I'm Getting a New Garage! Help Me Plan It!

Not looking to brag, but want to share. There will be a build thread eventually. SWMBO and I have put a deposit down on a new construction house. Part of that house is the garage, which I have significantly enlarged. It will be a 28'x32' attached garage with a 13'ceiling in the 3rd bay. Fully insulated. It will have it's own electrical circuit (120V 30A). 4 plugs on back wall, 3 on each side wall. 4 switched plugs on the ceiling for lighting. It will also have 240V. The third bay floor will also be prepped for a lift (reinforced and/or one section poured deeper). The lift will be a couple of years out though.

I've been looking over on Garage Journal a lot too. Right now the biggest thing I'm trying to figure out is what type of protection to put on the floor and when. Sealed? Epoxy? Stain? After that, planing on where everything goes, to put shelves, benches, etc. I need to dig up some of the GRM workshop how-to's, but I think I had to get rid of them when I moved in with my now wife.

Any suggestions on must do's? The house won't be complete until late this year, early next.

Thanks!

Polished concrete for the floor.

overbuild its "own circuit" 50 or 100 amp sub panel, so you can add on later as you acquire more tools. It's not been fun adding extra runs and finding circuits to add 240v in my existing garage. Like take what you think you will need and add at least 50% to that, the minor increase in cost now can save a lot of headaches 3, 5, 10 years down the road. You're planning on a lift, I'm guessing a welder as well, but you never know when you might find a great deal on a big metal band saw or plasma cutter or something big and electricity eating, and it can be a huge PITA trying to make it all work later.

Personally, after working in my friends garages with epoxy floors, it's a lot more comfortable to stand, roll around, or just work on all the time than bare concrete, but YMMV, that's more a personal decision based on your feet and your body that doesn't really have a blanket reply. And I guess you can always buy floor mats to work on. I'm also used to working on number 3 gravel, so even a solid concrete floor is an upgrade to me.

Estimate how much overhead lighting you want, then double it.

+1 on more power in the garage, especially if you are getting the walls finished. It will be way easier to add circuits before the sheetrock is up. Will the house have a 200A service? If so and you are really going to do alot of work in the garage, a 100A 240V Panel will be your friend. That way you can have a 240V compressor, welder, etc and be able to use many other things at the same time. If adding that big a service is too much money for you now at least have a spare 1.25" conduit brought out to the garage from the main service. Truthfully you will likely never need the entire 100A but if you only have one 120V circuit out there you will be limited by what you can buy and use. For general use outlets you typically can't use more than one outlet at a time (unless you have a compressor or some other cyclical load) because you can't use two tools at a time. Using this theory you can have 10 outlets on a 20A circuit and it shouldn't be an issue. Again if sheetrocking, add boxes and wire everywhere you think you may need it before the walls are closed in. If the walls will be bare then adding later is a breeze. For lighting buy as many of the best lights you can afford and have multiple switches so you can just light up the area you are working for the times you don't need the whole garage lit up. LED lights provide some serious lumens with very low electrical usage and should last for years before replacement, they are expensive to buy but if you figure the maintenance cost of other lights they become less expensive. If you go LED buy a good brand name, they cost more for a reason. If you can have water out there that is helpful for clean up, for some reason women don't appreciate oily dishtowels.... Good luck with the design, majorly jealous.

Agree with a lot of what has already been said.

100amp 240v sub panel absolutely
Outlets every 3-4' around the walls - even if you cover some with cabinets they will be there when you decide to change the layout
Outlets should be higher than workbench height from the floor
LED lights and twice as many as you think you need
Lights should be zone switched - Each bay separate and maybe even split front and rear of each bay
Work benches securely fastened to wall, but storage cabinets and large items(tool box, welder, etc) should be on wheels and easy to move

Think about the garage door on the bay that will have a lift eventually. The Liftmaster wall mount opener is great. Make sure you don't end up with the horizontal door 9 feet high when the door is open or you will have to mess with lowering the car on the lift when opening the door. Unless the lift will be far enough away from the door that none of this matters (not sure that's possible with 28' of depth).

Commercial drum roll door on the high bay. That way, you don't loose any headroom to the door/ track.

I agree about the dedicated panel, but some of you guys are crazy on your circuitry. It doesn't matter how many tools you plug in. What matters is the load you draw.

I easily have 10X the number of tools most of you have (30+ years in construction, crews, etc). Lift, welder, plasma cuter, lathes, planers, molders, sanders, etc., etc. I often have 6 or 8 people working in my shop at once.

I have panel box in the shop with 225A of breakers in it. The box has a max capacity of 125A, but it is fed off a sub-panel at the pool, which is fed from a 60A breaker at the house 300' away. Both the pool and the shop run off that 60A.

In 15 years I have never tripped a breaker.

It is very rare in a shop that multiple machines are drawing their full load at the same time. Almost never. MAYBE if you hit the start button on 2 machines at the exact same moment.

By the way, lifts draw nearly nothing. Mine runs on 110V- about 15A. The new lifts I just installed at a dealership run on 12V trickle chargers. We ran them off a 14 ga drop cord for months (commercial application with 17 lifts, running continuously)

moving to a new garage myself. seems like the garage journal guys like the epoxy coat brand as far as epoxy coatings go. I saw some photos of a black coating and I am sold, looks really sharp. http://www.epoxy-coat.com/

+1 on plumbing. You may may have to hide it, not code on some places. Use scissor trusses in your lift bay, the door can go up and down without interference. Use storage trusses in the other area 16" on center.

Sink, fridge, 4x the lights you think you need, white walls and ceiling, and outlets every 3 feet. Plumb for air before sheet rock.

Then work in it for 6 months. Change placements as necessary. After 10 years in mine (17 ft deep by 33 wide) I have finally found places and methods in like for two areas. There's still more to sort out.

As mentioned a 100 amp panel is going to be way overkill for most people. Same with the lights - do some figuring on how many are needed, no need to put in twice as many as required.

Worked in a commercial garage with gray epoxy floors. I want that in my own garage. Whatever kind of crappy consumer grade floor coating we have now sticks to hot tires and comes off in sheets. Some kind of barrier is warranted, for sure. Concrete will soak up oily fluids and you really don't want greasy floors.

Commercial epoxy is by far the best, but it is not affordable for most residences.

Where I live, it runs about $3.50 per square foot. That would be about $3100 for a floor that size. (And I live in one of the lowest cost areas of the country).

I've been working at finishing my one car attached garage.

Just for reference I hung a 100 amp main panel, 20 spaces for "40 circuits". All circuits are 20 amps and GFCI protected. I have six duplex receptacles that will feed 8 lights.

A dedicated circuit for a compressor, dedicated circuit for a small welder, and a dedicated circuit for an air conditioner. Two walls have 8 general purpose duplex receptacles. I will be able to add more on the third wall in surface mounted conduit, including 240 volt stuff if needed.

I also added three access points for the to-be dry walled ceiling so I can get in to it if I have to add anything new.

And a data run for a projector eventually (I think).

Adding more than you need up front will cost you far less than adding it down the road.

And I'm jealous too!

Uh, all this electricity is great, but how do you feel about a floor drain for cleanup?

My grandpa had a garage with tile floors and walls so he could wash cars inside in winter.

What jobs do you do most or tools do you use most? Do you have a reason to expect that to change significantly?

Woodworker might want a central shop vac. You might want air tools and a compressor cabinet. Shower curtain rails for impromptu paint booth. Are DD cars going in the garage too? Storage of toys/lawn/stuff? Want to make a hangout spot too for buddies?

Think of how you will use the space and plan accordingly.

Floor drains are nice, but not environmentally appropriate.

Oil going down the sewage line is a no-no. Yeah, you can probably get away with it in a residence, but it's a little like dumping dirty oil in the street storm drain.

I just built a modern 20 bay commercial auto shop for a Ford Dealership- no floordrains.