Width of Garage?
 

Ok our New House they made the Garage into a Family Room.If we want to turn it back into a Garage how wide does it need to be for Full Size Pickup?

big rockpile

my dad built a garage that is sixty feet wide by forty feet for his fullsize pickup. Still wasnt big enough due to all the stuff that accumulated and the truck wound up being parked outside. Dunno just how big a garage would have to be to store all the junk and be able to keep a vehicle in it too.

I'd say a minimum of 10'-12' wide to be useable for a full size truck, and that's tight.

A standard roll up door is 9 foot wide by 7 foot tall. I just built a small barn on an exsisting 12x20 slab, and the door fits with a foot and a half on either side.

http://davewagner.com/images/001s.jpg

I designed my garage to have 4 feet clearance on each side of the pickup and have 4 feet clearance on the front and 4 feet of clearance on the pack. When we park it inside we can get groceries out with clearance problems.

Dave

Anything under 12 foot wide will give you problems with opening the doors. Mine is 14' wide and I can't have anything along the walls or the doors of my ranchero hit it when you open them.

I should of added our garage door is 10 foot wide and with 4 an each side it is 18 feet wide.

I once owned a house built in the 20's with an attached garage that was only 9' wide. It was horrible trying to get in and out the driver's door. We finally just parked in the driveway and used the garage for firewood storage.

Nomad

Open both doors of the pickup fully and measure the width produced. In case you don't always park exactly in the center of the space you'd want to add some cushion to that figure. Expect with mirrors as they are you will want at least a 9 foot door.

i would say a minimum of 12' wide for a pickup and measure the length as some are different lengths than others, I would want 24" on each end to get around it..min..

our garage is 24 x 32 and it is way too small for our needs, however, perfectly large enough for two vehicles and a workshop

12'x24' minimum.

Don
TodaysPlans.com

My Son says we would be better off to leave this as Family Room and use Concrete Slab where the Dairy Barn was for a Large Shop to pull Vehicles in and to have a place to work on them.

big rockpile

Sounds like your son has a very good brain.

:)

He does ok.

big rockpile

You don't really need doors on a pick-up do you?

Thats funny years ago I had an Old School Bus made into a Truck Welded a Frame for a Cab,put Barn Metal over it for a Roof.No Doors!:run:

big rockpile

10' is to narrow, IMO to get in and out of the car or truck that is what one of our buildings alley way is, and we at one time parked the truck in it some times it would not even clear the west coast mirrors, with out folding them in,

I'd take a tape measure and find a full size pick up. I'd stand on one side while a helper stood on the other side. We'd pull the tape across the width of the truck. See how wide it is. then I'd probably get a calculator and add maybe four feet onto the measure I took. that would probably be good.

Your son has a good idea.

You'll have frame out the partition, change electrical lines, add a header and garage door and refinish what's left of the family room. You'll also have to make sure that you have a vapor barrier and one hour fire break between the garage and any living space. That might mean two layers of 5/8" type x gyp. board on the inside walls and ceiling of the new garage.

You'll be loosing living space with a market value of something like $100 per square foot and getting garage space with a market value of half that.

For a 12'x24' garage carved out of living space, you might be reducing the value of your home by about $14,000.

You should be able to build a free standing barn or garage for the truck for well less than $14,000 and the cost of the conversion. And, the new barn/garage should add value to your home.

Smart kid.

Don

Today's Plans

Did this I figured 14' will work 15' would be better.

This room use to be a Garage so most everything should be in place.

big rockpile

The Sliding Glass Door is where the Garage use to be.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v5...achment5-1.jpg

big rockpile

As a builder, I would not tell a customer that any space less than 12' x 24' is a usable garage. During a previous boom, a local "builder" built hundreds of Shack-Mansions with two car garages in this area. He would build a 20' x 20' garage with a single 14' wide garage door. Every Sunday morning the victims from NYC would show up and take a tour with a salesman. The over-sized door and the big empty space looked huge. Since then I have driven past hundreds of them, thousands of times, and rarely see even a small car parked inside.

BR, regarding fire safety, older houses can be a bit weak in this department. Any kind of properly installed sheetrock on the dividing wall between the house and garage is a big help, as in a fully sheetrocked ceiling. Current codes require a single layer of 5/8" on both. The weakest link however is usually the door between the house and garage. If it's an old hollow core door, please give a lot of thought to replacing it. A pre-hung steel exterior door is cheap, and typically has a 20 minute rating. In the even of a car fire, sheetrock and a fire door give you a good chance of getting out of the place in time. Good luck.

In that picture I would never ever turn THAT into a garage, even though it may have been one years ago.
No way would I want a vehicle which is Basically In The House. Oil smells gas smells and other things directly into the living area of the home, no way. And say nothing about the safety of doing such a thing as that. Ouch. Concrete slab is the best way to go and put up a Garage.

There are literally tens of millions of homes on this particular continent with garages attached to, or under, the living quarters. To put it mildly, your concerns are a bit overblown. I have occupied these type of homes that you find defective for the last forty years. I have yet to smell oil, haven't smelled gas since fuel injection and pollution controls have become standard and basically prevent such things. As for "say nothing of the safety of doing such a thing as that"??? Well, there isn't much to say. I have seen house fires where the home was fully engulfed and the firefighters opened the garage door and pulled cars to safety. A properly build home with an attached garage is far from unusual or hazardous.

Plus around here it increases the value of a home where unattached Garage don't.

big rockpile