Van's Air Force
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What size hangar is enough?
- Thread starter Vince Koehn
- Start date
flyeyes
Well Known Member
Eric, welcome aboard the good ship VAF
There aint no such things as "big enough" when talking hangars.
What he said.
I'd go at least 42' wide if you can. You may not always have an RV-10, and the next owner may have something different. A lot of GA singles and light twins have wingspans pushing 40'. My first hangar was 42 feet wide, with columns reducing effective width to about 40. It was very tight for a Cessna 337, and later a Cirrus SR22. doable, but you had to be very careful.
Current hangar has a 60 foot door, we'd have wider if we could.
turbo
Well Known Member
Like a friend at an air park said a few years ago, if I was to do it again it would of been bigger. The rule would be: if you put it in here, I can fly it. Good luck with your dream hangar. this is 2,000sf, 45' wide, 14' tall, 60' deep, back door is great in hot florida, all ill ever need. flying rotorcraft really helps. erecti-tube, electric bifold door.
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Building codes in western Washington are getting tougher. The contractor that assembled my 60 x 60 hangar had quite a bit of trouble, and told me that this was probably the last 60 x 60 residential hangar to be permitted in Lewis County.
My son called his an Ag Building, that passed. The neighbor down the runway is building a smaller hangar, and regulations have increased the snow load, and require a thicker slab.
They wouldn't allow my home to be joined to the hangar. 25 feet minimum separation. Dang, I wanted to look down from my bedroom at my plane
My advice: Start early and build as big as you can, you will never regret it.
Like Humpybump, my hangar is a Butler steel building. My son has a steel sided pole bulding with wood poles & roof trusses. It came out very nice too.
My son called his an Ag Building, that passed. The neighbor down the runway is building a smaller hangar, and regulations have increased the snow load, and require a thicker slab.
They wouldn't allow my home to be joined to the hangar. 25 feet minimum separation. Dang, I wanted to look down from my bedroom at my plane
My advice: Start early and build as big as you can, you will never regret it.
Like Humpybump, my hangar is a Butler steel building. My son has a steel sided pole bulding with wood poles & roof trusses. It came out very nice too.
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az_gila
Well Known Member
Check the depth increments needed for the large middle beam.
In our area (no snow load) the max major beam increment is 25 ft. Since you essentially buy the building by the weight of the steel, a 40 ft deep building isn't much less than a 50 ft deep building on the steel prices.
You can see the size, and hence the weight, of the beam in Rosie's picture at the beginning of this thread -
In my case the big custom beams were welded in Houston and shipped to Arizona while the rest of the beams and sheeting are standard items and were stocked in Phoenix, keep my shipping costs down.
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rbibb
Well Known Member
Regarding BCs and such. I forget dimensions but in jurisdiction I was looking (rural VA County) above a certain size (maybe 50x50 or so) you were required to have commercial sprinkler system installed, etc.
My advice is build as big as you can afford as I've never heard anyone complain their hangar was too big. If your plane gets lonely I'm sure it can invite friends over for sleepovers.
My advice is build as big as you can afford as I've never heard anyone complain their hangar was too big. If your plane gets lonely I'm sure it can invite friends over for sleepovers.
The 'afford' is the problem as it isn't a lot at the moment. I'm just trying to make sure that what I do build is sufficient for 1 plane. In the future I can build another hangar on the 5 acres if space becomes a problem.
az_gila
Well Known Member
We negotiated a 3600 sq ft limit that can have a reduced residential sprinkler system, any larger and a full commercial sprinkler system is needed.
The discussions went on for a long time...
If you have a full flow fire hydrant nearby you probably don't need sprinklers.
We negotiated a 3600 sq ft limit that can have a reduced residential sprinkler system, any larger and a full commercial sprinkler system is needed.
The discussions went on for a long time...
If you have a full flow fire hydrant nearby you probably don't need sprinklers.
The fire hydrant is on my lot, less than 300' from the proposed house and hangar.
az_gila
Well Known Member
brad walton
Well Known Member
42 wide by 36 deep 14 high with three sliding track doors so the entire 42 foot width is available and could house a Baron. Holds my RV8 withplenty to spare. More space equals more junk accumulated.
i can't tell you how big is too big but i can tell you what is not too small.my 27' wing highwing is in a 30-40 hangar and i have no need for anything bigger.
AND in the rear corner i have a 10' x 10' shop that i use a lot. drill press, bandsaw, grinder, enough hand tools to build another airplane, microwave, enough 20 amp breakers for space heaters to get it from 10 below to 60 deg. in 20 minutes.
i live 40 minutes from the airport and i stay 1/2 a day several days a week so this hangar has all the stuff i need. i have never needed more floor space but i guess you know the saying ''if ya got it flaunt it''. i could certainly find a use for more space[hopefully not a boat!]. and then of course i can never rent out space as larger hangar owners can.
bob noffs
n. wi.
AND in the rear corner i have a 10' x 10' shop that i use a lot. drill press, bandsaw, grinder, enough hand tools to build another airplane, microwave, enough 20 amp breakers for space heaters to get it from 10 below to 60 deg. in 20 minutes.
i live 40 minutes from the airport and i stay 1/2 a day several days a week so this hangar has all the stuff i need. i have never needed more floor space but i guess you know the saying ''if ya got it flaunt it''. i could certainly find a use for more space[hopefully not a boat!]. and then of course i can never rent out space as larger hangar owners can.
bob noffs
n. wi.
