Garage size
3 car garage dimensions
Thirty-two feet wide is the floor and thirty-six is comfortable. The bigger decision is not the size — it is whether you hang three doors, or one double and one single.
The verdict
3 × suv fits a 32 × 22, but only just.
- Spare width
- 6.3 ft
- Room in front
- 2.5 ft
- Vehicle
- 7.4 ft × 16.5 ft
Under 2.5 ft beside a car you turn sideways to get out. It works, and you will notice it every day.
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 |
|---|---|---|
| 32 × 22 | 704 sq ft | Three cars, tight. Usually one double door and one single, because three separate doors need more pier between them than this width has. |
| 36 × 24 | 864 sq ft | The comfortable three. Room for three sets of open doors, or two vehicles and a proper shop bay. |
| 40 × 26 | 1,040 sq ft | Three trucks, or two plus a boat. At this size the slab and the roof cost more than the doors. |
The part that catches people
One double plus one single is cheaper than three singles and usually more useful: the double bay takes the two cars you drive daily, and the single takes the one you work on. Three separate doors look better from the street and cost you a foot of usable wall for every extra pier.
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
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