Cheap Garages, the Dummy Version

This is an A-frame, Judi

At least here in North America, most people who own A) their own home and B) own a car, park that car in a garage. Well, they do if the garage isn't so full of stuff that they can't get the car in. Whatever the case, if you don't have a garage and want to build one, you'll naturally be interested in "How to Build Your Own Garage for Cheap." If so, we certainly advise that you studiously avoid the post on the topic by Judi Light Hopson at Sapling.com.

Hopson may well be qualified to blather for a while in her area of expertise, but we're here to tell you that Judi's area most assuredly is not construction. That's readily apparent in her introduction, when she blithely suggests that her readers,

"Design a garage to build inexpensively by constructing a one-car structure with an A-frame roof pitched to harmonize with your home's existing roof line."

Right away, Hopson's ideas are suspect: they're suspect because it's quite clear that Hopson is confused about just what A-frame construction is. Suffice it to say that, unless your house is already an A-frame, an A-frame garage isn't going to "harmonize" with it!

Judi Light goes on to rattle off  five steps to building your garage, very little of which would make sense to a builder. Here are a few of Hopson's faux pas:

• "Use four-inch concrete nails to secure 2 x 8 boards (lying flat capping the block perimeter) to the [cinder] blocks." – Ummm, no, Judi, you don't use concrete nails to attach the sill (that's what this is called) to cinder block. You'll probably want to use J-bolts...
• "Frame the garage walls with 2 x 8 lumber..." – Excuse us, Judi, but why frame with 2 x 8s? They cost at least twice as much as 2 x 4s. So much for "cheap"!
• "Nail exterior masonry siding into place to cover the exterior. Secure siding with 4-inch stainless steel flat-head screws." – Which is it, Judi, nails or screws? HINT: a 2-inch stainless steel screw costs about 30¢...
• "Install roofing and surrounding materials. Install 1/2-inch exterior-grade plywood to cover the roof and box in overhangs. Nail shingles into place." – Ummm, you forgot the roofing felt
• "A corrugated hose material attached to top guttering can serve as a downspout." – WTF does that even mean?
• "Hang the garage door on hinges after you've installed extra framing at the door opening to hold the weight of the door." – As often happens, Hopson's confused about the purpose of a header... but, then, few (if any) garage doors are installed on hinges, anyway.

The original version at eHow.com (before Leaf moved this post to Sapling) had some other pretty interesting ideas, such as,

"Cut the price of roofing by using recycled tin you've painted. If your local building codes aren't strict, you can roof the garage with corrugated plastic sheets." – Tin? Is she nuts? We wouldn't suggest using corrugated plastic anywhere there's the possibility of a hailstorm...

Back in olden days when eHow.com let people rate their dreck, this content was rated one star. And no, we aren't the ones who rated it. Apparently someone else noticed that although Hopson had no business pretending she knew how to build a garage, she does make a fine Dumbass of the Day.

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DDIY - CONSTRUCTION