A word of advice. It seems most builders use 16' double-wide doors. I have 18' wide doors, and they make it a lot easier to manuever in and out. I was unable to find 20' wide doors unless I went custom.

 

I needed one more post to hit 10 so disregard this...

 

to those that wash inside their garage, what do you do about protecting your walls from getting wet?

 

Nothing needed to protect the walls - just use one of those mutli/adjustable nozzles w/ 5-7 settings - the "Shower" setting is perfect. However, you may also want to turn down the water flow (either at the source or my nozzle has a setting to adjust as well).

I use this Gilmore model available from Lowe's

 

I'm in Chicago and am curious as to how you keep the drains from freezing during winter. Thanks

 

I have a 75,000 BTU heater in the garage and the garage is insulated. The thermastat is set at 40 degrees so freezing water is not a problem.

 

I cant wait to start building my next house-Garage. Sooo many ideas.

 

residential garages are typically designed with a little slope (1%) for water to drain out. you cant just put a drain on an existing flat floor and expect it work. if the surface is not designed to direct water to the drain then the water wont get there.

if you intend to resurface an existing garage, a 1% slope on your garage is most desirable, that's about 2" drop from front to back on a 20-foot deep garage.

If you really want to put a drain, dont hook it up to a sewer and just outlet it to the street, preferably thru a curb with a 4" pipe. goodluck getting a permit though, especially if you tell the city what it's for. carwash runoff will be a no no on a public street.

goodluck

 

Cover your walls with FRP panels. This is a site I just found with google. http://www.frpshop.com/liner-panels-c-3_4.html
Prob plenty of other sources too. Another good thing about these panels is that you will not need to mud the rock under them. Just glue them to the wall.

 

I have concrete 30" as the bottom 30" of the walls in my garages. Don't really need it since I live in San Diego, but I could easily wash my cars in there if necessary.

 

Wish I could wash inside! Thinking about building an extra garage space, but man, it's not cheap!

 

Wash inside? No need I say. Here in sunny Cali I perfer the sun to shine on when getting it washed.

 

Here in Portugal the weather is usually fine and the cars are washed outside.

 

Have drains in my garage but I barely use them, I have only washed inside completely 2x and its a real pain in the butt....With multiple cars I have to worry about splashing onto other vehicles as well as focusing on brushing the water to the drain. It works well but I am lazy

 

I just finished a barn/garage at my house here in VT. We put in two drains but I can say that i will never wash the cars inside. Theres plenty of shade from the trees. A good solution would be to extend the roof on a garage to have an overhang large enough to let the car cool off so you aren't washing in direct sunlight. Sort of a carport I guess