dr bob

Old-work box clips to the drywall rather than getting nailed or screwed into wood. Makes it possible to remove the box if necessary without damaging your fire rated ceiling when you get around to putting the speakers in. Other option is to just have your drywallers drill a small hole and leave a pigtail dangling. I got in-wall rated speaker cable from Monoprice.com. They carry the wall plates and fittings for the future garage big-screen, and all the other TV/comms/etc wiring portals in the house.

Tom in Austin

We built above the garage and filled the bays beneath the floor with blown-in insulation. The insulation guy stapled fabric to the underside of the trusses and then blew the stuff in through holes until completely filled. In our case, that was 16" deep trusses, so R-something pretty darn high.

Provides great sound insulation which you want with living space above plus - important in our climate anyway - no cold (or hot) floor above. I am totally down on fiberglass batts, they suck and I would never use them for anything.

danglerb

Rob are you going to use CEJN fittings? I may have a few of the female 1/2 npt couplers (someday I will read the fine print of ebay listings).

I figure no telling what I might want in my walls in 10 years, so I would put in a conduit with a fishing wire already inside.

I'm not following the benefit of the jackshaft door lift, it moves the mechanism to the side, but does it allow the door to go a LOT higher, like 4 feet or so before going back?

dr bob

It's good for several precious inches of headroom at the ceiling. On a flat ceiling like Rob's, the standard opener motor end is also 8-10" high, so moving that to the front wall saves that space that's right over the car roof. Lots of potential space savings.

sendarius

+1 to at least adding conduit if not actual wiring for possible future use.

When we built our (all brick) house, I insisted that a conduit from ceiling space to all door frames and windows be cut into the masonry before plastering, and added a few empty floor to ceiling conduits on long walls as well.

It made installation of security sensors and any surface mounted stuff like door chimes, telephones, and speakers really easy. Just make sure you record where the conduits are.

While building practices (and spelling) might be different here (we build very few houses with timber/framed/stud walls, for example), the "plan for the future" approach is just as applicable and beneficial.

Rob Edwards

Is this supposed to instill confidence?

69gaugeman

Yes. That way you don't feel like it was made in China!

Dave928S

Don't worry Rob .... you'll be putting a tough German engineered car on it

DougM

Don't understand????
Isn't that the capitol of Wyoming???
Still made in America
Unless you have something against Wyoming......

Rob Edwards

You can see the bolts covering the mounting holes for the lift.

supercedar

Very sanitary ! I like it

Thomas

Chalkboss

Looking good Rob. Getting ready to build my one car, 15 x 24 ft deep. Putting in a Max Jax too. I would like to get your impressions of it. Cant tell from the pic, how did you finish the floor? Also I am going with a roll up garage door to leave interior space.

Rob Edwards

There is about 80 new sq ft of space on the far side of the garage. The existing floor had gray epoxy on it, it was only $200 more to completely re-coat the floor vs. just the 80 new square feet, so most of the garage has two coats of gray epoxy. The original held up incredibly well over a 10 year period, but it's nice to have a perfect match everywhere.

I tested the Maxjax with my minivan, works fine. There were a few minor annoyances out of the box, the holes in the arms that you insert the big pins needed some kissing with the dremel to de-burr them, and the drain plug in the the reservoir has a seep despite being as tight as i dared go on plastic to-plastic. Gabe at Danmar is sending me a new plug and seal, but he said he told the manufacturer to go with a reservoir that has no drain plug.

Move-in is next week. Looking forward to being 'home' again.

dr bob

Nice floor!

I failed to have the installer add the clear layer on top of mine. Between that and the poor concrete prep underneath, I have some peeled-off spots where the roller jack was used under the rear lift points. Flloor chips and is hardly tire-stain proof. Later experts told me that the new concrete needed to be de-glazed with a diamond grinder to get the epoxy to stck right.

I'm learning. The new house in Bend will have porcelain tile in the garage with epoxy grout, plastic mats for winter parking use, etc. I sent the architect the specs for the floor, and a 3D cad of the cabinet and equipment layout just yesterday. He questioned the "lift HPU" hanging on the wall, the plumbing and LV wiring, all the new power for lift, welder, compressor, etc, and all the lights. And the rather large-capacity dedicated ductless HVAC unit for the garage and workspace.

dr bob

Rob--

Add thread sealant to the drain plug threads. The paste kind. The pressure-connection threads need 5 full wraps of tape and about 40 lbs/ft, and I still have a couple that suffer from pink threads through the tape.