Over Garage Door Storage Platform

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

Welcome to the site. With caissons holding up the exterior I wonder about the support you would have for a post in the middle. Which would have been my first suggestion.

The smallest beam I have seen installed for a 20 ft span that carries weight is 5 1/2 x 14" micro lam or 3 14" LVLs You might find an equivalent steel beam a little cheaper.

I have installed 2' deep shelving around my garage. I built a 2x4 frame and topped it with 7/16" OSB. I have it lagged into the wall studs and made a laminated end panel with 2x2 and 2x4's sandwiched in between OSB. The 2x2 is lagged into the studs and then I screwed the OSB and built it out with 2x4's. It is very strong. On the longer runs I put in a mid-point brace made up of angle iron used for hanging garage door tracks and lagged that into the studs.

I wouldn't try to build something more than 2 or 3 feet deep. I find the 2' depth is great and enables you to fully utilize the 4x8 sheet goods without any waste. Any deeper and it becomes too deep to allow easy access to what's up there. My framing is certainly strong enough to store what I'm putting up there and I can hang off it without any deflection to the shelves. I'll take a few photos and post them up later.

Here are the photos. Sorry for the sideways photos, they were correct in my PC, not sure how to turn them now that they are posted.

My shelves are a work in progress. My eventual plan is to cover the exposed 2x4s with 1x's and painting them out and the OSB sides and bottoms with beadboard paneling. Drywall was too much work.

I lagged them into the walls and screwed everything together with wood screws. The OSB is screwed down with drywall screws but anything that needed shear strength was wood screwed together since drywall screws don't have a lot of shear strength.

Is the area you intend to employ as storage, just the section above the overhead door rails, or larger?

Snoonyb: pretty much yeah, plus a foot or so on all sides.. so sort of a loft over the roll up door from side to side of the garage, extending maybe 8-9 feet into the space from the door opening.

Sparky617: Looking good, that is my Plan B.

nealtw: Thanks for the input.

Thanks.

So, of your options, an LVL or structural header would afford you the greatest area of open, easily accessible storage.

Some things to keep in mind are, you are only addressing dead loads, supporting a header with a post would allow you to split the load, reduce the size of the header and were you to place the header behind the door operators allows it to placed so that the platform floor could be hung from the header with HUTF's.

The bonus is that the post defines, although movable, where the skateboard ramp is placed, or as an accelerator for roller derby practice.