I had a buddy in Wisconsin that designed and built his own home. Part of that design was an "oversize" three car garage with one bay that had a shower curtain arrangement around it with floor drains that allowed him to wash a car indoors in the winter time. He also had a row of spray nozzles in the floor near the door of this bay that would spray off the bottom of the car when you drove it in.
Of course the garage was heated. The floor had hydronic heat so that when he drove in at night the snow and slush would melt off the car and run into the floor drains., then the car would be relatively dry underneath when he went out in the morning. When I built my house in Port Washington, WI in 1990, I put a large ceiling mounted gas fired heater in the garage (2-1/2 car garage) as well as several floor drains along with walls that were insulated as well as the rest of the house. Then I covered them with a melamine-like material so I didn't have to worry about getting them wet. The garage doors were heavily insulated as well. I also had a hot water circulation system (so you get hot water out of the faucet immediately) that ran next to the interior wall of the garage. I put a hose bib with a tempering valve on the line so I had hot water to hose off the cars in the winter time. I was driving my 1979 300TD at the time, so I had an industrial timer on the front wall of the 300TD's bay with a cable to connect the block heater. When I got home at night I plugged it in and the timer turned on around 4:00 am to warm up the engine. I only kept the heat in the garage around 50F during the week unless I was planning on working in it. This kept it warm enough to melt all the road crap off the cars overnight and let it run down into the drains so the cars and garage floor weren't a mess in the morning. That's one thing we learned about building a house the first time around, thankfully. You can do a lot of extra stuff that really adds to the functionality and usefulness of the house for a minimal amount when you build. A lot of things you can't go back and do after the fact, or if you did it would cost you a LOT of $$$. Dan On Apr 16, 2013, at 8:06 PM, clay wrote: > I am learning about all the interesting things that living in Alaska involves. > > Depending on the builder and his ability to understand the needs of the > populace, they either build some cracker box dump out of a home plans booklet > or know what they are doing and make changes that allow for the winter > issues. The bulk of the builders are idiots who put up T1-11 cookie cutter > junk. The good ones make sure there is an arctic entrance, some design ideas > that allow for reduced cabin fever (light and greater airiness of rooms) and > a heated garage, with floor drains and plumbing. > > The garages are fairly larger than needs be. You get space for shop or hobby > work, but the really cool thing is that in a properly built home, you can > wash the car in the garage while a blizzard is blowing outside. High > ceilings and insulation on doors and walls stuffed enough that you probably > could wash the car in the all together > > clay > > _______________________________________ http://www.okiebenz.com For new and used parts go to www.okiebenz.com To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/ To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to: http://mail.okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com
