The Silver Buick wants a garage.

[Stich496]

One of the smartest guys I know lives under the radar. Built a pole building on agrictulture zoned land. Built a 1600 square foot appartment "loft" inside the pole building - no windows on the sides, only the back of the building which can't be seen from any roads.

From the road it looks like a typical pole barn. In the back yard, he's got a hot tub, deck, couple sliding glass doors, balcony, the works, it's a 3 bedroom 2 bath loft with a full kitchen and hard wood floors, he built it all himself. Walk out the back door to a staircase that leads down to the shop - the rest of the pole building is his shop. Two post lift on one side. Underneath the loft is his office and a bathroom for the shop. Nice set up - and super cheap property taxes since it's an ag building. Not a permit was pulled for the inside of the building, the last inspector to see it saw a metal shell with a concrete floor.

tax evation isn't something I'd be willing to chance tho.. remember don't steel the irs doesn't like comp..

[milner351]

True enough - I don't completely understand his reasoning - but I admire his resourcefullness. I'm not sure how he files his taxes, and truthfully it's none of my business.

In Randals case - it's a mute point - he's already got a comfortable home to live in up in the front of the lot - and his daily driver of the day can be parked in the carport ready to go to work.

I'm leaning more toward the two building solution after seeing more pictures of the terraces.

Pour two slabs, lower one is storage only, upper one is the shop. Build shop with 12ft walls (could be a standard 8ft wall garage kit on 4ft of concrete block), slab thick enough for the hoist (6" preferred) in one area, 4" for the rest, run a trench down from the house with electric, cable, water, and gas if you can, use larger conduit than you need so you have the option of pulling something else through in the future.
Put a 100amp sub panel in the shop with a run of wire to a lean to off the side to put the air compressor in, run the compressed air lines around with that new pushlock stuff - way cheaper and easier than iron pipe.
Put a radiant tube heater over head if you don't mind paying for gas, or a waste oil burner, or a regular old furnace, wood stove, whatever. Insulate the bageesis out of the place so you won't require a ton of heat to get it to a comfortable working temp - spend the money on good insulated garage door(s) they're worth it when you're trying to heat the place.

[Stich496]

ya it's a good idea.. but big buildings are not hard to heat if insulated and radant floor heat..

[milner351]

Radiant floor heat totally rocks - if you're out there all the time. I'm not sure how much it would cost to keep a building at say 45-50 degrees 24-7 with a boiler and radiant floor heat. It's a great option if you can do it though. Another reason why a smaller workshop building, or, splitting a larger building up into sections is a great idea - only insulate, heat, and light the area where you'll be working.

[STINEY]

Its evasion, though, steal, and competition.



Randall, it may have been considered already, but with your new pictures I can see what I would do in your shoes. I just couldn't pictures it before.

How about a terraced garage? Share a wall between the two levels (I'm thinking thick poured concrete here) and then do the back walls/floors/sidewalls at their own levels. The lower level roof would have a single slope to it, going downhill from the shared poured wall. The upper level should probably have a normal roof pitched both downhill and uphill, with the uphill side having plenty of gutter/downspout capacity and drainage to below the lower level to help prevent the potential mudslide issue?

It is looking like you have your plan though. Looking good!

[Stich496]

Its evasion, though, steal, and competition.



!

it's sick, meds, cough'n blood, hospital and no sleep for 72 hours and counting.. mr english major

[BBR]

I was thinking a similar idea, but have level 1 with a normal 8 foot rafter height, and maintain that roof line over the lower level so the lower level has a much higher overhead height. A tall side and a short side.

[milner351]

Tall side being the heated insulated workshop side, short side being for cold storage.

BRILLIANT

[TheSilverBuick]

My 30x40 is big enough - barely. It's all the lot they would let me cover. But you have a SERIOUS amount of land there - I say "go for it". Cool to see you're making some headway. Don't forget to meet hurricane standards - um - never mind.......

Dan

You laugh, but according to these people, http://www.city-data.com/city/Ely-Nevada.html , Ely has been hit by one hurricane

I'll have to give some thought to the dual or stepped shop idea. I'm going to price a double wide "portable" tin carport. They are popular here in Ely since most places like mine have had the carport converted into another room of the house and then the tin carport out in the driveway for snow, etc.

[SuperBuickGuy]

why not one of those do-it-yourself quonset huts (they're like 5k).... use it for a bit, sell it when the "real" shop is built....

fyi - I seriously thought about storage/one bay - but by the time you excavate, gravel, and buy the materials you're halfway to the cost of a real building. (filling the structure doubles the cost, but just building the shell isn't that expensive).