Framing the Garage and Shop
Work continued this week on framing the garage and shop. This is the back wall of the shop and contains the entrance door from the back porch and the only window in the shop. Access to this section of the garage is kept to a minimum since some rather expensive machines will reside on this side.
Wall sections come in different sizes based on the length of the wall. This is an end section of the wall in the first picture and is only 6 feet long. Small sections like this are easy.
Most wall sections are like this.... 12 feet in length. These are a bit heavier and are a bit harder to maneuver into position. All of these walls have a pressure treated base plate which is bolted to the foundation walls with 2x6 studs 24" on center followed by a single top plate. Later a ladder addition will be added to raise the roof so the fascia of the garage and house porches will meet evenly. This extension was not on the blue prints but after a short discussion with the building inspector and their blessing it was added with little fanfare.
This is the beginning of the center wall that separates the garage "parking" area from the shop "working area".
Here is the wall complete, less the ladder extension.
Here we are starting the ladder extension. This in essence raises the wall about 17" which for the garage section gives a total ceiling height of just under 14 feet. The shop area will have a vaulted ceiling of approximately 24' to accommodate a four post lift.
Here you see the "boss" nailing the top plate on the center wall ladder extension. This wall sits on the concrete garage floor which is slightly pitched to allow water to drain outside the garage. This required each ladder upright to be slightly longer than the next to accommodate the pitch in the floor and still wind up level with the outside walls.
Both garage doors are 18' wide and 8' high. Here is one of the glue-lam beams that make up the garage door headers. Each beam will receive a 2x6 top and bottom plate and in this pic the bottom plate has been installed. These beams are 18'6" in length and weigh an estimated 400-450 lbs.
In order to get these beams 8' in the air they are lifted one side at a time and temporarily supported by step ladders.
Once the beam is supported by the ladders a section of scaffolding is brought in to take over the supporting duties.
The scaffolding has adjustable legs and these are used to raise the beam to within about 6" of its final resting place.
The adjustable legs come in handy for this task. They're really meant to level the scaffolding when it's setup outside on uneven ground but worked well for lifting the beams into position anyway. This would have been a lot easier if we had 4 or 5 guys to help but thanks to a little improvisation by the "boss", she and her two helpers were able to get the job done.
One end in place, and one to go.
A little muscle and the beam is finally in place. Don't expect to do this without feeling a bit sore the following day, especially if you're over 40.
With the garage door headers in place the only thing left was the ladder extension over the doors which tie the wall together.
The garage and shop are now ready for external sheeting. A job for next week. Just to give it some scale the "shop" section is roughly double the size of a standard two car garage and the "parking" section is 25'x25'. One thing to keep in mind when you build a house or have one built.... adding on to the garage is cheap in relation to the overall cost of the living space. There is really no reason NOT to have plenty of garage space. We estimate that the addition we made to this standard two car garage (which now totals approximately 1650 sq. ft.) only cost us approximately $10,000, or less than 5% of the estimated finished cost of the house.
That's it for another week. Next week we will be sheeting the garage and building three gable ends for the garage roof system.
				Check back soon.