Wait… you people keep cars in your garages?
Well where the heck am I supposed to keep the beer fridge, the big freezer, the drumkit, the firewood, the tools, the pile of cardboard boxes labelled “GARAGE” that nobody’s opened since 1993, the wetsuits, the surfboards, the seven half-empty tins of paint of various colours and the slightly ripped bag of cement?
As has been noted earlier in the thread, this option is less likely to occur now as a result of modern fire codes.
Probably should have checked in earlier. We have an attached garage in the front of our house. A couple of years back we replaced 3 doors - 1. the front door to our house, 2. the door between the garage and our house, and 3. the side exterior-access door to the garage. I remember thinking we could go with just any old cheap door for door #2, but the door salesman (whom I’d done business with before and trusted not to be selling me a bill of goods) told me that my options were limited to certain ones that met the applicable fire code.
Also, I know our town gives builders incentives to put detached cars in the back of the lot. Same with front porches. I think they’ll allow you to build on a greater percentage of your lot, or have a higher roofline or something. My understanding is that it is purely aesthetic, to discourage a row of garage doors facing the street.
Have I mentioned lately how much I dislike my current town?
This is fascinating. This is my first encounter with the term “snout house.” I had to search to find images. It turns out that a “snout house” is in my mind exactly what a suburban, detached, singly-family house ordinarily looks like.
Learn something new !
In my city, whether there is an attached garage or a detached garage usually depends on what kind of streets the neighborhood has.
If there are alleys (more common in older neighborhoods where the streets and avenues form a grid), then most of the time there is a detached garage behind the house. example from google maps
If there are no alleys (mostly in new neighborhoods with curving roads/lanes/cul de sacs/etc… then there are attached garages on the front of the house. example from google maps.
The main reason we have a detached garage is so our teenage son can practice his drums without disturbing us
Whoa! Missed this first time through. Portland has turned into Communist Russia? “You will build your house the way we think it should look. Your tastes are irrelevant. You will do as we say.” Sheesh. And to think I griped because my current homeowners association limits me to three horses.
I don’t buy it. If there is no garage attached to the house, it has to have full exterior walls all the way around, and all of the doors need to be exterior-grade. If there is a garage attached, then one of the walls and one of the doors need to be exterior. What, precisely, did you lose? And the garage itself? Attached = build 3 walls. Detached = build 4 walls.
Talk to me of zoning, slopes, aesthetics: these things I understand. Saving money or building because of fire codes? I don’t buy it. As your fine profession says, “Asked and answered. Move on.”
That is the best reason I’ve heard so far. No–that’s the definitive reason. Ignorance fought. Thank you.
Nobody has mentioned heating and cooling. If a garage is attached to a house with only one thermostat, it’s going to be more of an expense heating and cooling it. If a garage is attached to a house with more than one thermostat, there is still going to be hot & cold (and wet) air coming in that has to be temperature regulated.
Detached garages don’t have those problems.
None of my attached garages have had heating & cooling anyway, except for one. It had a single vent with its own shutoff, just to keep the garage above freezing. Pretty cool.
Probably something to do with local ordinance and/or taxes.