Building a golf cart or 1 car Garage
 

We are thinking about adding a garage to our house. The previous owners had plans drawn up. It was approved but they never built it.Is it cost prohibitive?

There a few previous threads on this if I recall there was a wide range $20k to $40k. Do not rely on previous approval, these run out after 6 months, so plan on getting a new approval. If you have the the previous plans, you can use this for getting 2 or 3 bids for your project.
Hope this works out for you.
PS, if you are planning on widening the driveway there is a separate permit and approval needed, these are NOT from the building department, this was from the roads department (been there done that).

Garage
 

We had T & D do ours. They did a great job and did all the permits. Small golf cart garage is going to cost around $23,000.

T&D is great but their prices are INSANE if cost is an issue. Make sure you get at least 3 estimates. We widened our garage 4' a year or so ago to go from a 1 1/2 to 2 car (there was not enough space to add a GC garage) and the estimates went from 20K up to way more than 40K (the 40K+ was TD). At that time they were nearly a year out to start work. This might be a good time to have it done by whomever you pick. We obviously chose the 20K contractor and all went well (other than time to complete the job - it took way too long but for the savings it was worth it). A neighbor behind us had a GC garage done a few months before our work and he SAID it cost him "under $10K" which is what I would really have preferred.

Hard to compare without specifications.....so suggest you make sure you write the specifications so everyone bids on the same thing. Logic would indicate a price spread of under 10K - 40K is not possible if the specs are the same.

Our ranges was $25k to $40k for a full size garage. Regarding the PS.....I believe the approval is only needed if the driveway widening goes all the way to the street.

The $10K was a neighbors golf-cart garage as was noted. My $20-$40K was a WIDENING of the garage. The specs were easy ... bump out the left side of the house by exactly 4 feet going back 25 feet. There wasn't many construction options available. The $40K (T&D) IMO was a "we really don't want the job" quote. The other 2 quotes were $20K and an "about" $25-$27K. Actually my wife reminded me of another "quote" we got around $35K but that was B.S. and a story in itself from another "well known" local guy.

That does not necessarily add $23,000 of value to your house

We did one!
 

We added a golf cart garage added in 2016 and it was $21k. We added it to the opposite side of the entryway and made the connection through the lanai. There are only a few homes in the villages with this unique look and we think it’s great. It also allowed us to make it big enough for two carts. Feel free to check it out at 3246 Islawild Way. Oh....it was done by Advanced Construction and Remodeling. Good luck....

Call Jerome’s Masonry. He did ours. You will note it is expensive for sall jobs in TV

you need to look at this a couple of ways:

#1 what is the personal satisfaction that you'll gain if you have a garage (i.e. what are you presently tolerating that you won't have to anymore)

#2 find out from a Real Estate professional what the impact will be to the resale value
this will give you an idea on your ROI (also get their thoughts on whether the design is going to increase or decrease the 'curb appeal for your property)

#3 find out what the impact will be to your home insurance and real estate taxes

Good luck

We got 4 estimates and chose Blackburn construction. Figure 20 to 30,000 or more depending on what you want. 352-821-0165. Tell them Tom Zumbrook refereed you. He has done many jobs in our neighborhood. Did a great job and on schedule

Don’t wait, you will be happy when it’s done.
Xcel construction did our garage, 16x16, over 5 years ago. Added to a Amarillo ranch. Cost was in line with other estimates. They did all the plans and permits.

I think two or three bids makes a lot of sense. I would suggest that one with whom you should speak is Demetri Homes (I think it's 352-895-5555). Jim and Demetri redid our home and while they were not the least expensive I'm convinced that there were the best.

T&D Is Great!
 

Again there are critics of T&D here saying they’re too expensive. I have used them on several large projects and I would never use anyone else! You definitely get what you pay for.

Unless the demand has changed, T&D will not only quote a premium price, but they’ll also tell you they may not be able to begin work for a month or two. Other contractors will get your name on the dotted line, show up for a day or two then disappear off and on. Maddening.

T&D may not start for a month or two but once they do they work every day until the job is complete. The quality of their work is superb and they’re very conscious of damaging your neighbors property or inconveniencing them. When they finish they completely clean up your property. In my case the did a project in the rear of our house and they even replaced and leveled all the sod which had been damaged by construction traffic over the lawn.

From a quality standpoint they don’t emphasize it but they commit themselves to never having a dissatisfied customer. They proved that in my case when they built a large extension to the birdcage over a new spa they built. I knew there had been a code change for birdcage structures and we discussed that I did not want to see 2/3 of the structure look one way and the new part look different because of code changes.

Their engineer came up with a design which would eliminate any visible differences. Unfortunately their project manager failed to communicate the new design to the construction crew. We weren’t home when they built the extension to the new code. It looked different as I knew it would and I was furious. The president of the T&D division came out the next day, a Sunday morning, and after explaining the mistake they had made told me not to worry, they would tear down the entire birdcage and re-build it completely. It was a big birdcage.

Their crew was out the next morning to start and the new birdcage was up in a matter of less than a week.

That’s what you call customer satisfaction. And that’s why you pay a little more for T&D to do your project. Personally, I wouldn’t even solicit other bids!