I have just moved into a great new house, with everything that I have wanted, except for one thing. There is no garage. There is not even a carport. Now my wife and I knew that we needed to be able to put the cars under some sort of protection, we are no longer interested in digging the cars out or cleaning them off in the winter everytime we want to go somewhere. Thankfully we got a great deal on the house, so we knew that we could build either a carport or a garage once we took possession.
Now that we have moved in we have approximately 2 months to get the construction done before the snow flies. Of course 2 months is plenty of time to build such a structure but we have to make some important decisions before we can break ground.
The hardest decision for us is choosing between a carport or a garage. Each have their pros and cons. I think if we decided on a carport, we wouldn’t make it a totally open carport. So even though both of our options would include a roof and (some) walls, the difference comes down to one being totally enclosed, whereas the other doesn’t offer quite as much protection.
From my perspective, building a carport would take less time, cost less, and require less effort. On top of extra expense for a garage, there are also some hidden costs. Property taxes will go up regardless of which one I build, but they will go up more if we choose a garage. It might not seem like much of a difference now, but every bit counts, especially if you invest that money. Over the life of a garage, the cost difference is much more than you might initially think. One last pro to building a carport is the fact that we won’t be storing junk in it just because we can – it is much easier to keep a carport tidy and clutter free, because it doesn’t lend itself to storage.
The garage pros include extra security – there is no open access to the vehicle or anything that we store inside, including things like bicycles. The other benefit is also the additional storage – even though there is a chance it will get cluttered, having space to store seasonal items like Christmas decorations actually has a lot of merit. And one last big item for my wife is the protected access to the house that a garage would allow. There would be much less heat loss though a garage doo in the winter, as opposed to a door out to a partially closed in carport.
Both garages and carports have merit. Both structures would add value and functionality to our house. As I said two months is ample time to build either structure but first we need to decide whether to build a carport or a garage.
