[vanwyk4257]

Well, I received the blessing from my wife last weekend to go ahead and build a garage out back (it might have helped that I have two F-bodies in the garage at the moment and she's parking outside (IMG:http://www.frrax.com/rrforum/style_emoticons/default/ph34r.gif) ) so I am trying to work out the details on design, size, layout et al.

I am thinking of doing a 24x30 with 12'foot walls to allow me enough height to install a 2 or 4-post lift down the road.

My thought is to put a 16x8 overhead door off to one side of the 30ft. wall which will face the house and then have a 3ft. steel service/entry door as well.

I want to have room to park two cars inside and still have a decent workshop space for working on engines, etc.

I do plan to insulate the entire building and will be running natural gas and electricity (110V only most likely) to it. Heat will be from a 90%+ efficiency furnace, i.e., forced air (my dad's in the business so I can get one cheap).
I also plan to finish the interior walls and ceiling with OSB as opposed to drywall just because it will be easier to live with, i.e., I can bang into it with tools, parts etc. without doing any real damage, and if I do manage to punch a hole in a sheet it will be easier to replace. Finally, I am anticipating putting a loft area in the trusses for storage with a pull-down ladder.

I am looking or any input with regard to the size (I know you can never build too large) based on the aforementioned parameters, will it be large enough?

Also, I would welcome any advice or input with regard to layout etc.

Thanks in advance for the input guys!

[00 SS]

The formula is simple:

BTUH = U x A x delta T

U= 1/R of the wall. Use the area weighted average for the walls, windows, floor and roof. Windows are typically about U=0.6 for double pane clear non low e glass. Concrete is about R=0.5 per inch thickness. Just use the R value of the insulation for the walls and roof, the rest of the wall construction does add a bit to the overall value, but it's small.

A = surface area

Delta T = inside temperature - outside temperature

This will give the minimum required to maintain temperature. It's usually a good idea to double this number to size the heater to account for leakage and provide a decent recovery rate. The process above hints at recovery rate and what to do, but really doesn't explain it well.

Infiltration (cold air leaking in from outside) is very difficult to calculate and will vary greatly depending wind speed and direction.

This post has been edited by 00 SS: Mar 26 2008, 04:17 PM