Hello,

Several neighbors have storage lofts in their garages and I'd like one too. I'm starting to research this project and I'm just not sure it's completely safe, or within building code to do something like this. There is no support from the ground to the loft and all the weight is held by ledger boards bolted into the studs in the garage walls and hanging from the attic structure.

The loft is 19x8.

Mine would be used for storing normal household items - plastic bins of baby clothes, toys, holiday decorations and maybe some power equipment like a pressure washer that only get used 2 or 3 times a year.

Does anyone see a problem with the safety of the construction of this loft (pictures below)?

Thanks for your advice!

 

Normally, those lofts are towards the back of the garage. A header would solve the support problem but since yours is in the front, the rails & the garage door itself are in the way.

You could build another loft on the rear wall of the garage where you wouldn't have that problem.

 

You're saying that the garage door and rails are in the way of the header in the front of the garage?

Does the ledger board in the front help get around that problem?

I can't build in the back of the garage (closest to the house) because there is a bump down in the ceiling (maybe it's called a sofet?) that makes the ceiling much lower (sorry, no pictures of that with me).

 

Yes but the problem is at the other end. No, a ledger board doesn't take the place of a header. The header would be built on the end of the loft where the drop light is hanging but the horizontal rails & vertical supports, at the corners, are in the way.

 

Thanks Pulpo, I appreciate your input. A header needs to be supported by the floor, correct? Can it be supported by the roof framing?

I know I'm stretching here a little, just trying to find out if I can do this or not, but I think you're telling me "Don't do this", right?

 

By the way, the 2x6 near the attic access hole on the right side does go through the drywall and tie into something in the attic (but I don't know what).

 

Yes, a header needs to be supported from the ground. That would give you enough support to put most anything on the loft. The current structure can hold more than you have there already but a header would remove all weight concern.

Explain the "bump" in the back of the garage that's preventing you from building there.

 

Thanks for the info, Pulpo.

So, I *CAN* do this without tying into a header, I just need to be concerned about how much weight it'll support - that's making me feel better!

I can post a better picture later tonight but this is what I could find right now for the "bump out". I'm pretty sure that there's a bedroom on the other side of that "bump out". The "bump out" is where the shovels and spreaders are hanging.

 

It looks like you have already used your space to the max. As I said, you can add some things to the loft near the door. Just don't go crazy with it.

 

Hi Guys -

I'm getting close to starting on this project so just wanted to bump this topic back up to see if there were any more suggestions from anyone and also ask a question:

The outside beam is a 2x8 that's about 19 feet long. How much weight can that support? Part of it is tied into floor joists from the room above and the other half is tied into attic joists. The middle is tied into a glulam beam.

It would just be nice knowing I'm not adding too much additional weight to structure above.

Thanks!

 

I've built 5 or 6 such storage areas over the years, both in the front and rear of garages. They've all performed extremely well, with no problems, probably because I tend to build things conservatively, with healthy safety factors "built-in."

It's relatively easy to construct a storage space that doesn't require any support from below (none of mine needed it), as the inconvenience of having a column in the way just isn't worth it to me. My practice has been to either design it to be completely self-supporting, or use vertical hangers properly attached to joists/rafters or trusses in the garage attic. For the most recent one, I used an anticipated design live load of 60 psf, and another 10 psf for dead load (the weight of the structure itself). It had an unsupported clear span of 22', in a double garage over the door. For the main front support beam, I used doubled 2 x 6s oriented vertically, with a horizontal 2 x 4 flitch plate on the bottom. Everything was glued and screwed together, and I fabricated 2 custom steel support brackets, integral with the side ledger beams, to support the ends of the main beam. It was a heavy, wobbly structure to set in place (works best if you have 2 step-ladders and a helper), but once the 2 x 4 stringers and plywood were attached, everything firmed up very nicely.

If you're not comfortable doing your own design, you might contact an engineer in your area for assistance in coming up with the best fit for your application. I noticed in the pictures you posted (as an example of what you want to do?) that the vertical support members shown don't appear to have adequate structural connections at the ceiling ends, which is not a good situation if the loading gets too heavy.

 

Thanks, BridgeMan.

Do you have any pictures of your lofts you can share? It would be nice to see some of your ideas.

Also, you mention that the vertical support members don't appear to have adequate structural connections. Can you explain more about that? One uses a metal L bracket, one goes through the drywall ceiling and ties into the attic structure somehow and the middle one ties into a gigantic glulam beam.

Thanks for the info!

 

In response to your request for pix, I was about to say that the nearest one (La Plata County, Colorado) is 1300 miles away from where we currently live. But then I remembered the cantilever unit I built last year in my current shop building, over the work bench area. Don't have any pix, but I'll charge up the digital and take a few in the next few days. Posting them may be problematic, as I understand from other threads that the recent 'update' is causing problems doing that.

I built my shop unit to be totally free-standing, but instead of a front carrier beam, I used interior framed braces, using diagonal 2 x 6s underneath the main storage area, tied into top and bottom continuous 2 x 4 ledgers attached to the wall with high-strength ledger bolts. The space is very stout (my 250 lb. body bouncing around on it can't get it to deflect at all), and it's 4' wide and 36' long. I wouldn't have built it this way had the shop wall been framed with just 2 x 4s for fear of excess wall deflection, but the builder (previous owner) used old-growth Douglas fir 2 x 6s, 12' long, milled from his dad's property to frame the walls. I installed a row of 12" shelves beneath the large top shelf, tucked in between the diagonals, useful for more frequently-needed items and a place to mount work bench lights.

A few concerns I had with the unit in your pictures are what looks like a very light-gage metal L-bracket at the wall, and some of the vertical 2 x 4s appears to be not near any attic framing (but one attached instead to a lonely flat stub 2 x 4 on the ceiling, which itself doesn't appear to be attached to a joist or truss). I apologize and stand corrected if my assumptions are incorrect, but just for some comparison--the steel wall brackets I mentioned earlier (supporting the 22' built-up beam) were made using either 1/4" or 5/16" steel angle (been too long, don't recall for sure which) and welded 3/8" flat plate, lagged into the ledger and wall studs using 5/16" bolts. And whenever I attach verticals to attic trusses or rafters/joists, I always use horizontal transfer 2 x 4s (strong axis vertical, or close to it) to adjacent members for distributing the load away from just one load-carrying member in the attic. If you already did that, so be it, but obviously I couldn't tell from the pictures.