I need a carport
 

My goodness. Finished servicing the 911. Oil change, emergency brake shoes, greased polybronzes, etc. It has either been raining or bloody cold. The garage is too messy to fit the car. So I've had the choice of working in 40F rain, or in 30F non-rain. Jeez. This spring, I need to build that carport. Now charging the battery for a drive.

Welcome to Orygun...

Expand or clean the garage.

Carports only keep the bird poo off the car and the rain (mostly) off you. They do nothing for cold.

You can buy one of those car-tent things for about $200 - I have one temporarily set up for my winter beater just to keep the snow and crap off of it (garage is full of other projects). Yeah, they look a little bit ghetto but they're functional, and for a short-term solution it might be something worth looking at. You can put some heat in them too.

As a longer-term solution there are a number of prefab metal garage buildings you can get for pretty cheap. All you need to do is pour a slab and bam. But I still favor a more integrated/permanent solution that works with the other buildings you've got. Those prefab things aren't bad but can look ugly if you get the wrong one.

The garage is for car-parking. Not random junk. When I start a project and can't get the car in, I get all worked up and my world is out of whack.

Garage is minuscule. Even when empty, it's not big enough to work on a car. It barely holds the 911, can't really hold the Vanagon. I can make it a bit longer, but no wider. I've decided there is no point to that.

I'm going to use the carport to shelter the car and make working on it barely tolerable in winter, and devote the garage to solely a workshop. If I'm not trying to preserve parking room, I can put shelves on the long wall and get the needed storage, and fit table saw, planer, etc. Also park a motorcycle and hang the bicycles.

Someday I would like to tear this garage down and build a two-story building with shop below and studio above. That will require a variance (it sits right at the property line) and money. Neither is in the cards right now.

If I can't swing a two story building, then a reinforced flat roof will at least give me a deck and room for a vegetable garden with ample sunshine. I can tear out a rose garden and widen the driveway enough for side by side parking where now I only have tandem.

can't you just drive it down to balmy California an work on it there?

BTW - a temporary carport shelter will help you avoid the permit fees and Increased property taxes of a real carport...

What permit fees? What permit? I plan to simply build the thing.

Local regs say I need a permit for a carport (or porch cover or patio cover or other open-sided roofed structure) that is attached to a house only if it is greater than 200 sq ft. I'll be sure to be well under 200 sq ft (more than I'd need to cover the 16-foot long 911 with room to spare), and to structurally tie the carport to the house (which I need to do, to resist side loads, anyway).

Oh by the way - the roof I have in mind is transparent (sun is precious in PDX), almost flat with just enough slope to shed water, will be hidden behind a tall beam facing the street. A friend (retired architect) built himself a carport using transparent corrugated plastic panels in this manner. They've held up fine to what snow loads we get here, and will be cheap to replace when weather and UV finally take their toll. However, I was thinking about glass. Anyone have an idea of the rough cost of 180 sq ft of glass, strong enough to hold 2 feet of wet snow with support every 24 inches, in panels that two people can manage? Bad idea?

I'd go with plexiglass if you want to go that route. You should be able to get it for ~$4-6/sqft for something of a suitable thickness.

Duh! Thank you. I'm an idiot for not thinking of plexiglass.

there is some plastic panel sheets made in a sort of corrugated fashion - more square than the older FG sheets - forget the name, but I bought them in a smoke 'color' - work very well, last a long time, and don't collect leaves or mold too badly

Suntech or something like that, maybe?

Yes, that is what my friend used, and I used those for my treehouse's roof too. The choice of panels won't matter much to me, but I'm thinking flat/smooth panels will look more attractive for my neighbor.

A 2 ft wet snow load is plenty. You would likely need 2x8s at 16" to span about 12 ft.Talk to your Architect friend about the structure before you waste your money. Just yesterday 2 of my neighbours had all the gutters and part of their soffit and facia fall down during a thaw with about 1 ft of snow and ice load.

Dont feel bad. I have 3-car and cant fit a car in there.

Hmm. I arbitrarily chose two feet.

Digging into it a bit more (ha ha), I see that all-time record snowfall in Portland was 61 inches in the winter of 1892-1893 - that's cumulative for the whole season, not snow accumulation at any given time. In the past century, there was 19 inches of snowfall during the winter of 1919-1920. In 1968-1969, there was up to 10 inches of snow accumulation. In 1950 33 inches fell during the month of January with "over a foot" of snow accumulation on the ground. Recent years' snowfall has been much milder. 12 inches during 2003-2004, 21 inches in 2008-2009 - but again that is over the whole winter, in 2008-2009 at my location we had at most 8 inches accumulation, but it was wet stuff.

So maybe my "two feet of wet snow" is excessive. Or maybe I should simply assume that, should it happen, my plastic panels will break, and I'll simply replace them. Or that I'll remove the accumulation - when it snows in Portland, I work from home.

This is the coolest one I have seen, everyone here says it is an engineering disaster and it should fall over any day. Last time I checked it was still there.

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4079/...4d81d68b76.jpg
Carport by willtel, on Flickr

I'd worry about snow loads on that, except that it is in GA. I think it is cool. My house, however, is very traditional so a groovy cantilevered carport would look odd.

John - have you looked into the polycarbonate greenhouse panels? I'm thinking of using those (or the corregated poly you mentioned) to add a car port to the side of my house. My plan is to make it "free standing" so I don't need to pull a permit.

john dont worry about snow loads in portland we just dont get those kind of storms that often up in the pac nor wet. what you need to worry about in portland are the ice storms you guys get down there every winter. we dont see many of those up in seattle but in portland you do. maybe something to do with all the rivers and the winds you get.

and that coregated FG doesnt hold up to winds and heavy we snow that well. my dad had a cover over the deck we had to take down every fall due to the fact it cracked under 6" of snow once, and we had it suported in a frame with 16" centers.

maybe get one of those easy-up things at costco.

Talk to your local building inspection dept. You can ask what design load(snowload) they require for your area . You don,t need a permit to ask what they require.