REAL MAN TRUCKWORKS & SURVIVAL
TOOLS, CONSTRUCTION, ALTERNATIVE ENERGY => What are you building? => Topic started by: Wilbur on November 02, 2017, 06:25:27 PM
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My wife and I will be building a garage with an apartment over it for my FIL to move into. I have sketched some ideas but I want an architect to do the plans. But I'm thinking I can save some time and (hopefully) $ by using a basic software system as a starting place.
With all the building I've seen done here I'm wondering if anyone can point me to a decent software package for this?
Thanks.
Ps been a rough few weeks here for all of us. Sorry I haven't been around much. Hope everyone's doing well!
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Wilbur, forgive me however it’s a carriage house I’m assuming? Have you looked at online plans? If it is just a basic structure (single roof peak line) normal garage type structure why do you need an architect? I’ve done a few & Charles is building something similiar & he didn’t use one that I’m aware of either. I use acad lt but it’s not cheap really. If I can help let me know.
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Sketchup is an application many in the maker/craftsman community use. Might give it a try
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Yes it should be pretty simple. I do want to keep the 9/12 pitch that my house has. But I am not doing a full second story then the roof on top of that. I want a single story 3 car garage then the roof on top that will have dormers on the frobt, a partial shed dormer on the back, a slider and small deck. Due to the slope of the roof I know I have to give up some floor space. I partly want to play with where I put the stairs coming up from the garage, where I put the walls, what the headroom will be etc.
I have looked at some of the online ones (and am still looking at them), just not finding exactly what I want.
Maybe I won't need an architect though, not sure. I just want to be sure we get what we want. I have tried sketch up before but could never get very good with it so was looking for something dedicated to building.
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I know this may sound crazy but you could go old school pencil and paper with a scale ruler.....
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Since you are doing plans and live you have to get it approved/permitted (quiet) I would just look at plans online or in a catalog.
Out here just the engineer for my my garage was $1500 ten years ago.
I also have a buddy who is doing my plans on ACad who loves doing garages all day long. Maybe scetch it out and I could see what he would charge for stamped plans or he may know where to look for RTG plans also.
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I know this may sound crazy but you could go old school pencil and paper with a scale ruler.....
^ this is what I did.
And then when it came time to build I did window size and placement on the fly as I eyeballed the scale of the building and built the walls.
I had to add a dormer above the stairs to get the stairway headroom to code. Which is typically 6’8”. At 9/12 that means roughly 9 feet away from the eave for the stair opening
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I had a local person who does plans on the side do mine. She charged $500. Not sure what you would be required to have though. I was just doing a remodel and didn't expand the foot print of the old structure. I only needed to get a building permit from the township. They don't really have any requirements. I didn't need to get anything inspected.
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Even crazier, we used to just poor the footer & pad to size we wanted then wing the rest. Things like stairwells etc we decided on the fly similiar to what Tex did. If in doubt add more sq footage.....
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Because stuff expands to fit all available space -George Carlin
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Because stuff expands to fit all available space -George Carlin
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& if you ever need to downsize and move cross country have several auctions for all the non essential stuff, talking from experience here as I had two of em...... :facepalm:
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Since you are doing plans and live you have to get it approved/permitted (quiet) I would just look at plans online or in a catalog.
Out here just the engineer for my my garage was $1500 ten years ago.
I also have a buddy who is doing my plans on ACad who loves doing garages all day long. Maybe scetch it out and I could see what he would charge for stamped plans or he may know where to look for RTG plans also.
Doesn't sound crazy at all. I've already done that to some degree in Excel (i use excel all day every day so thats my "yellow pad") re-sizing the cells to square and laying it out. Thats gotten me this far but want something better for the "next steps".
It's at 34x26 now, 3 car bays under, upstairs will have bathroom & laundry, kitchenette (stove top but no oven), dining area open to living area. Bedroom. Small deck.
What I'm calc'ing now is the knee wall transition to the roof line. I want to make sure it doesnt look weird inside with the sloped walls.
I also would like the software as I want it for another place I'm hoping to get started on in a year or two. And that will be a full house etc.
For all this I figure the more I can fine tune it now the greater the likelihood I get what I want and also keep costs down (ha! As if that's possible! But I think you know what I mean.)
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I know Tex didn’t do this & he is probably aware. However, for equity/mortgage/resale purposes normally for to get the maximum sq footage to count your knee walls need to be 4’ high. Maybe you already knew this as well & maybe it doesn’t matter but just thought I would state it out loud here.
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My knee walls are 4' tall. With a 12/12 pitch I really don't feel I loose to much sq footage. There are certain things I can't put up against the wall but it doesn't seem to inhibit movement around the room at all.
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Shawn is in the knee wall or the minimum height of the interior wall? Code says minimum interior wall height is 5ft and 50% of the room wall height has to be 7ft or greater. (IIRC). My "knee wall" is 32 inches but I will have walls for the room that make the room narrower but brings the height of the walls to the code 5ft minimum
The other thing to consider is this. Not sure if you are adding a knee wall above the first story platform, but if you have a separate knee wall you will need to make sure you have rafter collar ties, or a structural ridge beam (meaning it's load bearing and self supporting) so that the outward pressure on the knee wall doesnt bow it out.
That's one of the main reasons I ballooned framed so the floor joists actually act as a collar tie of sorts to keep the outside walls from pushing out.
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Tex, maybe it was 5’ :tongue: lol, was going off memory there......
Either way I call that midget height which my wife falls into that category so..... :popcorn: