Garage Dimensions

By Meg Escott

On this garage dimensions page we’ll kick off with garage door dimensions by taking a look at a few car dimensions and thinking about what size garage door is best. Then we’ll cover the garage sizes for single, double and triple garages with double and single doors. We’ll round off with a discussion on garage height.

This page is part of the garage design series.

Let’s start by stating the obvious, the usability of your garage with respect to your car depends on the size of your car. So if you have a mini, your garage can be mini, and if you have a Dodge Ram your garage needs to be Rambo sized.

The size of your garage needs to be sufficient to accommodate your car (or cars) and give you room to open the doors without damaging the paint work and walk around the car without bruising your knees on the bumpers.

But first thing’s first – you’ve got to be able to get your ride into the garage through the door. Let’s take a look at some vehicle vital statistics.

When you’re looking at car dimensions, find the width
dimension that includes the wing mirrors. Car companies often quote
wheel base and width without the wing mirrors as well. And then maybe
check to see whether or not the wing mirrors fold in, and if they fold
in easily (and I mean with the press of a button inside the car) then you
can use that dimension for thinking about your minimum garage door width.

Mini

width – 6ft 4ins / 1.9m
length – 12ft 2ins / 3.7m
height – 4ft 5ins / 1.4m

Ford Mondeo

width – 6ft 10ins / 2.1m
length – 16ft / 4.9m
height – 4ft 10ins / 1.5m

Dodge Ram

width (with mirrors) – 8ft 7ins / 2.6m
width (mirrors folded) – 7ft / 2.1m
length – 19ft 10ins / 6m
height – 6ft 6ins / 2m

I’ve drawn up the garages on this page with 9ft / 2.7m wide doors. This is the minimum size and you can see from the car dimensions above that that’s fine for standard cars. If you own a truck or an SUV you’ll probably find a 10ft / 3m wide door more comfortable.

Now that we’re inside the garage, how about getting ourselves and our stuff out of the car?

To be able to open the average car door in a garage, there needs to be a minimum of 2ft 6ins or 76cm from the car door to the nearest obstruction. That’s to be comfortable.

But hang on a second. You know how there are some tight parking lots out there and you can just about squeeze yourself out of your car? Well if you’re tight on space, and you don’t mind a bit of a squash and a squeeze you will be able to get away wit less door clearance.

Check how much door clearance you need for your car.

So let’s start with a single garage. Everything on the diagram below is pretty self explanatory.

width – 12ft / 3.65m minimum
length – 20ft / 6m minimum
door width – 9ft / 2.7m minimum

The minimum dimensions are sufficient for our mini and our Ford Mondeo but the Ram wouldn’t fit in there.

When it comes to double garages there are two configurations that come immediately to mind. A double garage with one door and a double garage with two doors.

I can appreciate that aesthetically two single doors may be preferable but on balance I’d go for a double door. It’s less expensive, particularly if you want your garage doors motorized and with no central pillar in the garage entrance it’s one less piece of masonry that might jump out and scrape the car.

No matter what door configuration you choose the following recommended minimum double garage sizes apply.

width – 22ft / 6.7m minimum
length – 20ft / 6m minimum
door width – 9ft / 2.7m minimum (single garage door width)
door width – 16ft / 4.8m minimum (double garage door width)

With triple garages the obvious door set ups are three single doors, or a double door and a single door.

Again the door configuration makes no difference to the minimum recommended dimensions.

width – 31ft / 9.4m minimum
length – 20ft / 6m minimum
door width – 9ft / 2.7m minimum (single garage door width)
door width – 16ft / 4.8m minimum (double garage door width)

Typically garage ceilings are slightly less high than an interior room. Minimum recommended garage height is 7ft / 2.1m. A garage of height 8ft / 2.4m feels slightly more generous.