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How wide are our trucks with the doors open?

Depending on the property, if you end up with a riding mower (ATV's, bikes?), that takes up a bunch of space all by itself. I don't have an exterior shed, so all mine has to find a place inside.

Personally I dislike having a bunch of different buildings. The storage is nice, but just another structure to generate maintenance work for you. Two is plenty.

And if building a dream shop, I'd at least partially wall in each bay, so that it would be easier to do things like convert one to a temporary paint booth, isolate the others so you didn't have to heat (or cool) such a large space, etc. I also use wall space to hang a ton of things, so the more wall space, the more that can be hung up. :)

My "shop" has three doors, two are 8ft, one is 10 ft. The building should have been made large enough for three 10ft doors. When dealing with full size vehicles, even the 10 ft opening is just adequate, the 8 ft not so much.

It is always nice to have an empty bay. When it comes time to change the oil, being able to just open the door and pull the vehicle in is nicer than having to shuffle vehicles to get floor space.

If you like tools and making stuff, trust me, sooner or later good deals on equipment you may use and may or may not really need, are going to crop up and will bite into your space.
 
y5mgisi said:
The more I think about it and read what you guys have said, I think I need something like 24x36 minimum to work on two trucks. And I would still probably need a shed.
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My shop is 18x36. As I said, a little wider would be better but it works fine with the truck doors shut. Mine only has 28' of space for vehicles because of a support post for a loft. Even if I had the full 36' I think it would be tight for 2 trucks, maybe tape off an area and park some trucks in it for feel.

Like Dorian said, ceiling and door height are crucial. My house garage has a 7' door which is a joke. My shop has a 12' door which I think is perfect because its high enough to fit my K5 (on 43's) on my trailer, a 10' door would be close.
 
That's all true. What it's going to come down to is money. It will depend on how expensive the property is, and how much all the hook ups cost (well, septic, power, etc). That kind of stuff can turn plans of a huge shop into having only enough left over for a glorified shed... My goal is to be able to spend 35k on a shop. But hook ups costing 50k instead of 25k can put that right down the drain. That's why, I'm trying to see if a worst case scenario of the layout above would at least make me not want to kill myself if I can't end up spending 35k on a shop.
 
nvrenuf said:
My shop is 18x36. As I said, a little wider would be better but it works fine with the truck doors shut. Mine only has 28' of space for vehicles because of a support post for a loft. Even if I had the full 36' I think it would be tight for 2 trucks, maybe tape off an area and park some trucks in it for feel.

Like Dorian said, ceiling and door height are crucial. My house garage has a 7' door which is a joke. My shop has a 12' door which I think is perfect because its high enough to fit my K5 (on 43's) on my trailer, a 10' door would be close.
Click to expand...

I actually did plan on organizing my trucks and the wife's car on our lawn in a way that would mimic the layout above and see what it looked like as far as room between and to the walls and such. The door thing I totally get too. My current door is only 6 or 7 ft. Which means my stock hight trucks rub the rubber gasket on the bottom of the door when I pull them in and out. That ain't gonna fly when I lift them!
 
Good point...also, if you are thinking of an RV (or a very lifted truck) high doors are critical as well...my ceilings are 11' IIRC, but the door opening (because of the way the building is built), isn't enough to get an RV in.

I would assume, having at least one RV height door, would be a selling point for a lot of people.
 
If I didn't have the shelving or work bench right next to the truck there'd be lots of room. I have a thread with shop pics somewhere in the tool shed forum (can't find it quickly on my phone).
 
dyeager535 said:
I would assume, having at least one RV height door, would be a selling point for a lot of people.
Click to expand...

This was a main reason for my shop size (18x36x14 w/ 12' door) and orientation.
 
See, its a catch 22 for me. I dont want it to look over the top and gaudy, but an RV stall is becoming more popular. Tough choices! Fortunately i have a good bit of time to think about it! :doah:
 
One other option, to accomodate an RV is to make an attached RV storage area on one end of the shop. Unfortunately, that either requires a portion of roofline that doesn't match, or simply making the entire shop the same height. But that is a lot of extra space to heat/cool, and would be essentially worthless for use.

On the plus side, if you did a covered pad, you could potentially scale down the size of your shop (again factoring in aesthetics) if you had no intention of using it for an RV, and use it simply as a parking spot for one of your other vehicles.

But honestly, even though I didn't build my shop, balancing aesthetics and usefulness, the 28x36 is about right for me. Would have maybe considered a few different ways to get to that size, but generally in terms of footprint, it's big enough. Any cramps that I feel due to amount of stuff in the space, is my fault.
 
I thought about doing an "awning" off the side. Basically just an open bay for rv parking. Not that i would have an RV but it just seemed like a good idea. I would probably mostly use if for a place to pressure wash stuff. Kinda like the idea here,

images



Or like the building on the right in this pic,

custom-metal-home-with-garage-and-awning.jpg
 
I've always dreamt of a 2 story type setup. Where there's a 30x60 14ft tall bottom floor garage then the house is built above that. Problem is sealing off any fumes in the garage from getting into the house.
 
 
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