Thread: Ben's Garage
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Old 11-11-16, 08:36 AM   #12
bennelson
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Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: SE Wisconsin
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Quote:
Originally Posted by dh1 View Post
You might want to rethink the shape of your garage, especially the south wall.
Something like this might work better for you. House heating Solar Shed -- homemade collectors
There are a number of limitations imposed on me by the size and shape of my property, as well as by the county in which I live.

The garage doors need to be on the south side, as that's where the driveway is. The corner of the garage was already on the property line, and I needed special permission (and permits, and stupid meetings, and $$$$) just to be able to rebuild the garage where it was. I was also limited by the county board on how tall I could build the garage.

So, yes, I certainly have considered different shapes. I also considered a gambrel roof and some other options, all of which had negatives as well.

Moving the man door to around the corner would have been a possibility, but I do like the look of where it is. Also, the main electric breaker panel will go right in that south-west corner. My parent's garage has the layout of a man door around the left corner, and it's NOT a great design, it ends up making the corner less usable. I don't think that door on their property has been opened in 20 years. Also, my property is on a bit of a slope. If the door was on the west side, it would be a BIG step down out of that door. At a bare minimum it would need a concrete stoop, and I'm already building to the west as far as the county will let me.

The big upsides of what I am able to do are:

1) Rotating the roof 90 degrees. The old roof faced east-west. The new one will face north-south. The south-face really does face nearly due south - perfect for solar.

2) The garage will have an upstairs. We will be using "storage trusses" which leave a space down the middle. It will be a little over 6'6" tall (which is good because I'm 6') and about 4' wide on the flat of the ceiling, with lower storage space on either side of that.

3) It's bigger. The new garage is 5 feet wider and 7 feet deeper than the old one. This gives me storage space, so that I can for example store my riding lawn mower indoors, instead of in my yard, and have space for workbenches and tools.

4) Heat and insulation
The old garage was completely uninsulated. I could literally see daylight through the siding. Simply insulating that structure wouldn't have made sense. It was falling down. I experimented with heating. What worked best was using some old TV Studio lights - 1,000 watts each, as radiant heaters. As long as they were pointed right at me, they worked pretty well. They really didn't heat the garage, but as long as they were pointed at me, I stayed somewhat warm. Still not ideal, especially depending on the outdoor winter temperatures.

Lastly, as far as solar-thermal goes, because the garage doors DO face south, I'm planning on building some glazing for one of the two doors, so that on a sunny winter day, I can open the garage door and use it as a giant picture window, letting the light in.
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