Portable Carport/Garage

[wildbill23c]

Haha My old barn has a dirt floor so I can relate. What is easier for you, email or TRS? My wife informed me that people don't use email much anymore. I am lucky to do either. I putter mostly on a Kindle but do have a PC. Have a cell phone but not a smart phone. She says I'm socially challenged as well as electronically stupid. GUILTY! That's me!

Email or TRS doesn't matter to me, I have a couple PC's, ok fine a desktop, laptop, and a netbook LOL. No smart phone either, I had a couple a few years ago, was far from impressed, especially when they suddenly would decide to stop working, and crash, or reset themselves, or lock up completely forcing a complete reset and losing everything I had saved on them.

I had a tablet but I swear I will use them when I buy them and then use them a couple days and get rid of them IDK why.

I think the first thing before I do anything is to clean stuff up and start with a few measurements and some stakes to see where this "new" addition would be taking up space at LOL. So tomorrow that will be my plan to get some initial pictures and maybe a few measurements.

I thought about leveling the floor and having some reject sand (basically road mix) brought in and using for the floor, then building a wood floor, not sure if that would be cheaper or if it would be cheaper to pour concrete, thinking the concrete would be very expensive considering in order to really do it and have it done would be having it delivered in a concrete truck, otherwise I'd never get that done. Thought about doing the wood floor as if some part of it failed it would be easy to replace. Plus I could run conduit for running power, ducts for heat and AC, water, etc lines quite easily with a wood floor.

 

[Doofy]

I do love a cement slab but they are so much work to do yourself. I did my garage 24x32 myself. 45 94 lb bags of cement, 2 dumptrucks of sand and gravel mix, a small mixer and a wheelbarrow. I was about 35 yo then. Couldn't do it again.

You could build a wood floor that would support a vehicle but no idea of cost. Going to blow in some more cellulose insulation above my garage ceiling on Monday or tuesday. Costs $21.99 per bag locally or $11.99 per bag at Home Depot in Wasilla. I'll bet you can buy it for $5-6 where you are.

Your best bet would be to sketch out several options and get rough estimates.

 

[wildbill23c]

I do love a cement slab but they are so much work to do yourself. I did my garage 24x32 myself. 45 94 lb bags of cement, 2 dumptrucks of sand and gravel mix, a small mixer and a wheelbarrow. I was about 35 yo then. Couldn't do it again.

You could build a wood floor that would support a vehicle but no idea of cost. Going to blow in some more cellulose insulation above my garage ceiling on Monday or tuesday. Costs $21.99 per bag locally or $11.99 per bag at Home Depot in Wasilla. I'll bet you can buy it for $5-6 where you are.

Your best bet would be to sketch out several options and get rough estimates.

I think I'll do that with some sketches and get some ideas on costs. May be another idea that never gets finished LOL. Although my uncle does have a cement mixer, but sand and gravel isn't exactly cheap. I may have to come up with other ideas, maybe do the shop portion with a wood floor but the area where I can pull cars in definitely needs to be concrete I think.

 

[Doofy]

Any sawmills around to get rough-cut? Places that carry repurposed building supplies? You may even find some old fart that you can barter with for materials. Guess you won't know until you scope things out.

 

[wildbill23c]

Any sawmills around to get rough-cut? Places that carry repurposed building supplies? You may even find some old fart that you can barter with for materials. Guess you won't know until you scope things out.

There's a sawmill about 15 miles from home that does rough cut lumber but he's extremely expensive. There's always someone tearing down a barn or other building so I'll keep my eyes out for something like that and go grab materials as I'm able to, most of the time I run across stuff like this I'm at work . A guy I know last year got a whole barn for free, all he had to do was disassemble it and haul it all off, he got some great lumber out of it, but he reused practically all of it to build himself a barn LOL.

 

[Doofy]

Murphy's Law again...If you have Time--No Money. If you have Money--No Time. Yep, a good tear-down barter would be ideal.

Missed a brand new corvette with 74 miles on it for $5k. Guy died of a heart attack and they couldn't get the smell out. I had the time to get the smell out but not the $$$. The Marine Corps paid $240 a month. Ha!

 

[wildbill23c]

Alright, so here's the barn/shop that I've got right now that I am planning on redoing to make it into a better shop suited to my needs and ability to work in it year round regardless of weather...right now its like trying to work in an oven during the summer, and unbearable to say the least in the winter.

This is the front, or main entry point as it is:


This is the end I want to rebuild and install a standard garage door in:


This is the other end facing the back part of the property, not much room to add onto here:

 

[Mark_88]

It looks workable...I've insulated a few over the years and it makes a world of difference...as I'm sure you know.

The roof would definitely be a major heat loss area that I would address first...the door openings can be done with something like flattened rubber hose (I've done this myself). I bought some at TSC one year and put a long strip of it across the bottom of the west facing double door...that was where the winter wind came from and made life on the garage floor miserable...lol.

But I think with that alone you could heat it much easier...i put insulation bats and vapor barrier in a double garage and heated it with a kerosene heater for one winter...the cost was about $200 for the materials (including the wall and ceiling bats) and $300 for the fuel but there are cheaper heaters available.

I spent MANY hours out there in shirtsleeves working on my trucks...made it all worthwhile...less than $100 per month for a long winter of comfort...

 

[wildbill23c]

The 1/2 doors on the back end need to go period, I haven't used them since we got rid of the horses 10 years ago. I still want a door back there, I'd kind of think just a standard walk through door would be fine, I don't go out that way very often. So if I reframe the back side seal up those door openings, then frame in a standard 36" wide door I think I'll be fine with that, especially by adding the garage door on the front end, and then keeping the walk through door on the front side that would open up into the woodworking shop addition.

I'm also thinking that in the woodworking shop doing a wood floor, but concrete in the other part of the shop where I'd be working on vehicles.

I don't need high ceilings, although if I recall I have 14' ceilings in the barn right now before I hit the rafters. So I don't think a regular car lift will be getting installed, but if I just had a nice concrete floor in a nice climate controlled shop I'd be happy. Not sure what clearances would be needed to install a regular 2 or 4 post lift but I don't think a 14' clearance is enough.

 

[Doofy]

I think for the new 2 or 4 post lifts a 12-14' ceiling height would be sufficient.

 

[wildbill23c]

I think for the new 2 or 4 post lifts a 12-14' ceiling height would be sufficient.

Hmm, then I'd be good, although I can raise the ceiling height another foot if I want or need to.

Which is the better way to go, a 2 or 4 post lift? It would be nice to be able to lift a vehicle and do brake work, or other wheel off type work, and if I recall the 4 post lifts they lift with the wheels so you can't do that type of work where the 2 post lifts, lift from the frame leaving the whole suspension & wheels dangling free.

 

[Doofy]

No clue about lifts. I just know they are very reasonably priced. I am so used to jacks and Jack stands that wouldn't know how to act with a lift.

 

[wildbill23c]

No clue about lifts. I just know they are very reasonably priced. I am so used to jacks and Jack stands that wouldn't know how to act with a lift.

When I get this shop redone I won't know what to do with a shop to work in period LOL. Even without a lift, jack stands will work just fine for me as well, just being able to work on stuff regardless of the weather is all I really want.

 

[Doofy]

Amen to that!

 

[wildbill23c]

When I had my other Bronco 2 I had to change the heater core in it, of course it failed when it was 10 below zero for a week straight, try doing that stuff when its that cold in the middle of the driveway in the snow/ice...not fun at all.