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A Garage Built To Fit (an RV-7)

by Rob Riggen

My tail kit arrived in two beautiful boxes on November 5, 2001. Six years later and I haven't burned a single gallon of avgas in my airplane. In fact, I haven't even progressed past the tail assembly. There are many reasons for this. I've bought a house, raised my daughter (she's 6 so I guess I'm not quite done) and added a boy to the family. Most importantly, I have stayed married to the woman of my dreams. Together we share a vision of one day finishing and flying the airplane but for now we are focused on setting homestead up for family.

The house we bought is a modest one. It required a ton of work; interior, exterior, landscaping -- pretty much everything. That's been my hobby for the past 3 years. Roofing and landscaping in the summers, painting and bathrooms in the winters. Last spring, we brought it back around to aviation, though when we replaced a dilapidated old one-car garage with a brand new aircraft manufacturing hangar.

The old garage was an eyesore. The previous homeowner had warned me, "Don't put anything in there... there are wild animals in there." It may as well have been a beehive or mouse den; it was hardly a decent place to build an airplane. It was barely big enough for a single car. The concrete slab it was on had a severe fissure down the middle and ants had permeated much of the structural wood in one corner. Many years of overgrowth by the surrounding shrubs and trees led to rot on the siding and a roof that was at the end of it's useful live. In order to minimize the expense of removing the structure I carefully dismantled it, cleaned up the serviceable materials and used them to build an over-sized garden shed.

The new garage is twenty four feet wide by 32 feet deep. The walls were going to be 9 feet in height, to provide for an 8 foot door but I couldn't bear to throw away a foot of wood from each of the 10 foot studs. So the walls are almost 11 feet, after the double top and sill plates. It's big. There's room for both cars, all of the bikes quite a bit of other junk. And best of all, there's still room for a very comfortable airplane building shop along the back.

It took me from early Spring 2006 until the snow flew in November to go from foundation to nailing the last cedar shingle to the exterior. I built it almost entirely by myself. I had some help in lifting the larger walls and a couple of good crews came and worked for beer when it was time to install the trusses and later, shingling the roof and outside walls. The best tool to come along in construction has got to be the framing nailer. That tool alone saved me scores of hours and allowed me to do many things alone that would have taken 2 people. If you're going to build a garage I suggest getting one of these.

The floor is done in 2 part epoxy for easy cleaning. Before I insulate and button up the walls with drywall, I'll have run 4 power circuits and 2 light circuits. I'll also have 220 volt power available for my compressor. It gets cold up here in Northern Vermont so heat will be a necessity. The original plan was to install a wood stove but I think a more practical approach is going to be a kerosene heater. Easy on, easy off and quick heating.

I plan to go with movable shelving and modular workbenches (on wheels, preferably). I don't really know what the most efficient configuration will be for building but I believe it will be hard to go wrong with a flexible layout. And I want to keep it clean. Probably not Rudi Greyling clean but pretty clean. I want it to be more like we are parking our cars in my workshop than I have a workshop in our garage.

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