What is the average one car garage size

Of course, even average garage sizes vary based on usage, and many homeowners prefer the superior headroom of an 8-foot door and higher interior clearance. Remember, the garage door is your ceiling when open, so choose your garage door height accordingly. Full-sized trucks and SUVs and minivans are much bigger than the average car and require a larger garage. Minivans and SUVs require additional rear-loading clearance so they essentially have the same height as a full-size truck when the rear is open.

Things become a little more complicated once you expand to multiple cars. Unlike single car garages, you only need clearance for the inside doors of one car at a time. A fairly common form of multi-car garage, families often use one side for living or storage space when they only have one vehicle.

A larger width not only leaves room for side storage, but also creates more leeway for crooked parking. In general, common widths for a 3-car garage are 31 to 34 ft.

Minimum dimensions for a 3-car garage are: 31 ft. A true rarity, four car garages can handle a small fleet of vehicles. These garages may have one or two double-width doors and up to four single doors.

Of all the garage sizes, these monsters rely least on the average width of a car, since the occupying vehicles will most likely vary in size. Minimum dimensions for a 4-car garage are: 40 ft. Many owners will either assign specific bays to specific vehicles, having wider doors for trucks than cars or have all bays big enough for their largest vehicle. This is a special version of a multi-car garage where the two cars are stored in line and not side-by-side.

The width and height for tandem garages are the same as a regular garage, while the depth is usually 36 to 40 feet to allow for safer parking or for use as tool area or shop. Tandem garages may be one to three bays wide with one or more of those bays allowing for tandem parking.

The following chart provides a summary of the most common size ranges in feet for quick reference. Carports are another matter entirely. Cars and trucks range in average length from about 13 to 20 feet.

See the Average Vehicle Dimensions section above to get a good idea of the length of your vehicle or simply measure it. Vehicle widths range from about 6 to 7 feet with the doors closed.

See the Average Vehicle Dimensions section above to get a good idea of the width of your vehicle or simply measure it. You will want to factor another 5 feet to have both doors open and give a little extra leeway off-center parking. As carports tend to be open space, the width for an average car is about 12 feet.

You may wish to go up to 16 feet for wider vehicles. Picking the height for your carport is a lot more lenient than a garage, as there are no doors. Instead, the average carport is about 12 feet tall to allow plenty of clearance and the option of lighting. Some extra large vehicles, such as RVs will need a higher roof. As mentioned above, single carport dimensions are fairly basic, but what about double carport dimensions?

While the length and height remain the same, the width for a two-car carport will range between 18 to 24 feet on average. Take into account the widest vehicle you plan to store and base your width off of double that width plus door clearance for the best fit.

Chris, thank you for the information about garages. My one basic question is this, are the dimensions stated as the inside dimensions of the garage? Good question that I failed to mention in the article. The dimensions would be the interior to make measuring for floor space easier. The outside wall dimension would be about inches higher per wall.

Great write up! How do you know what garage size will fit your needs? Will the average garage size be enough? Those are difficult questions to answer because they vary from person to person. That being said, we can help you come to a conclusion. Many homeowners use their garage for one thing: storage.

The largest items typically stored in your garage are the family cars. This should be pretty easy because garages are labeled as one, two and three car garages.

That being said, if you plan on storing more in your garage, you should consider a larger garage size. There are several different standard sized one, two and three car garages. You may even need to go a size up. For example, if you have 2 cars, you may need a 3 car garage. A bedroom can be made with a one or two car garage. A family room or separate apartment space could require a much larger garage.

In the end, it all depends on what you want to do with your garage. One of the most popular ways to use a garage is to throw parties. The last thing you want is a small garage — it lowers the amount of guests you can invite. Having a large garage means a bigger party where you can invite more people. Another important thing to consider is whether you want an attached or detached garage. If you want an attached garage, it has to come with the house.

It has the benefit of sharing the same heating and cooling system. Give the amount of space you own, you can build a detached garage while still having an attached garage. This gives you the best of both worlds and a lot more storage.

This is something to consider if you need more storage, have more than three cars or need a lot of extra living space. We custom build it from the ground up ensuring that the job is done correctly and efficiently. Typically, we allow for 9 to 10 feet in width per car and 20 to 24 feet in depth.

A single car garage door is typically 8 feet wide, adding another 8 feet in width for every additional vehicle, with a standard height of 7 feet. They are most often 1 to 1. These widths and depths were created to allow 3 feet between your vehicle and the side walls plus 3 feet between each vehicle.

They also allow enough depth to fit cars of varying lengths plus accommodations for you to have walking space. For single car garage dimensions, there's not a ton of variation. The majority come in at the following dimensions:. There are cases where you'll find 9 feet wide garage doors, but those are the exceptions. There are rare occasions of a slightly wider interior width but this is a luxury not found on most houses with one car garages.

Double car garage dimensions have quite a bit of variance due to it being the most popular size of garage. Options are great but ultimately mean we'll have to measure our own pre-built garage to get the exact sizes. Here are your average ranges:. A width of 18 feet is your absolute minimum due not only to the width of our vehicles but also due to most building regulations. The garage door's width can vary up to 17 or 18 feet.

Three car garages become interesting due to the need to have a post between the two doors. It's very rare to see three separate garage doors. Usually there's a double-width door and a single car door. At this level, you begin to find more customizations since people are often having homes or at least the garage custom built. The four car garage is even more rare and only built on the most luxurious houses.

Customization is frequent here, but there are still averages you can expect to hover around:. These almost always have two garage doors at 16 feet in width each with a post between them. They'll often have the largest depth too in order to allow for cabinetry, bike storage, and other extras you won't find in smaller garages.

Not counting the attic, bonus room, or apartment above garages, the typical height for a garage comes in at 7 feet at a minimum and usually 8 feet. Those with vaulted ceilings still come in at the 7 to 8 feet range before the pitch of the roof starts turning inward.

Let's take a look at the standardized depth of garages, despite the width, since this will translate over to all of the various widths:. Why does this matter? You have to have enough depth to fit your entire vehicle into the garage while accounting for cars being different lengths.