Bye, bye storage facility!

Why build two garages? How about one, with a 14' tall door for the RV that is 12' wide and a regular 16' wide for the cars. Being 40 - 42' deep, you could park cars in tandem, so 4 will fit.

You also have to be careful in Hurricane areas. Steel might not meet the local building codes, or hold up well to a hurricane. . My sister was thinking about a steel building, but I am not to sure that local zoning would have approved, yet they went with wood construction anyway. It looks more like the house, and price was nearly the same, and her husband can help with wood construction, not the metal stuff.

If I where living in hurricane areas, I would want working shutters on all the windows, so no need to board them up each time there is a hurricane, just shut the shutters, and go!

If you are in a low lying area, it might also be worthwhile to have an extra 12" of dirt under the garage, so that it is much less likely to flood. You will have a somewhat safe place to park your cars if it does flood locally for a short time.

I would recommend 42' long. My buddy has a 40' RV now, and a 42' long garage, with some cabinets in the front. When he had a 35' gas motorhome, he could use them for storage, but now can not open them with the RV in the garage. And it barely fits! He only had space for a 12' wide garage (outside wall to outside wall) and the city would not let him build it wider. So the mirrors nearly hit the inside of the walls. He can not put out his slide - even a little bit!

It is somewhat difficult to back out too, as he can not start to turn until it is nearly out of the garage, and it is about 10' set back from the street, that is about 50' wide. So hopefully you will have more space to line up with the garage entrance! And a big place to turn around before going back out to the street! It is always handy to drive in and also drive out. Backing into the street is not to much fun!

Personally I would get a price for both a metal building and wood one. Probably would also want them to price it with 2X6 walls and a certain percentage to be covered with plywood and screws every 6" to keep it steady in a storm. If at least 60% of the walls are covered with 3/4" plywood, then it will not "Rack" or allow the studs to tilt to one side if the top is pushed by the wind hard in one direction. It is a requirement in earthquake country.

Also current code requires many straps from the roof structure to the walls. Make sure that this is not skipped. There are pictures of roofs getting blown off a house, still intact, and tumbling down the street.

Yes you can find hurricane resistant roll up garage doors. I found some of the size mentioned while looking for standard doors for my project. Hurricane resistant are rated and tested (with a airplane engine blowing on them) at 90 MPH!

Good luck with your project.

Fred.

VintageRacer wrote:
35 by 60 is a nice size for an RV shop, that is the size of my smaller building that I keep the bus in. Construction will depend a lot on where you are, you either want something that tends to keep warm or cool depending on if you get a lot of really cold days or really hot days. Uninsulated metal buildings tend to be the worst of both worlds... Metal building with a well vented attic and an insulated ceiling and walls with a thick poured concrete floor can be amazing. Brian

X2
Metal buildings are definitely a learning curve. After building 2 I finally got it right with the third one, kinda.

I went with the insulated ceiling with a ridge vent. THAT takes care of all the problems that can happen with weather changes just about anywhere.
Concrete floor
2 doors front and back

The one mistake or should I say contractors mistake is I had them measure and re-measure the height of the MH including the AC to make sure the door was tall enough. I was on the road during construction and when I returned and went to pull the MH in my new building it did NOT fit.

The incline of the concrete to the entrance to accommodate how the building was set prohibited my MH from fitting under the door. If it had been level it would have made it in.

Sooo, check that out before you build! :W

Thanks all! I will check out that garage journal for more ideas. We do have a budget, so 30x45-ish will be as big as we need. I will make sure we get the 12 foot doors, I may do 14, but I really don't think they would be needed. We do have a good 15 years before retirement, so I guess you never know what we will want at that time. We are thinking about a pull through, but we really like all the trees around and we would have to cut a lot down to make it work, the trees are why we bought the land.

Our next step is to give the architect my plans I have been working on (not done yet) so we can get them drawn up to send into the county for permits. Hopefully within the next 4-5 months we can get started.

Suggest you also allow for extra height should you decide to move to a larger TT or a MH. Congrats on the new house and property.

If you want to research buildings, check out the forums on garagejournal.com. Lots a great info there.

congrts, BUT your bldg is to small. 50ft by 100ft, and after you put the toys in there might be a little room left, OH! 12ft doors.

35 by 60 is a nice size for an RV shop, that is the size of my smaller building that I keep the bus in. Construction will depend a lot on where you are, you either want something that tends to keep warm or cool depending on if you get a lot of really cold days or really hot days. Uninsulated metal buildings tend to be the worst of both worlds... Metal building with a well vented attic and an insulated ceiling and walls with a thick poured concrete floor can be amazing.

Brian

Congrats,..
Suggestion for "our" new garage:

• Make it drive through - doors at each end so you never have to back in.
• Make it big enough for my rig too...:)

Congrats.

Are you sure 30 x 45 will be big enough? Garages fill up quickly. :)

Congrats on the new property.

Add a small separate septic for the garage