Another garage lift thread

Attaching it to the house would remove all restrictions aside from total land use but I had to nix that based on my budget, the layout of my 100 year old house isn't conducive to it.   I could also solve the problem by moving to a different house on a bigger lot where I could go up to 875 sq ftt but that seems extreme :)

steronz said:

My thinking was that probably 90-95% of the time when I pull out the jack, I'm changing wheels, brakes, fluids, or fiddling with the suspension.  The lift wouldn't make any of those jobs easier, it'd just make them quicker.  I think something like the MaxJax would make the more complicated stuff easier, but I doubt I'd wheel it out and set it up for a brake pad swap.  Is my thinking backwards?

I don't know how hard they are to set up -- seems like you could leave one post semi-permanently installed (the one next to the wall), park the other one next to it, and just have to wheel it a short distance to do a job?

One of the things that I didn't really realize about lifts until I owned one is that enabling you to work on suspension/brakes/etc while standing makes it a lot less tiring than having to get down on the floor to do work on jackstands.  So yeah, in the sort of situation you're describing, I most likely would pull out a maxjax just to do a brake pad swap.

steronz said:

Attaching it to the house would remove all restrictions aside from total land use but I had to nix that based on my budget, the layout of my 100 year old house isn't conducive to it.   I could also solve the problem by moving to a different house on a bigger lot where I could go up to 875 sq ftt but that seems extreme :)

Consider revisiting that idea.

Picture a garage connected only by a breezeway (or an enclosed hallway).  The connection profile would be minimal, but it would still qualify as an addition, not a separate structure.

I've seen very few houses that could not be made to work with a connection like that.

My current 3 car garage is about 800sq ft.  It's not big enough, not by a long shot!  Even with the 4 post lift I'm still running out of room. 

I'd love to have my current garage, then a detached shop that'd be around 30'x40'.  That would give me plenty of space to actually have my trailer at home (rather than in a storage yard off site) plus my lift AND a two post lift, and plenty of room to work...

rslifkin said:

In reply to steronz :

That's annoying.  Town limitation, I assume?  Does making the garage attached to the house change anything (because it's not a separate structure)?  

Not annoying to your neighbors who have to look at the hob-gobblin' hodge podge of buildings you parallel parked next to each other.....

Steronz,

I spent a lot of my career as a city engineer.  Before you give in to what the rules say, look around carefully and see if you can find anything in the same zoning that has a bigger building.  If they do you have a great argument for doing the same thing.  In fact I just built a shop and didn't want to put it inside the cities approved area, so i looked on google earth and found some that encroached like I wanted to and snapped some pictures then went and chatted with the city. 

Im looking to buy a lift this year. The catch is I’m leasing the house, so can’t do anything to or with the garage floor and the garage is pretty narrow even though it’s a 2-car. The mid-rise scissor lift looks like my best bet overall.