I have been in residential construction most of my life since I was a teenager and now that I am farting around with adobe, earthbag, and straw bale construction in Thailand I have found many ways to make construction cheaper.
You can build a garage for cheap by using cheap or free land and materials such as seconds and old inventory from lumberyards, using adobe, earthbags, and straw bales for wall construction, buying wrong-sized windows and doors, and discontinued siding from local hardware stores. And do the labor yourself.
Save Money On Materials
Materials typically cost approximately 50% of the total cost to build a garage, so there is an opportunity to save a lot of money.
Cheap Lumber
The biggest opportunity to save money on lumber is to visit all the lumberyards and hardware stores in a 30 – 40 mile radius. You could call around but that will be a lot less effective and likely end up a failure.
When you get to the gatehouse politely ask the worker if they have any old lumber or building supplies that are/were:
- Weathered studs and plywood or OSB (oriented strand board) and no longer sold
- Set aside as too warped for sale
- Damaged due to forklift and other vehicle accidents
- Pallets for free
- Old trusses that never were delivered
- Damaged exterior doors or old or return stock that has been collecting dust for years
- Windows that were ordered the wrong size. When I managed the renovation division for a hardware store/construction company we had a massive warehouse full of incorrectly ordered windows that were never installed. Same with exterior doors and if anyone walked in with some cash they could get amazing deals.
- Asphalt shingles that have broken bags or are scattered around the shingles yard. It takes some work to pick through them to get all the same brands and colors, but this can save a lot of money.
- Look for old piles of discontinued vinyl siding.
Once you have a list of everything that you could use from each location calculate how much you will offer for the materials. Then ask to see the lumberyard manager and make an offer and try for free delivery too.
Table 1. Comparison of Traditional vs Cheap Garage Costs
This table is for the garage with the following specs:
- 24 x 24′
- 8′ high
- 4/12 pitch with 24” eave and 16” gable overhangs and 30-year asphalt shingles
- vinyl siding (the cheap option it includes either finding cheap siding or using discounted wood boards for vertical or horizontal shiplap siding)
- two windows
- one steel man door
- one vinyl 8’x7′ insulated garage door
- vinyl soffit and aluminum fascia
- no interior finish (insulation, plumbing, electrical, drywall, paint, trim or baseboard)
Item | Traditional ($) | Cheap ($) | Savings ($) |
MATERIALS | |||
Lumber | 1000 | 500 | 500 |
Miscellaneous Lumber | 400 | 200 | 200 |
Roof Trusses | 1200 | 1200 | 0 |
Roofing Materials | 1000 | 500 | 500 |
Soffit & Fascia | 350 | 200 | 150 |
Siding & Accessories | 1000 | 500 | 500 |
Garage Door | 600 | 400 | 200 |
TOTAL | 5550 | 3500 | 2050 |
LABOR | |||
Framing | 1500 | 0 | 1500 |
Roof | 1000 | 0 | 1000 |
Soffit & Fascia | 350 | 0 | 350 |
Siding | 1000 | 0 | 1000 |
Garage Door | 250 | 0 | 250 |
TOTAL | 4100 | 0 | 4100 |
NET | 9650 | 3500 | 6150 |
The cheap options assume that you and your family and friends do all the labor, which is pretty easy for a square garage.
Cheap Garage Foundation
There are a few options to save money on a garage foundation and they include:
- Build a concrete footing and use an earth floor.
- Use a gravel floor.
- Perform your own labor to build the footing and floor concrete forms and install the rebar and wire mesh. Then hire a local small company to place and polish the concrete for the floor. I paid a two-man crew $500 CAD to place and polish garage floors so the total cost is very low for labor.
- Combine the footing and the floor into a thickened slab. In Nova Scotia, these must be designed and approved by an engineer and includes a lot of foam insulation and additional costs when the slab is more than 600 sqft.
To avoid this size. Building two garages might be an option to work around this is you want a larger garage, but if you are reading this article I doubt that is the situation. - Any lumber that you use for framing the concrete forms can be reused to frame the garage, so make sure you use the same width lumber for both (buy 2x4s rather than 2x10s).
Cheap Garage Framing Plan
If you are not finishing the interior, or if R-12 or R-14 insulation is adequate for your garage then you can:
- Use 2 x 4” wall studs rather than 2 x 6”. This saves a lot of money on lumber and insulation costs.
- Frame 24′ OC (on center) rather than the typical 16”.
- If you did not find cheap plywood or OSB then you can dismantle pallets and use the slats for exterior wall sheathing. Make sure the pallet slats have a minimum length of 48”.
- You can also use pallet slats for strapping the underside of the roof trusses. An even easier and free option is to do it like with did in Alberta, no strapping! Fasten the drywall or plywood directly to the trusses.
- The pallet slats can also be used as sheathing for the roof as well if you can find enough free pallets.
- The pallet 4 x 4” can be used as free headers over windows and doors.
- Contact garage door companies and hardware stores and ask them if they have any damaged garage doors. I bet you will find one for half price if you hunt around enough.
Pallet Garage Construction
If you don’t plant to insulate your garage, or only install one (R-5) or two inches (R-10) of rigid foam on the exterior, you can use free pallets to build the walls. Pallets are well built and very strong so they can create a very sturdy wall.
If you get enough free pallets you can also disassemble them and use the slats for strapping the trusses if you are going to use metal roof panels.
Check out the three videos that show a guy building a large barn/garage using this method. He only spent about $500 to get it roof-tight.
Adobe Brick, Earthbag, and Straw Bale Garage Construction Cost
To learn more about natural building methods that are super cheap and strong check out my articles:
- Adobe House With a Tin Roof DIY here.
- Adobe House construction Advantages and Disadvantages here.
- How To Get Earthbags On Walls here.
- Earthen Floor Insulation here.
Item | Traditional ($) | Adobe EB SB ($) | Savings ($) |
MATERIALS | |||
Lumber | 1000 | 50 | 450 |
Miscellaneous Lumber | 400 | 0 | 400 |
Roof Trusses | 1200 | 1200 | 0 |
Roofing Materials | 1000 | 500 | 500 |
Soffit & Fascia | 350 | 200 | 150 |
Siding & Accessories | 1000 | 0 | 1000 |
Garage Door | 600 | 400 | 200 |
TOTAL | 5550 | 3500 | 2700 |
LABOR | |||
Framing | 1500 | 0 | 1500 |
Roof | 1000 | 0 | 1000 |
Soffit & Fascia | 350 | 0 | 350 |
Siding | 1000 | 0 | 1000 |
Garage Door | 250 | 0 | 250 |
TOTAL | 4100 | 0 | 4100 |
NET | 9650 | 3500 | 6150 |
If you have a method, tip, or correction you would like to share please contact me and I will update the article. Please include any contact information that you would like me to include and I will get you a shoutout.