Building Detached Garage?

I use a propane forced hot air "hot dawg" styled heater in my workshop.I set the thermostat at 37deg. when I'm not in there and just bump it up when I need to work in there.It warms up quick.

levinmark wrote: new concrete install by friends, with the tubes for radiant heating(not installing the tankless heater yet)

Be carefull with a tankless. They are designed for domestic hot water and are not meant for radiant due to the controls. If you want cheap, go with a standard domestic hot water tank - many do.

My father and myself are building our garage 38x30. It has a 18x10 garage door and a 10x10 door. Upstairs is a 1 bedroom apartment with 12x12 deck out the back. Cathedral cielings in living room and kitchen and bedroom. Den and bathroom are a bit narrower but oh well.

Before you do anything have a plan , you know that old sayin fail to plan plan to fail?   I'm a contractor in Michigan if your pulling a permit don't be afraid to call the inspector before you start they will be glad to help.

My self I would run all the rough-ins for future add on's now it will save time and money. I'm talking about what has already been said like the man cave stuff water for the bar, cable for multiple tv's, water hot and cold, running big ticket electrical items, lighting, pull down's, radiant floor heat, storage.

Its never big enough?

I'm demoing our 22x22 next week and going to put up a 26x26. That about as big as I can go with variances and our lot size. Anyway, 26x26 with 9' walls, new concrete install by friends, with the tubes for radiant heating(not installing the tankless heater yet), floor drain and gonna tie in the sewer for a crapper and sink myself, friend wire it up, and were at about $15,000. I'm handy, but I really dont have the time to experiement with building a garage, so that will be contracted to a builder.

Joel, you have that big compressor, if you dont pick up a few nailers and do this bad boy yourself I will be dissapointed. A detached structure would not be that difficult, hire the slab, keep the roof slope low enough to walk it and you and some buddies should be able to knock out the framing/sheathing in a few days. Should make a great man cave.

If you're going with a 24x24, make it 26' wide. A full 2 feet between the garage doors looks better, that's what I did, well I went 26x26.

Fins, I like your idea about 2 sections to the garage. I've been thinking about that myself. Time for a new one where I can just work on them and not worry about bunging up the ones sitting nearby.

Heat's a great idea. When we built mine, I sent the sill sealer back because I never thought I'd want/need to work on boats in the winter. That was before CCF.

Riley- I was daydreaming about how many boats I could fit in there when I was designing it! One side of the guest house for the workshop and project boats, the other side to store finished ones! At least his garage is filled to the top with vintage and new Blue Oval products! Very impressive collection, but does anyone really need four Boss 429's that will never see the road?

Here in Washington, we just built a 40'x40' shop with 12' ceilings for my brother-in-law. He is a foundation contractor so that part was "free", but he only has $18,000 into it all sheetrocked and stained concrete slab. If they are getting $50k for garages in your area, it may be time for me to move to your area!

Yeah when I built mine, I was debating between either a 3 car or an 18 car. I settled for the 3.

Go as big as you can possibly afford! I built a 40'x52' and filled it quickly. I would LOVE to find an old industrial building and rent part and store boats in the other.

Here is a shot of a garage project I am working on for a client. It is an 18 car garage (yes 18, and that is before he puts in storage lifts) with an attached 725 square foot guest house with windows that look down into the "show" garage section. The entire building is wrapped in stone trying to make it look like a 1930's-40's compound.

Contracting it all out, you could get close to $50k honestly if you're having electrical/insulation/heating. Maybe just a tad high but I would assume things are a tad higher up near Chicago as well.

We just built a 32'wide x 36'deep garage with room-in-attic trusses, which gave us another 12'x36' room upstairs (you should seriously consider doing this, it's cheap storage). Some of the stuff I did myself to save some money, but most of it was hired out. Details:

Site prep: Surveyors laid out the site plan, and came out placed the stakes. I rented a mini-excavator to do the site prep, and dug the footers.

Foundation: Hired out the pouring of the footers & concrete block foundation. Had stone delivered which I leveled and compacted myself.

Slab: Hired same guy that did footers to pour the slab.

Framing: (2x4 walls, 9' tall, 9x8 door, 16x8 door, access door) Hired out, along with crane rental to place trusses.

Roofing: Had ambitions of this, but ends up a 8x12 pitch roof is steeper than you think...ended up hiring this done.

Soffit/Fascia: Paid a guy to come out and help who does this as side work. He was worth it as I would've paid almost as much anyway to rent a sheet metal brake as I did for his help (he had his own brake).

Siding (back wall only): Did this myself with my brother in law. So easy, you should definitely do this yourself.

Brick (3 sides): Hired out

Garage doors: (9x8 and 16x8) Installed these myself. Pretty straight forward, didn't even have a helper.

Electrical: Doing this myself currently.

All together, with the addition of about 1200 sq.ft. of concrete driveway leading up to the garage, I'm probably around $36k. This is with no insulation/heat/plumbing. You'll definitely save quite a bit with siding instead of brick (brick/mason was about 25% of the total bill). You could easily do the framing if you have some help and have the tools. I had neither, so I hired it out.

Hope this helps.

Joel,
The only good thing I can say about the "package" garage guys is they will know what's allowed in your village/city. Check it out. You may not be allowed to put up a steel building??? This is for down here and not up north correct?

Maybe you can get Pete's builder. I don't think he spent more that $50k on his.

Just for a price comparison look into a Morton (or similar) building. They can perhaps quote you over the internet as to a cost for comparison.
Even though it is a steel bulkding the front can be dressed up to asthetically fit your neighborhood.