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Comment by jessaustin | Hacker News Reader

Attached garages are really a terrible misfeature, which will be emblematic for future generations (as they already are for those overseas) of our poor taste and judgement. No matter how ugly the house, it would be a lot more pleasant without the garage. In addition to the dangers cited here, garages make houses less effective at their primary purposes: controlling the movement of air, moisture, and heat. The garage door itself is a big part of that, since every time it opens and closes it opens the house completely to the outdoors. Automobiles bring moisture, dirt, heat, and noxious chemicals into the garage and thence into the house. I've never rented a house and been sorry there was no attached garage. If I ever build my own house it won't have one either.

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I live in a house with an attached garage. Opening the garage door does NOT leave the rest of the house exposed to the outdoors, as there's a door which leads to the inside of the house (and it's the same construction as the front door).

Secondly, it's about a 50/50 chance in our neighborhood that the garage will be used to store vehicles. The other half of the time I've seen garages used for general storage, or for a workshop of some kind (my girlfriend has a ton of wood working equipment in the garage).

I completely disagree with you. It's an enormous convenience in poor weather, with very minor risks that are easily mitigated (I can't believe there is anyone that doesn't have a CO detector and smoke detector at least on every floor, it should be illegal not to have them) and they can be very easily insulated. I have had both and I'd never have a place without a garage or carport.

Where I live, Santa Cruz, it's against the building code to insulate the garage lest it get converted into an unpermitted extra room.

Speaking from experience here.

That law would have more teeth in Maine.

Insulation matters with heat too.

That law would have more teeth in Texas, then.

This forum has a lot of Californians, who either never have or at least no longer regularly feel 30F. Let alone -20F.

Also, as of 2011-ish, CO detectors are required by law in CA if you have an attached garage, a fireplace, or gas heat.

I'd also trade it for open space on my lot (since usually the attached garage has less driveway & structure footprint). But your point is well taken.

> The garage door itself is a big part of that, since every time it opens and closes it opens the house completely to the outdoors. Automobiles bring moisture, dirt, heat, and noxious chemicals into the garage and thence into the house.

...Are you aware that there's a door between a house and its attached garage, much like the one between the front of the house and the street outside?

Your description sounds like you think garage doors open directly onto the living room.

Welcome to the internet, where opinions and guess-timates are spewed as fact behind a veil of anonymity.

No, I've lived in, remodeled, repaired, and torn down houses with attached garages. It's possible to build them so that the house in general will have problems before the garage starts causing its own problems. It's common not to build them so.

Also I never had an attached garage when I lived in Boston, Denver, and in the Colorado Rockies, so I'm not so sympathetic to this "oh, it's cold!" argument.

So all of your arguments about attached garages are actually about poorly designed attached garages?

You could have saved a lot of time if you'd said that in the first place.

Many places in North America, it is forbidden to park a car on your property in front of your house except on a driveway leading to a garage. The result — unsurprising to anyone except an urban ‘planner’ — is houses whose face is almost entirely garage.

Huh, interesting. I've never actually known this. I live in an extremely rural area (300 people population, only ever lived in a larger city curing college) and it's pretty common for cars to be parked wherever (one of mine has been parked in the lawn diagonally for sale.) Never made the connection.

Isnt that mainly because of HOA regulations? They are very prevelant in newer neighborhoods.

No, many municipalities have it as law.

You're speaking in some kind of holier-than-thou tone of voice, I don't think you're seeing the full picture here. Do you have a car? Do you live in an area that gets bad weather from time to time? Do you even own a house?

Try living where it's freezing rain, snow and what not every year for a significant part of the year. Garage is damn awesome.

They're quite a nice feature for areas which contain "seasons".

Garages are fantastic when you own a car, but I agree it’s nicer to have them as a separate structure.

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