Garage and door minimum dimensions

[Fredjacob]

I don't have an Interstate yet, but plan to purchase within the next year. I currently live in CA and plan to retire soon. Thus, we are planning on selling our townhouse which cannot accommodate a RV on site and purchase a small home in Oregon with space for an RV, hopefully garage space. Having stored cars both outside and in garages, I feel very certain storing the new baby in a garage would extend its serviceable life and give me access to it during bad weather for projects inside of it. I have estimated the minimum garage space needed would be at least a 10 x 10 foot door; 12 x 12 would be better, a 10+ foot ceiling, 7-8 ft width (more if I can make that happen in case I want to open the awning inside to fully dry it out) and at least 26+ feet of length. Has anyone garaged their Interstate when it is not in use and are their other considerations I shoud include in my house hunting specs? I will also add a 30 Amp 110 circuit and and dump drain would be great, but could take care of dumping and cleaning the tanks at the end of trips if I can't locate a drain near the RV. We also plan to keep the house and yard as small as possible as a home-base and might use the RV as a guest bedroom.

AirThread

[GETRIDAONE]

There was no Interstate in my future when I had my garage built. I wanted it for my old Pontiacs and with a lift to work on them. I had standard 10' x 7' doors on it.
After getting the Interstate I had an 11' high door put in as a 10' wasn't going to work for a
9' 8" high RV
Door minimum. 10 wide x 11 high
Ceiling minimum. 12' 6" (framing codes or building style could make it higher)
Width minimum. 12'. To open doors is minimum 2' 6"
Length minimum. 30'. That would be 2' 6" front & 3' in rear
The dimensions are "inside" and 12 feet wide would be claustrophobic !!
The awning is not designed for rain, only shade and will hold a lot of water when extended.
Heating & cooling is a consideration if you are thinking of staying in it while garaged. Heat to keep the tanks from freezing in the winter without running the tank heaters all the time. You couldn't run the LP heat so an electric heater would be needed.If you were thinking of running the A/C in the summer you would have to deal with the condensation pouring out on the floor from the front passenger side wheel well area.
I hope your retirement dreams work out for you

[InterBlog]

At the current time we don't own a garage, but we rent one. I really like an interior ceiling tall enough for getting up and working on the roof of our Interstate - to me, that is more important than the width. If we were to build a garage (which we are considering later in life toward retirement), I think it would have to be at least 14 feet high.

[Protagonist]

Not related to dimensions, but rather lighting. Garages typically have lights directly centered on the ceiling— which is fine for the typical passenger car— but that's wrong for a garage housing a tall van. Put the lights along the perimeter of the ceiling (right next to the side walls), not in the center.

[ericpeltier]

Your dream garage sounds dreamy.
If it were me, I'd delete only one thing, the sewer. Personally, I do not find it hard to locate a dump station on the way home. Having a sewer drain in in my dream garage "soils" the image, somewhat, for me. Just a thought.

[Fredjacob]

Many thanks to all for your thoughtful comments. Hopefully I can turn that dream into reality. This forum has really helped me also have a more realistic expectations of the Airstream Interstate itself, as it is as imperfect as humans but I believe still the best unit made today.

[clarklaflare]

Originally Posted by Fredjacob

I have estimated the minimum garage space needed would be at least a 10 x 10 foot door; 12 x 12 would be better, a 10+ foot ceiling,

Keep in mind you'll need additional room for the door opening header. I determined 10' would be the minimum height opening so went with 12' ceiling. I had to use laminated beams for the header because of the opening width so the finished opening wound up being 10'3". This gives me some additional comfort.

Also, in my case, the door opener motor hands down further than the lights, but there is still plenty of clearance.

[TRIPPPIN]

I have 10 × 10 doors but the opening is 2 or 3 in smaller. My sprinter just fit. Also my ceiling height is 11 feet and presented problems on clearance for the door tracks and we just fit. Must have 12 feet inside to do it right. Also now I have a lift and can't put it at max height with a car on it.

[Ron_CA]

My garage is 40' deep with 11' tall door and 12' ceiling.

[Lady Elaine]

Many house sewer lines have a clean out which can be used for dumping. Ours is near enough to the driveway for this purpose. Very convenient.

[InterBlog]

Originally Posted by Lady Elaine

Many house sewer lines have a clean out which can be used for dumping. Ours is near enough to the driveway for this purpose. Very convenient.

I envy you. Each pair of houses in our subdivision shares a common clean-out which is located on the property line. As luck would have it, it's our neighbor's driveway that abuts our common portal, not ours - our driveway is on the opposite side of our lot. And given that we have a 70 foot wide lot, we can't stretch anything over to it - it's too far. Every once in a while if we get into a time crunch, we get permission to pull into the neighbor's driveway for dumping purposes, but I don't want to wear out our welcome, so 90% of the time we do it somewhere else.

[curmugeon]

Bigger is better. I store my Interstate in a 32 foot bay with a 12x12 door. Lots of room to move around, open the doors, and comfortably access any exterior component including waxing. I also have a StowAway 2 trailer hitch cargo carrier which remains attached during stoage and has room to swing out for rear door access. I have 20 amp electric service which is all you need unless you plan to run the air conditioner in storage.

I strongly recommend inside storage. Your rv looks better, has fewer malfunctions, has fewer incidents of mice, bugs, and mud daubers, lasts longer, and shows better when a prospective buyer sees it garaged when not in use.

[wahoonc]

You are on the right track with interior storage. Go as big as you can, avoid minimums. We have a new 40x48x16 going in after the first of the year.

Keep in mind that if you plan to work on it at all you will need to have access along both sides and the front and rear, I try to allow a minimum of 4' on all sides, more if at all possible.

Protagonist makes a good point about the lights too.

Aaron

[InterBlog]

Originally Posted by curmugeon

...

I strongly recommend inside storage. Your rv looks better, has fewer malfunctions, has fewer incidents of mice, bugs, and mud daubers, lasts longer, and shows better when a prospective buyer sees it garaged when not in use.

I would add one: will develop fewer rust problems, or develop them much more slowly.

This issue has been broached on other threads in the past, and this forum population has not always reacted favorably toward the idea of inside storage, the argument being, "It's a motor vehicle specifically designed to remain outdoors indefinitely."

My counter-argument has always been, "The SPRINTER was designed to remain outdoor indefinitely. The Interstate, not so much."

The reason is that Airstream didn't use stainless steel hardware on any part of the T1N Interstate build that my husband and I have found to date, and we have dismantled and improved quite a bit of ours. All of the hardware has been galvanized metal and everything we have worked on has shown significant rust, sometimes to the point of hardware failure (pic below shows a screw used to install our Fantastic fan... we have always garaged, but our vehicle's previous owner didn't seem to, at least not for his entire duration of ownership).

I've seen pics of NCV3s, pics posted by other owners, and incipient hardware rust is also visible, suggesting that this non-stainless hardware assembly practice continues at least in part.

[Ron_CA]

40' deep, 50' wide, 12' ceiling

[russ240]

I put a sewer clean-out in my garage and I've been pleased that it has not been an issue with stink or spillage when using it to dump the tank. I positioned it so that when the RV is parked it's just a couple of feet ahead of and to the side of the macerator reel. I also put a fresh water supply line in the wall right there so I can fill the tank or use it to flush the black tank.

I put an exhaust fan in the ceiling positioned directly over my black tank vent. It's a good idea to keep ANY attached garage under a slight vacuum so that fumes and off gassing from all the various chemicals in your garage are encouraged not to commute to your living space. With an RV parked inside there I felt this was critical.

I actually have three separate fans in the garage. The 80 CFM Panasonic bath fan runs 24/7 to maintain that slight vacuum (very slight as the garage space is about 12,000 cubic feet; 1,000 square feet, 12 foot ceiling) so that's only one air change every 2.5 hours. I also have a 380 CFM bath fan (again panasonic) mounted in the ceiling right next to the 80 cfm unit. I have not used this much but when I was building the garage I did not know what to expect as far as black tank fumes in a sealed space. We use the Interstate regularly around town and make frequent use of the facilities. I dump at least once a month but it's frequently parked indoors with "stuff" in the tank so I was concerned. Never mind the bio waste, I did not like the idea of the treatment stuff venting into the garage, though since the bus came indoors I have switched to one that does not contain formaldehyde. With the little 80 cfm unit going all the time I've never had an issue though I'm glad I have the bigger unit there just in case. I also have a "shop" fan mounted in the wall of the garage. It's a big commercial style unit with automatic louvers and will practically pop your ear drums if you run it with the doors closed. I put it in so that when I get around to putting in my lift and I'm doing stinky stuff (brake cleaner for example) to one of the cars I can crack a garage door and get good evacuation ... again don't want any of that migrating to the house. Side benefit is I can actually use it as a whole house fan. If we burn something in the kitchen, I open the kitchen window and go turn on the shop fan and leave the door into the house open. Have also used it to just do an air change on the house during a nice spring or fall day. Turn on the fan, open the garage door and go room by room opening windows. It would be bad to do that without a window open though because it puts the house under so much vacuum that you would back draft your exhaust flues (water tank, furnace, chimney). Side note, since every shop fan I've ever seen was a terrible hole in the insulation envelop not to mention that even with the louvers they are far from air tight, I built an insulated "closet" with an exterior door to cover the shop fan opening. To explain that more simply I put the fan inside an insulated, sealed closet. For climate control I also have a 3 ton mini-split in the garage. I heat it to 50 in the winter and cool it to 80 in the summer. Unless I'm working out there, then I make it comfortable. Well insulated and sealed commercial style shop doors are a must. And yes the tracks eat up some ceiling space so 12' is the minimum ... I wish I had done 14'.

[InterBlog]

Originally Posted by russ240

...For climate control I also have a 3 ton mini-split in the garage. ...

Hah - I've got a guy coming over to our house this very morning to give me a bid on a mini-split. Our garage is not tall enough to accommodate our Interstate, and we would have to change our roof line in order to make it so (we would probably never recoup such an investment so that's not presently on the table), BUT, we do so many garage projects that we've decided to take the plunge. The straw that broke these camels' backs was many hours of metalworking this past summer when we fabricated our custom hitch carrier. It was so danged hot with many days approaching 100 degrees and we were out there for so many hours, especially my husband. This absolutely must change.

So yes, if you are custom-building a garage, bite the bullet and pay for the climate control up front. It's easier and cheaper than retrofitting as we are doing now.

This next part may be obvious but let me say it just in case. A lot of these types of improvements are not easily mortgage-able, so you better figure on paying cash for them if you really are planning your dream garage. When my husband and I had our house customized, the builder drew the line at certain improvements and the reason is very simple - it might not appraise if there is too much piled into the initial build, and if it doesn't appraise, a mortgage won't be approved. We were willing to raise our downpayment substantially to mitigate the perceived risk, but they still didn't want to mortgage it beyond a certain point (when we signed the contract on this place, we were eons away from retirement with a child to put through university, so we were not anywhere close to being in a position to go all-cash on the build). Blame the financial crisis of 2008 for the skittishness.

We did negotiate successfully for about 70 modifications on the base plan, and we did get the 800 SF garage we absolutely had to have, but beyond that, the garage was off the table in terms of HVAC and insulation and roof-line modifications. Now I have to go back and insulate it myself as well as adding an air conditioner. Good dead-of-winter projects for homeowners who live on the steamy Texas Gulf coast.

[Keithco]

Kind of cheated since we downsized from a larger RV. Barn is 40 X 30 X 14 with a 13 foot door.

[73shark]

Welcome to the Air Forums.

Nice building.

[joe rv guy]

Does anyone have a set of plans that they would like to share? I've got a 30' X 20 second garage with "standard doors", and I don't think it can be modified to allow my Interstate. So maybe I'll have to tear down and start over.