Good recommendation.

What did you go with?

 

Figured I might as well update this. Post some pics and such; see where I am at 2 years later (sorry about the pics, I dont have any of just the garage)





For the driveway I went with a 25 x 25 concrete pad which acts like a skirt to level the driveway with the garage.



Painted the floor with a 2 part epoxy, its holding up great suprising the religious amounts of salt on the vehicles.





Outside shot of second driveway. Budget went way over could only afford gravel in this one.




Total spent: $47000 canadian

Things that I dont like:

-concrete floor cracked weeks after completion

-garage doors dont shut/open sometimes (sensor gets easily moved)

-I REGRET NOT INSULATING! seriously. I cant do anything in the winter.

-I should have went longer on the secondary driveway garage bay b/c you can't fit two vehicles one in front of the other for winter storage.

-Concrete patio/driveway is lifting higher than garage floor, there is now a "bump" entering the garage door nearsest to neighbours house.

-would have rather had a hip roof to match the house but was more expensive.

-no matter how many lights I put in it, I still find it needs more

Things I am pleased with:

-Garage has plenty of room for side storage (snowblower, lawnmower, welder, compressor etc.)

-3 cars parked in works best and tons of room to work on either of the 3 vehicles (4 vehicles I find is too cramped, 5 is near impossible but can be done if all side storage is removed)

-Max air compressor is AMAZING. Quiet, huge 80gal tank, reliable, etc ... best compressor I have ever owned. I honestly had my doubts not getting the IR brand but they have been put to rest.

-Garaga garage doors are hella tuff thick insulated monsters. Expensive though @ $1000 a door.

-plenty of roof storage


A few other things that happened:

-When digging for the power line from the house to the garage, the contractor cut the telephone AND cable line not once BUT TWICE with the excavator!

-once the garage was finished me and my dad re-worked the fence around the new back driveway; when we were using the auger for the new posts guess what - we cut the damn telephone and cable lines!! AHHHH they just bury the plain lines; no casing, no protection when the house was built.

-my patio needed to be moved BEFORE the digging started. Well for some reason they decided to move it AFTER the garage was finished, forcing them to bring it all the way around the house and on the street. Sure enough the patio exploded into pieces all over the road once it hit pavement while the payloader was dragging it. They spent another couple days putting it back together.

 

Thanks for the update. Looks good.

 

Don't know if I'd recommend a rotary screw compressor for home use. We had several in the plant I used to manage ranging from 7 Hp up to 30 Hp. The up side is that they produce tons of compressed air very quickly which is what we needed. The down side is that they are fairly maintenance intensive. You need to change the oil and filters on a regular basis and the synthetic oil they need doesn't come cheap. They're not exactly quiet either. Since they compress air so quickly they produce a lot of condensate and need an automatic tank drain and if you're planning to use the air for painting, a refrigerated dryer is highly recommended as well as an oil separator and particulate filter between the compressor and dryer. They can't be beat for volume but not in a residential environment.
Oh, and depending on where you live, you may need to have the tank hydro'd every 2 years.