Garage Weight Calculator: Estimate How Much Your Garage Weighs

Looking to find out how much your garage weighs?

Maybe you’re looking to move it, extend your garage, or are simply thinking:

“Man, how much does that whole thing even weigh?!”

Well, you’re in the right place.

I’ve put together a quick calculator to estimate how much a garage weighs. All you need are the following inputs:

  • How much area (in square feet) the garage is
  • The length of exterior and interior walls (for the case of an attached garage)
  • The length of garage doors (a single door is typically 8ft wide, double is 16ft)
  • The type of exterior wall
  • The roof material, and slope

For a quick summary, the average garage weighs between 25-60,000 lbs. A garage’s weight greatly depends on its area, height, and construction materials. For a more accurate estimate, use our garage weight calculator below.

garage door
Read on to calculate how much your garage weighs!

Calculate How Much Your Garage Weighs

If you’re wondering, I’m the author and am a qualified Civil Engineer.

While there are no specific engineering codes for garages, I put this calculator together using the American Society of Civil Engineer’s (ASCE) Design Guide. Specifically Chapter 3: Design Loads for Residential Buildings.

Please bear in mind these numbers are estimated, but the calculator should give you a reasonably accurate ballpark figure on how much your garage weighs. Note that the values are on the conservative side – in other words, your actual garage will probably be a little lighter than what we predict.

Garage Weight Estimator: Calculation Guideline

If you’re wondering how my garage weight calculator calculator works, I’ll walk you through the main aspects.

Whether to satisfy your curiosity or simply let you check my numbers – everything is laid out below.

Dead Loads

An empty garage is made up of dead loads.

‘Dead loads’ refer to any weight that won’t change between the construction and demolition of a building. Think walls, floors, beams, and other structural components.

I estimate the weight of the roof and walls using Table 3.2. of the ASCE Design Guide:

ASCE Design Guide Table 3.2
Dead loads assumed in the calculator above

However, what’s different here from our house weight calculator is the floor loads.

I don’t know many garages that have wooden or tile floors! Instead, I assume a standard concrete flooring, which weighs approximately 18 lbs per square foot.

Since interior walls can be assumed to be 6 lbs per square foot, it means this calculator can also give you loads for both attached (exterior + interior walls) and detached (exterior walls only) garages.

Live Loads

As you might expect, ‘Live Loads’ are any amount of weight that can change throughout the life of a building.

The obvious one here is the weight of your cars, but you also have other furniture to consider – and even the possibility of snow on the roof.

Live loads are included in the calculator, but the final result is shown with and without them. This is for those of you who are looking to have your garage moved.

I assumed you’d want to take out your cars and tools before the whole garage is lifted up into the air!

Per the code’s Table 3.4, a garage’s live load is assumed to be 50 lbs per square foot.

Table 3.4 ASCE Design Guide
Live loads assumed in the ASCE design guide

How Much Does A Garage Door Weigh?

This question came up a few times in my research for this post.

It’s easy enough to estimate the load of a wall or roof based on its material, but how much do we assume a garage door weighs?

I tallied up several listings from stores that included weights with their garage doors and found that garage doors weighed approximately 20 lbs per ft of door.

Here’s the data I collected, with links to the products (unaffiliated):

BrandWidthStyleInsulated?Windows?WeightLink
Clopay8ftClassicNoNo112<a href=”https://www.homedepot.com/p/Clopay-Classic-Collection-8-ft-x-7-ft-Non-Insulated-White-Garage-Door-HDB/100045413″> Link </a>
Clopay16ftClassicNoNo216<a href=”https://www.homedepot.com/p/Clopay-Classic-Collection-16-ft-x-7-ft-Non-Insulated-Solid-White-Garage-Door-HDB-SW-SOL/204598371″> Link </a>
Clopay16ftCarriage HouseYesYes203<a href=”https://www.homedepot.com/p/Clopay-Gallery-Collection-16-ft-x-7-ft-6-5-R-Value-Insulated-Ultra-Grain-Walnut-Garage-Door-with-SQ22-Window-GR1LP-WO-SQ22/204598538″> Link </a>
Ideal Door8ftClassicYesNo206<a href=”https://www.menards.com/main/doors-windows-millwork/exterior-doors/garage-doors-openers/garage-doors/ideal-door-reg-traditional-white-insulated-w1-windcode-garage-doors/9x7mdp68u-w1ezsetwh4254720/p-1444433955870-c-12358.htm?tid=6149130504097059035&ipos=3″> Link </a>
Ideal Door16ftClassicYesNo471<a href=”https://www.menards.com/main/doors-windows-millwork/exterior-doors/garage-doors-openers/garage-doors/ideal-door-reg-traditional-white-insulated-w1-windcode-garage-doors/9x7mdp68u-w1ezsetwh4254720/doors-windows-millwork/exterior-doors/garage-doors-openers/garage-doors/ideal-door-reg-traditional-white-insulated-w1-windcode-garage-doors/16x7mdp68u-w1ezsetwh4254725/doors-windows-millwork/exterior-doors/garage-doors-openers/garage-doors/ideal-door-reg-traditional-white-insulated-w1-windcode-garage-doors/16x8mdp68u-w1ezsetwh4254727/p-1444433852127.htm”> Link </a>
Ideal Door8ftClassicNoNo190<a href=”https://www.menards.com/main/doors-windows-millwork/exterior-doors/garage-doors-openers/garage-doors/ideal-door-reg-traditional-white-insulated-w1-windcode-garage-doors/9x7mdp68u-w1ezsetwh4254720/p-1444433955870-c-12358.htm?tid=6149130504097059035&ipos=3″> Link </a>

How Much Does It Cost To Move A Garage?

When we think of House Movers, we think of those massive trucks hauling an entire house down a road.

house/garage on a moving truck
Have you ever seen a garage or house being moved?

Ever seen this on your street? It’s pretty crazy!

However, house movers also often get asked to move garages. Either as a part of an already planned house move, or a separate project.

On average, it costs between $2-4,000 to move your garage as part of a house-moving project. If you only want your garage moved, the cost increases to around $5,000 or over. The price depends on the size of the garage, the materials it’s constructed out of, the proximity to other buildings, and the ground it’s sitting on.

Conclusion

I hope this quick guide has helped give you some solid estimates about how much your garage weighs.

Remember – while the calculator is based on estimations, these tend to be worst-case figures. This means the estimation we give you here is likely more than the actual garage weight, so should be safe to give to contractors as an estimate.

If this content has helped you, please consider supporting us by checking out our related articles below – or picking up the free eBook in the sidebar!

Thanks for reading – have a great day.

-Craig

I've been helping homeowners with appliance repair since 2016. Starting out as an enthusiastic amateur, I've since worked with many Appliance, HVAC, and DIY experts over the last 7+ years. My mission is to help fix your appliances and prevent future issues - saving you stress, time, and money. Visit my author page to learn more! Read more
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