New Garage: advise on door size

no lift. just enough slab to have flat smooth surface to work on. never had a lift for 14 years and figure why need one now..mostly work on just jeeps so they don't require much of a lift for most jobs.
 
What about a perimeter footer?
 
The building inspector has to inspect the slab and footings before you can pour concrete. Otherwise, they may not issue a permit to build on the "existing" slab.

Do it right. Dont try to cut corners. The county can really make your life hell if you dont play by their rules.
 
Ron said:
What about a perimeter footer?
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Going to have to have a minimum 12" deep continuous footer. And, as others have said, the building inspector has to inspect the footing hole before it's filled with concrete.
 
Code only requires 6 inches of concrete in the footing that has to be below the frost line which is 13 inches in our area. Poor it 8 an be gone. No need for 12 in the footings.
 
Crawler Nut said:
Code only requires 6 inches of concrete in the footing that has to be below the frost line which is 13 inches in our area. Poor it 8 an be gone. No need for 12 in the footings.
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You have no idea what you're talking about. Bottom of footing has to be below the frost line to prevent heaving, per code. Frost line in Watauga county is 10 in below grade.
 
shawn said:
You have no idea what you're talking about. Bottom of footing has to be below the frost line to prevent heaving, per code. Frost line in Watauga county is 10 in below grade.
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I build houses for a living. Who the hell are you? A was simply stating that the code only required 6 inches of concrete for a building like the person in this thread is talking about. If you build a house only to code it isn't worth having. In my area which is in Hendersonville nc the frost line is 13 inches. Instead of only pouring 6 inches as per code poor 8 an be done with it. On the houses we usually build, the footings we usually require 5ft wide an poor 2 ft deep. You got anything else to say? If you want to see some of the multi million dollar houses we build I will gladly get up with you an show you some of them. Do you have any building experience or you one to set around reading a code book an dont even know which end of a hammer to use to drive a nail.
 
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Uhh shawn (and his wife) are the ones who design those million dollar homes and multi multi million dollar commercial structures. He's got papers on his wall and letters after his name to say he knows what he is talking about.

But I am a bit confused...

You said

Crawler Nut said:
Code only requires 6 inches of concrete in the footing that has to be below the frost line
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Then you say:

Crawler Nut said:
which is 13 inches in our area. Poor it 8 an be gone. No need for 12 in the footings.
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If it has to be below the frost line, which is 13" deep...how can you poor (sic) 8" and be good?

8<13...I think but what do I know...serious question I am an electrical guy I dont know crap about sub structure.
 
Ron said:
Uhh shawn (and his wife) are the ones who design those million dollar homes and multi multi million dollar commercial structures. He's got papers on his wall and letters after his name to say he knows what he is talking about.

But I am a bit confused...

You said



Then you say:




If it has to be below the frost line, which is 13" deep...how can you poor (sic) 8" and be good?

8<13...I think but what do I know...serious question I am an electrical guy I dont know crap about sub structure.
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Good for Shawn. Just because he didn't understand what I was saying dont give him no right to say I have no idea what I'm talking about. Like I said most of these people have no idea which end of a hammer to use. There are alot of people here call there selves contractors that have never even drove a 50lb box of nails. Don't know if this is Shawn's case. An dont really care. But when someone missunderstands what im saying an says crap like that. I do take offence to thar. The bottom of the footing has to be at least 13 inches deep, which is where our frost line is. Then you put 8 inches of concrete back on it.
 
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Crawler Nut said:
The bottom of the footing has to be at least 13 inches deep, which is where our frost line is. Then you put 8 inches of concrete back on it.
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Ok...so the bottom is 13" deep
The footing is 8" thick/tall...you are now 5" below grade...where do you get these 5"?

Maybe I am just dense...but that confuses the heck out of me.
 
Crawler Nut said:
I build houses for a living. Who the hell are you? A was simply stating that the code only required 6 inches of concrete for a building like the person in this thread is talking about. If you build a house only to code it isn't worth having. In my area which is in Hendersonville nc the frost line is 13 inches. Instead of only pouring 6 inches as per code poor 8 an be done with it. On the houses we usually build, the footings we usually require 5ft wide an poor 2 ft deep. You got anything else to say? If you want to see some of the multi million dollar houses we build I will gladly get up with you an show you some of them. Do you have any building experience or you one to set around reading a code book an dont even know which end of a hammer to use to drive a nail.
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That's adorable.

Frost line is 12", not 13. They tell you to dig to 13 so that you don't have to do it twice.

He's not pouring a spread footing, it's a turned-down slab, and it still needs to be at least 12" deep, not 6, or 8, or whatever you think of to say in your next post.
 
Also, my wife says that your spread footings should be at least 10" thick, not 8, otherwise you don't get enough cover on the rebar.

You are putting #4s in your footings, aren't you?
 
Are you talking about a monalithic slab. Never herd it called a turn down slab. Maybe you could explain. I was talking about a conventional footing. I was saying for him to poor at least 8 not 6. An not have to explain to him that the frost line is 12 so dig 13. Make it easy an tell them to dig 13 to begin with.
 
shawn said:
Also, my wife says that your spread footings should be at least 10" thick, not 8, otherwise you don't get enough cover on the rebar.

You are putting #4s in your footings, aren't you?
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You talking about my spread footings. Like I said we are used to digging a 5ft wide an poor 2 ft deep catalever footing with #4 in a 8-12 inch grid with uprights turned up every 8-12 inches for poured walls.
 
"Monolithic" just means that it's in a single pour. Any continuous chunk of concrete is, by definition, monolithic.

Turn-down refers to having a thickened edge that serves as a footing for the exterior walls (load bearing or not). It is usually poured monolithically, but not always.

It sounded like 88Jeepster was talking about pouring a slab that was a continuous 4" thick, with no turn-down, no footing, no stem wall, no nothing. This does not meet building code, even for outbuildings. Pouring a turn-down is cheap and easy, but the building inspector still needs to see the hole to verify that it is sufficiently deep, wide, clean, dry, etc, etc, before you fill it with concrete.
 
I think he should go to home depot and buy a bunch of bags of Quikrete and empty the bags where he's going to build the building and spread it out. Next step is to set up a garden sprinkler in the middle of the area and wet it down good for maybe 15 minutes. When it gets wet enough it will smooth itself out very nicely. This works just fine for what he's going to use it for.

Also forget about all building permits. All they are good for is to make your taxes go up.
 
I just done a 24x28 metal building and did a monalithic slab it goes from 4 inches to 2 ft side to side, this is second one I've done this way and haven't had any cracking or other issues, on the 2ft side I came in 16 inches in from the outer form and built another form 20 inches tall and back filled in sand to save on concrete. You can kinda tell in the pic best way if your spot isn't level
image.jpg
 
well dang, i'm about confused as I've ever been. so i'll explain. the ground was at a 6degree slope, maybe more. so I dug perimeter 20x32 and then dug out the whole thing (by hand too that sucked for 6days). I ended up for about 65% taking out about 10" and the rest only had to take out about 6" or so to make it flat and even as possible. then I formed it with plywood all the way around perimeter and poured right at 4" of gravel and that's where i'm at now. with gravel in, i'm right at ground level on front end maybe 1.5"less and about 14" below ground level on back side and roughly 10" below ground level on the sides. SO, now that I've explained what I done, anyone care to fill me in on how good or bad I did. not really going to change anything cause it's kinda too late but would still like to hear if what I've done is going to work just for a 20x30 carport or garage, whichever is cheaper which both seem to cost about the same to put up. thanks
 
ok try to get some today, concrete is holding off until I get all this figured out so ill get some pics soon. thanks
 
Local Contractor from my Church is coming out today to give me all the input on what I've got and what will work. thanks for all the input guy, but this started to go in a direction I didn't want...several "contractors" here started already disputing over issues of code and terms in these 2 pages and whose right and wrong and that's the last thing I need is more confusion. this isn't some fancy house or big tall heavy garage build..just a cheap "roof over my head" kinda deal, light as possible with least amount of complicatedness as possible. thanks guys. have a great week!!
 
Just a heads up...make sure you pour the concrete to code. The building could be up for a year, full of your stuff then the inspector realizes it they can condemn the buuilding (and all your stuff inside) or make you tear it down.

Do it right, do it once.
 
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