Electrical & Storage

The electrical service to our garage had two 20 amp circuits for outlets and one 15 amp circuit for lights and the garage door opener.

WARNING: We hired a contractor to do our electrical work. Don't try to do electrical work yourself if you don't have experience.

The electrical contractor performed these steps:

• Installed service panel to wall.
  
• Nailed electrical boxes at outlet, switch and fixture locations -- including a ceiling outlet for the garage door opener.
• Drilled holes through wall studs and plates and fished through electrical wire.
• Created a loop at each box to form two leads.
• Hooked up switches, outlets, fixtures and equipped each circuit with a Ground-fault Interrupter (GFI) required by code. The GFI cuts power to a outlet circuit when it detects an imbalance in power, such as a short caused by moisture.
  
• Tied wires into service panel.

Storage Area

The dimensions of the attic storage area were 24' x 8'. To finish off the floor, 3/4" oriented strand board sheathing was nailed to the bottom truss chords.

The trusses are on 2' centers -- that makes the floor a little spongy -- so we used plywood flooring with tongue-and-groove joints to stiffen the floor.

We used the 3/4" oriented strand board to make knee walls on the sides. The walls help close in the storage area and keep objects from falling and getting shoved back out of site.

To access the area, we installed a pull-down stairway. It was leveled, braced and screwed in place between two bottom truss chords. We had to trim the bottom stringers a bit in order to meet the slab correctly.

1) Planning 5) Roofing and Cupola 2) Footings & Foundation 6) Electrical & Storage 3) Framing Walls 7) Installing a Garage Door 4) Fascia and Soffits 8) Installing a Garage Door Opener