DavidInDenver
New Member
- Joined
- Jun 9, 2017
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Hi folks,
I have a two car garage attached to my house that I am planning to take over as a hobby wood shop. It is roughly 20'x20' and there is a very tempting 4 foot plus of empty space above the garage door tracks that I am itching to take advantage of. I envision a full garage width platform that I can store many bins of the miscellaneous crap that we all manage to accumulate, but never use. I also would love to be able to store a good bit of lumber up there. When I start thinking about how much weight I'm talking about... I start to sweat a bit.
I know better than trying to hang anything, much less something that heavy, from the bottom of the roof trusses that are all that are holding up the 1/2" drywall that makes up the ceiling of the garage. In fact, I would much rather not hang any of this from the ceiling at all. IMHO the trusses were designed to do a job and I don't want to add to it more than the solar panels I have up there are already doing.
This obviously leaves me with support from below. I picture a solid beam of some sort, supported on Jack studs in the 2'x6' walls. But what makes sense for the material is where I'm at a bit of a loss. My first thought is perhaps doing a staggered "sistering" of two or three 2x12s, as I imagine that might be strong enough... but that is really the reason I'm asking you guys... what would you do? I-Beam, Laminate? Whats the more cost effective option typically? Do I really need a structural engineer for this? I don't picture needing to submit plans anywhere, so I'd rather avoid that cost if possible.
More info about the current structure: The walls of the garage sit on two feet or so of the exposed foundation, the whole foundation in turn is supported by 30 or so ~20' deep 12" dia. caissons that I'm told tie into bedrock... there was concern about the mildly sandy nature of the dirt on our lot... but we've had no settling issues in the 6 years since the home was built. The middle of the garage floor is a 6"-8" thick poured slab.
If I have to do some sort of a center support, I next have to address if that floor can support it directly, or if would need to do something there to spread the load.
Thanks in advance for the opinions.
-David
I have a two car garage attached to my house that I am planning to take over as a hobby wood shop. It is roughly 20'x20' and there is a very tempting 4 foot plus of empty space above the garage door tracks that I am itching to take advantage of. I envision a full garage width platform that I can store many bins of the miscellaneous crap that we all manage to accumulate, but never use. I also would love to be able to store a good bit of lumber up there. When I start thinking about how much weight I'm talking about... I start to sweat a bit.
I know better than trying to hang anything, much less something that heavy, from the bottom of the roof trusses that are all that are holding up the 1/2" drywall that makes up the ceiling of the garage. In fact, I would much rather not hang any of this from the ceiling at all. IMHO the trusses were designed to do a job and I don't want to add to it more than the solar panels I have up there are already doing.
This obviously leaves me with support from below. I picture a solid beam of some sort, supported on Jack studs in the 2'x6' walls. But what makes sense for the material is where I'm at a bit of a loss. My first thought is perhaps doing a staggered "sistering" of two or three 2x12s, as I imagine that might be strong enough... but that is really the reason I'm asking you guys... what would you do? I-Beam, Laminate? Whats the more cost effective option typically? Do I really need a structural engineer for this? I don't picture needing to submit plans anywhere, so I'd rather avoid that cost if possible.
More info about the current structure: The walls of the garage sit on two feet or so of the exposed foundation, the whole foundation in turn is supported by 30 or so ~20' deep 12" dia. caissons that I'm told tie into bedrock... there was concern about the mildly sandy nature of the dirt on our lot... but we've had no settling issues in the 6 years since the home was built. The middle of the garage floor is a 6"-8" thick poured slab.
If I have to do some sort of a center support, I next have to address if that floor can support it directly, or if would need to do something there to spread the load.
Thanks in advance for the opinions.
-David