Garage Build Question

[Steven]

Hoping to benefit from the many of you who have endeavored to build your own garage in the past, which I am in the process of designing with an architect now. It will be on the smaller side and relatively humble (because Los Angeles), but I've come across an idea I hadn't considered: a skylight.

My architect incorporated the sky light into the design, and I have to say it looks fantastic. Curious if anyone has any experience or opinions on this for better or for worse-- ie UV exposure to my vehicles (I assume it would be a glazed multi-plane glass in this day and age), temperature regulation, light quality for detailing if I even have room indoors, etc. Or I am overthinking it and just go with what looks great?!

Thanks in advance for any insights!

 

[rsporsche]

first - really glad to hear that you hired an architect - there are several of us on the forum who are architects ... well done.

many different materials to use for a skylight. glass is one of them, acrylic is another. i would use materials with a u/v blocker. the bigger it is the more likely it will be glass, but there are acrylic sandwich panels. not sure what the design looks like / roof construction + shape (flat, gabled, pyramid or one way slope) ... but one thing i have seen that is cool and tends to leak less is creating a 'dog' house / pop-up with glazing on the vertical surfaces rather than on the top. hopefully you are planning ahead and building volume so you can put a lift in to work on the car / park underneath.

 

[Steven]

Thanks so much @rsporsche-- already super helpful. I'm attaching a very early rendering here, and I believe we're looking at the "dog house" pop up you're referencing. I've also requested it be build to accommodate stackers since I am limited to the size that can be built.

It is attached to an ADU, which will be in the back of the property. I will obviously get into materials with the architect, but he is not a "car guy", wanted to make sure I could defer to my community here. I know you guys are all thinking of the same things as me, which may be different than his non-automotive professional MO.

Thanks again!

 

[mulberryworks]

I'm also currently working on adding a garage to my house on the East coast. Here in Jacksonville we've got hurricanes to worry about as well as HOA restrictions. I'm in a single story house and don't think I can get away with something tall enough to store cars on a lift. I have a low rise lift that I will be using, a MaxJax, and plan to have upper shelves for storage. I flirted with the idea of a higher section of the roof with clearstory windows to let in light, but wind regulations and insurance rates make staying with a hipped roof an easier option. That said, I do have a skylight in my living room that does add considerably to the light and enjoyment of the room.
My garage in Austin had an aluminum and glass garage door and it was exceptionally nice to have a bright garage to walk into. But, and this is a big but, the door faced West and in the summer the greenhouse effect would make the temperature in the garage some 20 degrees higher than outside, and when we had a month and a half of temps above a 100 this was not trivial. I ended up erecting a large carport to shade the drive and the garage door to battle the influx of photons. This was a major improvement.
Yes, modern Low E glass will make a big difference in heat gain, but it still won't be close to what an insulated roof will be. You'll have to decide if a bit of sunshine is worth that cost of temperature regulation and possible future maintenance. Skylights or the roof around them have a history of leaking and you have to clean them for time to time. In Jacksonville we have massive pollen in the spring, in LA you'll have dust.

Good luck.

 

[eriknetherlands]

Steven, if you have 4 cars to store, then it looks to be stuffed full. Where do you have the place to tinker with them?

It depends a bit on what tinkering you want to do as well: replace the complete front end of the car, or just install a mega stereo set; different space requirements.

To comfortably work in a garage it is really convenient if you can at least open one car door on one side and walk in around it. I can't in my garage, and it is really annoying.

Besides the space for the car itself, i'm having about having 20 m2 (~200 sqft I think) filled with 2 tables, and a vice; it makes for a nice working area.
Oh, and i moved all other non car equipement out my garage; no bikes, no garden stuff.

 

[Ohmess]

Well, there are several elements of that design that strike me, and not in a good way. First, the lift mechanisms appear to take up a lot of space toward the rear of the garage. If I am looking at this correctly, a pair of four post lifts would take up less floor space.

You do not appear to have enough room for even a small workbench. Even if you do only rudementary mechanical work, a bench is essential.

There appears to be no storage. Again, even if you only clean and maintain the appearance of your vehicles, you need space for a vacuum and buffer and cleaners and waxes and whatnot. And rarely do we have the garage entirely to our cars. You have no room for bicycles or yard tools or gardening stuff or whatever.

Then there is the issue of width. The narrow footprint doesn't seem to allow for a door to open into the garage, or if it did, it would be very close to the parked cars. And, if you wanted to wax a car in that space, there does not appear to be enough room between the vehicles to do so. This is not only an issue for your use of the garage, but resale will be better if the garage width is big enough to allow two of today's SUVs to be parked in the garage. I made sure I could park a pair of Ford F150s, and get in and out of them, in the garage I build in Virginia for just this reason. For this same reason, I would not put a post in the middle of a two car opening in the garage entry.

This seems to have been designed as a cube, putting much of the enclosed space up in the air. As to the original question, I would think rows of windows near the upper portion of each external wall would allow in more light than a skylight.

Overall, I think more length and width, at the expense of height, would provide a much more usable space.

 

[Steven]

Thanks so much for the replies and insight, all! I definitely will not be replacing a front end or doing anything too crazy, but certainly interested in being able to have a workbench, store detailing items and parts, etc. This rendering is by no means to my specs in terms of lifts, etc-- I planned on going 4 post Bendpack most likely, and I am also considering only doing 1 lift in the garage. No doubt I will be fighting for space regardless, as our total buildable square footage will be a limitation...

 

[dang]

My guess is most architects have a good sense of space since that's hard for most people to visualize. Since he's not a "car guy" he may not understand the space required in a man cave. Not having enough space when working on cars is extremely annoying most of the time. This is assuming you'll be working on cars or other projects in the garage.

 

[alprada70]

looks like just parking ...