Perfect 3 car garage size and plan

We all know the struggle of having no space in your garage, with all the stuff we gather through the years, we have to store it, somewhere right. If your two cars are the only things you want to put in your garage, then a two-vehicle garage might be enough. It is not something new to see a car standing outside in the driveway because there is no more space inside the garage. Most houses come standard with a small double garage, but this is more often than not isn’t enough space. What do you do then if you have three cars or you have lots of tools? This is when you should consider expanding your garage to a three-vehicle garage.

As the saying goes, bigger is better. But is it really applicable to your garage? If you are someone that like a having a workbench with tools in your garage, then you will definingly need some more space. Another thing that you should keep in mind before nailing the first nail is if you drive a truck or an extended cab then you might need a bigger garage than someone who drives a smaller vehicle.

Is your current garage big enough?

Let’s do the numbers, park your truck or Ford Explorer in your garage and leave a foot gape between the vehicle and the garage door. This should leave about a gap of 30 inches in front of the car. Now imagine you still have a workbench that needs to fit in against the wall in front of the vehicle, that’s at least another 25 inches. So, this leaves you with a 5-inch gap, if you gain any weight then that will not work.

Let’s look at the same scenario but using a 24-foot-deep garage. Leaving the same one-foot gap between the vehicle and the garage door, you now have more than five feet of space between your workbench and the front bumper.

Now is the situation that you might say that you will just back your vehicle out of the garage if you need to use the workbench. But, wouldn’t it be nice to move from one side of your vehicle to the other without opening up the garage door. You might still feel that a three-vehicle garage might be too big but there are a few things that you need to consider.

Things you need to Consider

After doing some research it is clear that the most common three-vehicle garage size is 36′ x 24′. This is seen as the minimum garage size for three vehicles. You might be thinking that this sounds like a huge garage but let’s have a look at some factors that justify this big garage.

It is important to leave space in front of the vehicle to walk past and install some organizing shelves against the garage wall. Even if you are not a DIY type of person a workbench will come in handy, so you need to have space for a workbench and some tools. The reason a 24-foot-deep garage is seen as the minimum depth size is that if you are currently driving a Chevy Suburban then it gets really hard to fit that into your standard 20-foot-deep garage. The average suburban vehicle is around 18.5 feet long. If you want at least 30 inches of walking space in front of your car, plus an extra 2 feet for your workbench then you are already getting close to that 24-foot mark.

If you are driving something like a Ford-150 or 4 doors Dodge Ram, then your care alone is close to 20 feet in length. That is why a 24-foot-deep garage is seen as a good minimum benchmark when planning your new three-vehicle garage.

In the ideal three vehicles garage, you would like to have 30 inches of moving space between the vehicles and between the vehicles and the wall. This will still allow you space to mount shelves to the walls to store your stuff, and we all definitely have the stuff to store.

Let’s have a look at the maths. A normal vehicle is anything from 6 to 8 feet in width but for this exercise, we will use 6.5 feet as the width of a vehicle. So, let’s say you drive a Suburban, your spouse drives a Prius and you have another smaller car. That brings the total car width up to 19.5 feet. Add 10 feet (30 inches x 4) for walking room beside and between the cars and an additional 2 feet on each side for shelving, storage, etc., then your already up to 33.5 feet in total garage width.

A 36 feet wide garage then gives you some additional moving and storage space for things like laundry appliances and a utility sink. If you might still think it is too wide, then you should also keep in mind space for your Big Boy toys or recreational equipment. Things like bicycles or motorbikes can also take up quite a few feet of the room so its important to keep this in mind.

Is it Worth the Cost?

You might be sitting back thinking that this might cost you an arm and a leg, but you would be surprised. Let’s say that you currently have a garage that 30 feet 6 inches wide. Living in a house with a $200,000, 30-year mortgage at around 6% interest (this is just speculation and it can be much lower. Now let’s say you want to extend the width of your garage to 36 feet, that we just saw as being the ideal width. This is an additional 132 square feet and let’s say the building contractor asks you $100 per square feet. That adds up to a total of $13,200 and when worked into your mortgage it can cost you as little as $79 per month for your new three-vehicle garage.

It’s also a big benefit the day you decide to sell your house. When competing with other homes in your area you need to have a big selling point to persuade the prospective buyer to buy your house. And what better selling point than a new spaces garage. So, it is definitely worth the cost if you are looking for some extra space to store all your stuff and still have room to park your cars.

As we see a bigger garage have many different benefits. Storage is always a problem for any family, and this is a great way to address that problem. Remove the headache of a cramped garage and invest in a three-vehicle garage today.