Garage size
1 car garage dimensions
Twelve by twenty is the number you will be given. It fits a car and nothing else, which is a problem, because nobody has ever owned a garage that held only a car.
The verdict
1 × sedan fits a 12 × 20 comfortably.
- Spare width
- 3.7 ft
- Room in front
- 1.0 ft
- Vehicle
- 6.8 ft × 16 ft
Both doors open, and there is room to walk round the back.
Widths are across the mirrors, because mirrors are what people hit. Measure your own vehicle before you pour a slab.
The sizes
| Size | Floor area | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| 12 × 20 | 240 sq ft | The standard single. A sedan fits with room to open one door properly. A pickup fits lengthways and you shuffle. |
| 14 × 22 | 308 sq ft | The one to build. Both car doors open, and there is a bay at the front for bins, bikes and the mower. |
| 16 × 24 | 384 sq ft | A single garage with a workshop in it. Full-size truck, tool bench down one wall, still shuts. |
The part that catches people
Depth catches people more often than width on a single. A long-bed pickup is twenty-one feet before you count the tailgate down, so a twenty-foot garage will not close behind it. Measure your own vehicle, not the class it belongs to.
The room that is not the car
Where the space actually goes
Add the cars up and you get a number that is always too small. These five gaps are the difference between a garage you park in and a garage you live out of.
| Space | Allow | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Beside each car, to open a door and get out | 2.5 ft | A car door swings about 2 ft 6 in at the widest point of a normal opening. Less than that and you turn sideways every time. |
| Between two cars | 2.5 ft | Shared. Two cars need one gap between them, not two. |
| Between the mirror and the wall | 1.5 ft | Mirrors fold. Wing mirrors on a truck do not fold far enough to save a foot. |
| In front of the bumper | 3 ft | Where the bins, the bikes and the water heater actually live. Cut this and the garage stops holding anything but cars. |
| Behind the tailgate | 3 ft | Enough to walk round the back and to lift the boot without reversing out first. |
The door on it
Door widths that suit this garage
The opening is narrower than the building. You need a foot of wall at each side for the track and the framing, so a 20-foot garage takes an 18-foot door at most, and most builders hang a 16.
Exact price
Want the real number for your opening?
The range above is a guide. Tell us what you need and somebody who works your area will price it properly.
Your details are used to quote this job and nothing else.
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