through there, although there is access.
 
It appears that there is at least one step leading into the house.... is it one or two steps? If it's 2, your existing ceiling looks to be at least 9'. The higher, the better.

Where is the gable end of the house in the picture? Is it on the right wall or is it on the front above the garage door?

It's good that you have someone with a structural background coming to look at the house as you're probably going to have to cut into/raise the existing ceiling where the lift is placed. Doing so will require re-engineering the existing trusses in the attic. Remember that the trusses do much more than just support the weight of the roof... just as importantly they prevent the tops of the load bearing walls from spreading outwards.

Re-engineering trusses isn't hard work once you've designed a way to do so that will not weaken the original design. It WILL BE HOT getting the work done though....

Where is your breaker box? Hot water heater? Does the wiring from your breaker box run up and then through the attic? How much wiring will have to be re-routed? Also, now's a great time to plan out a new wiring system for the garage as most residential garages usually only have one, maybe two outlets. In the course of this work, you can have outlets placed every 16" along the wall if you'd like. How about adding a small room sized air conditioner capable of cooling the garage off for those days when it's a little too warm to work out there? Now's the time to do it. Also, A LOT of people like to re-locate their air compressor to the outside of the building and enclose it in a small well ventilated cabinet type structure. It'll cut down on any noise when the compressor kicks on and you're working out there and also frees up that much more floor space.

Will your electric garage door opener interfere with the lift?

What is the lowest acceptable height you're willing to consider for the lift? If it's going to be 98% car storage and 2% maintenance, you may not have to go that high at all thus eliminating the need to cut into the existing ceiling/trusses.

Lot's of things to think about/plan for.
 
There are no steps into the house, other than about an inch or so from the garage floor into the house.

The gable is on the end of the house (I'll post a picture tomorrow).

The breaker box is on the opposite end of the house, outside wall. The hot water heater is in the pantry straight back from the garage, the second room back.

Yes, the garage door opener will have to be changed, as will the door. But then the door needs to be changed, it's the original one for the house and it has problems.

The lowest height that I want is one that will enable me to put Murphy in the top bunk and store Trouble underneath. It's the double car storage that I need most of all. I'm guessing I need 11 feet to do that based on a garage I saw last weekend.

More outlets, definitely!

I can't put the compressor outside easily unless the trailer can't go next to the house.
 
I'd budget for a separate air conditioning unit for the garage.

After seeing your garage, I believe you would be better off razing it entirely and starting over, making it much wider and deeper. It is a small 2-car garage, barely big enough for two cars, let alone a lift (which does take up space) and a workbench along one wall. Even with a lift to put a car up and one parked below, you're gonna be cramped with another car parked beside the lift.

Unfortunately, you don't have a lot of room in front of the garage to make it deeper and still be able to park a car in front of the garage and out of the sidewalk. Width is limited by your property line on the RHS, which, IIRC, is fairly close to your neighbor. Check to see how close you can build to our property line; you may already be at your width limit.
 
I don't want to raze the garage, I want to raise the ceiling. :rofl I can't widen the garage because I want to park the trailer next to the house. And, with my F-250, the garage cannot be extended forward due to the truck's length. If I were to get a new Mustang, and that's a long shot, I would just back it out of the garage when I want to work in there. I don't go in and out of the garage anymore as it's kept locked unless I'm working in there.

I'll know more after my cousin checks it out. I wouldn't be doing this until this fall since I would have to remove the Mustangs from the garage during the work and I don't want Murphy sitting in the trailer in the heat. I need to get the Tuff Shed installed first, then move to this project.
 
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