The grey floor sealer stuff comes in a kit, and we are planning to put the clear gloss over top of that (if we get the grey, if we don't we'll just use gloss). We have a good idea on ventilation, going to use steel mesh in a couple of good places.(i'll try to post a pic later, its really neat) The garage is going to be detached from the house. I really think we do need a door, because in the summer its going to get hot, and all we'll have without a door will be a window on that south side. Planning on wiring it ourselves , and we'll get that all inspected.
The only vehicle thats going to be in there is the occasional truck i work on, or some diesel i'm going to be cutting a hole in the bed for a stack , Should fit fine, we dont plan on finishing the ceiling if you get what i mean, just going to lay down a few boards for a loft to throw stuff up there. Half of it open, half loft. Shouldn't have any distance codes were breaking, its at the end of the driveway, away from everything, all's there is a tree.

 

The newer epoxy coatings are way better than the old two part gray epoxy we first used in 1988. Before I left we resurfaced the concrete shop floor and showroom,rolled out the new epoxy and sprinkled on the flakes,then sealed it with a hard poly clear coat. You could spill oil or gas and just wipe it up with no staining or bubbling up! Just don't let it sit too long on the floor. But it still will scratch if you drag anything on it like any coating will. Don't know about the electrical codes there,but down here if the walls are not covered, the inspectors may require conduit on wiring. I'd check out what they require before you do anything! OPT

 

Well Sounds like you have some good advise here. The cool part is now all of us builders have to use the International Building Code (IBC). So everyone will be on the same page more or less. I would 100% put in a standard 3'0"x6'8" door. Even if you are on the fence about it all you have to do is frame the wall with a door rough opening. If you decide you dont want that door just throw a stud in the middle and sheath over it. Dont limit your options. My garage only has a garage door to get in. Just last week someone closed the garage door with both of the openers inside .

 

No exterior keypad??

John

 

we're in the middle of building a 26'x26' two car garage- with a great room (20' ceilings) & balcony above the garage. starting to frame tomorrow...

you don't need a loaded hindge on the garage door to the house, but it does need to be steel, and you do need to use fire rated sheetrock on the garage ceiling (like moose said), totally sealed off, before the inspector will sign off the permit.

the entire job from footings to finish should come in around $55k
$29k of which is just foundation cement & site work!

go with the 10' ceilings if you can afford the lumber- won't be cheap- walls will need to be 2x6 minimum.
without a doubt- put in an exterior door- makes garage access a lot easier if you lose power or just want quick entry without having to deal with the big garage door.

 

we'll have remotes for our doors, but no exterior key pad- we didn't want one.

 

JCDEY We didnt want a key pad.

BG No quad tracks going up the piles of dirt?

TRK Are you going to order roof trusses or stick build it? I would build with 2x4 all day long for a garage. For a 2 story house the first floor walls have to be 2x6. But the second floor walls can be built with 2x4 if you wanted to.

 

that's a very steep hill- but yes, I was playing on it for a while
all that dirt is staying

we had to use 2x6 all the way up- something about insulating
the interior walls are 2x4.

 

My bro, me and some buddies built a 26X28 garage, with a 12-12 pitch roof and dormer ( we get snow here). we got a package from the lumber yard in town. you pick a design and they will provide u with drawings, calculate what wood and hardware u need and deliver as needed. We felt the package worked great as it saved a million trips back to the lumber yard and we didn't over order on anything.
As for the height, we have about a 9 ft ceiling and i wish it was higher . You can hang things from a higher ceiling, you can get a door bigger than our 7X9, and don't forget that door is never as big as it sounds. The only reason I am glad we didn't go higher was that with a 12-12 pitch it got pretty scary putting up the roof.
Look for a cheap nail gun too, huge time savers
Good luck and no beer before noon

 

I only use my garage for my tools and quads. If I build another house, only the garage that my wife will use for her Jeep will have an automatic opener and the other bay/bays will just be manual. Too many power outages here to go with an automatic opener. When the houses were first built in this area they had telephone poles for power and telephone. (Now the bury them) Wet snow, and ice buildup on trees, leads to days long outages if things are really bad.