Not sure if anyone noticed, but havn't been on here much in the past few months. We have been buying and selling realestate, moving, and all those fun things, when the ultimate goal is to build our dream home. Its all comming together. We have purchased some acreage just out of town. We have sold our home, put most everything in storage, have a rental lined up, and will hopefully break ground if I ever finish the home plans. Because of covenants, I will have an attached 3 car garage with about 1200 total sq ft. More than double what I currently have. Plus, plans are in the works for a pad next to the garage for storing the trailers, and other misc. stuff. We have agreed to purchase some additional acres, without covenants, although current financial constraints will probably dictate we sell off most of it to subsidize the new construction.

Plans for the garage include hydronic slab heat via a flat plate heat exchanger serviced from the house boiler. An abundance of 120 AND 220v outlets, running water, compressed air system, Specific tool areas, i.e. woodworking, metal working, etc, and other niceties as I refine my design.

One question I do have, is in regards to the use of a Sump drain. I would like to have a wash bay in the garage, someplace to wash off the road salt and other $#17 that is constantly eating my vehicles. My concern is the water would have to be run through the septic system. I am not sure what damage oil, grease, and road salts will do to a septic system. Will a wet sump effectively prevent the nasties from making it into the septic? Anyone have any Ideas? I am open to discussion and ideas on this. I would also like to hear what everyone has to say about what their dream garage would have giving the constraints listed above.

BTW, I hope to finalize a design sometime in February, and break ground as soon as it thaws, sometime in late march or early april. So for the next 9 months to a year, I assume I will be very busy doing my part in this project. My involvement with my jeep family will need to stay on an infrequent participation basis.

Happy Jeepn

Make sure you insulate under the slab well or you'll be wasting a lot of heat warming up the ground under your garage. You may also want to consider a supplement heat source in addition to the radiant floor heat. I don't know much about SW Montana, but I imagine it gets pretty cold there in the winter. Just a couple of minutes with the garage door open and your floor heat will take some time getting the temp back to a comfortable level. You could run a separate fan coil off your boiler too that would heat things back up quickly or a stand alone gas/propane unit.

As for the drain idea, check with your local codes. I know around here you can't have a drain in a garage without an expensive oil separator to keep all that potential nasty stuff from getting into the environment. Even if your town allows a garage drain, you might want to at least have a basic grease trap in line to keep oil and grease from your septic. I don't think the quantities a typical home garage would produce could damage your septic, but it could contaminate your drinking water.

Sounds like a sweet garage, I wish I had the room and funds right now to build one like that.

The slab will be insulated with an R-10 foam horizontal, and R-10 on the foundation walls full depth. This part of SW Montana just happens to usually be the coldest place in the nation, just not this year. Coldest I remember is -56, with -30 to -40 for weeks on end being quite common. Lately, we havn't been that cold, we hit -29 so far this year, but only for a couple of days. Now it is setting records for the warmest Jan. on record, 56 yesterday.

As Far as supplemental heat is concerned, Thinking about wood stove to provide heat when comfort is needed. Atually, a heated slab, with that much thermal mass, will reheat the room quite quickly. My intention with the floor heat is to just keep the garage above freezing.

A good place for you to read up on Septic systems and their issues, what to do and what not to do is at your local agricultural extension office. The best online resource I've found is the University of Minnesota Extension office.

Thanks lomodyj. Great info!