Buyers Beware – Is That Garage Going To Work?

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In the last couple decades or so, houses have been getting much bigger – everyone wants a large house with a bonus
room upstairs, a large ensuite and a study or flex room off the foyer. But there is a functional space that has been
overlooked for some time now  – attached garage space.

If you look at any new neighbourhood, you’ll find that they are dominated by front-drive garages. You don’t see
houses – you see garages, so why aren’t they more important to home buyers? Well I think they are, but I think
the problem is that no one is measuring them before they buy. So home builders keep saving money by building
small ones, and once people find out they can’t park indoors, it’s too late – they just got a house that has a pretty
annoying flaw – the garage is just too small.

If you can’t fit two reasonably sized cars in a garage – or a car and an SUV – is it really a two-car garage? I don’t
think so.  And remember, new areas do not typically have much frontage, so you can’t just park on the street most
times. You’re going to have to park in the garage or on the driveway – which means you might be in the way of the
person who actually gets to park inside. I think it would be a tragedy to pay a half a million dollars for a house and
not be able to park your cars in the garage. We live in Edmonton, and it gets cold – and your car will be covered in
snow and ice most winter mornings. You really should be able to park in your own garage.

An attached garage with a 16′ door in Ambleside, Edmonton.

Many homes will have a garage that is, let’s say 20 feet wide and 20 feet long. So any car that is smaller
than this will fit easily, right? Wrong. Don’t forget that garages are measured from the outside – so that
20 foot wide garage is actually about 19 feet wide when you take into account the wall thickness. This
can already cause a problem for people who have wide vehicles – especially large SUVs and trucks.
And don’t forget, you need to open the doors of your vehicle, too. Can you open the door and still get
out? Sometimes you might have quite a bit of trouble just doing that. The second issue besides width
is of course length. 20 feet will accommodate many vehicle lengths – you’re not going to be able to
open the hatch of your minivan easily with the garage door close, but you should be able to park and
walk around the car – at least on three sides. This might be ok in an empty, unfinished garage, but what
about where there is a staircase leading into the home? Staircases have to be 3 feet wide and have to
have a landing if the door is too high off the floor – so some of these staircases are actually biting into
your parking space by quite a bit. And it’s not like you can just take them off.

Let’s look at an example garage space to see what vehicles might fit:

Example 20 foot by 20 foot garage.

Here we have a 20 foot by 20 foot garage – pretty typical in many newer neighbourhoods. You can see that a
minivan and compact car may fit in this garage – but not with much room to spare. Remember, you need to be
able to drive in and out of that garage door without tearing the side mirrors off your car. And what if you have a
full-sized car or an SUV? Can you store anything on the walls, have any shelving in the garage? Can you fit both
vehicles in,  in, or do you have to flip coins to decide who gets to park inside?

Now imagine that garage is only 18 feet long, or that has only 19 feet in width. Now what can you park in it?
There are lots of them and they are still being built. But not all small garages are new either. I saw a garage the other
day in a 20 year old home in Twin Brooks that had two medium sized cars in it. It was a small garage and one car
was parked right up against the staircase. There was no way to get out of either vehicle and walk up the stairs –
you would have to jump over the hood of one car just to get into your house! Now what is the point of having an
attached garage you have to leave just to get into your house? You would have to open the overhead door, walk out
of the garage, and use your front door! This is so silly! You might not know what is big enough, so be sure to
measure – otherwise you might be stuck with something you can't use.

If you live in Edmonton, you probably want to park indoors for half the year. And if you paid for a garage, you
probably want to use it. Don’t forget to find out if your car fits before you buy. You might be paying for a large
unheated room with a wide door that’s only good for hockey equipment and your recycling. That doesn’t seem
like a very effective use of your hard earned money to me. Make sure it works for you. Measure twice – buy once.

Source:- http://gimme-shelter.com/buy/buyers-beware-is-that-garage-going-to-work-10012/