Attached vs detached garages in Houston (West: insurance, house, transfer)

[texas7]

Lots if the older homes have detached garages while most newer ones (in tract housing) seen to have attached. What are the pros and cons of each? I prefer attached but have never had detached before and seems that most olders areas I am looking at now are detached.

[cheryjohns]

It takes a large lot to have a detached garage and have any sort of backyard left. Lots are smaller now for equivalent sized homes - therefore the attached garage.

Insurance is sometimes cheaper with a detached. Less threat of a fire affecting the house. Neighborhoods in general are prettier - garages all set off in the back - not all out there in your face. Much longer driveways.

It's more convenient with an attached, dragging in groceries, etc.

[HoustonBornNRaised]

Some people consider attached garages to be safer, from the standpoint that you don't have to walk from your garage to the house. In an attached garage, you can pull in, shut the door, and boom, you're pretty much inside. Back in the early 90's, I built a house that was planned based off of prior owner wish-lists. Mine was the first to be built. It had an attached garage, but it was set back, to give the detached look. Apparently a lot of people liked the detached look, but wanted the safety and convenience of it being attached.

BTW, fire can travel down the breezeway of a detached garage, and enter the house. The breezeway needs to be inspected, to make sure fireblocking is in place.

[trbstang]

Ditto on the above. About 70-80% of the homes in our neighborhood are detached, and it does give a much cleaner look since most of the visible cars are in the driveways by the garage and not stacked up all along the street. I really don't like homes with front garages, especially in a $200K+ neighborhood. IMO it just detracts from the look. But luckily most of our neighbors park their cars in their garages. Our street of 20 homes has 6 attached garages, but two of them are side loading so they don't look like garages with an attached home.

Way back in the day I designed my own dream home for if I ever got rich, and it was like the one HoustonBornNRaised mentioned. It was basically a detached 3 car garage, but the front corner of the garage was attached to the back corner of the house, giving you the benefits of both attached and detached garages.

True about the breezeway and fire. Our neighbor's garage burned down about 5 years ago, and even though it had a fireblock, the smoke traveled into the main house. Everything in the house was damaged by the smoke. The insurance & fire inspectors told me to buy the fire rated spray foam and totally seal off the holes cut in the blocking for the electrical wiring to keep it from happening if our garage ever caught on fire.

In my experience living in our house for about 15 yrs, there was only maybe 5 or 6 times where I would have liked an attached garage. It is a pain running from the garage in driving rain, as the breezeway does not protect you from it totally. Regular rain is OK.

Good luck on your search!

[PedroMartinez]

I prefer detached mainly due to the fact that in Houston, you are cooling your home most of the year. So driving a car into your attached garage where that heat dissipates into the ceiling and walls of your home is counter productive to your ac. Yes, the ceiling and walls should be properly insulated, but more than likely you'll still have some heat transfer through.

Additionally, I like the look of a home that doesn't have a big garage door on the front of it. I think it looks better.

[gwarnecke]

Prefer detached if side entrance is an option or if plenty of land is available. On most tight-ish city or suburban lots, the driveway required for a rear detached garage eats up a lot of space, and the garage may take up half of the backyard. For some of the new builds in West U, you'll actually find second-floors that stick out 3-4 feet out over a long, narrow driveway running down the property line on one side of the house. Looks almost as bad as a front-entrance attached garage IMO.

My favorite scenario is rear-entrance attached garage with access via alleyway. You end up with a nice, clean front facade, fewer cars and less traffic in front of the house, and you can get away with putting out your garbage cans in the alleyway a few days early so that they don't stink up your garage. Unfortunately, alleyways are rare in Houston. Southampton, the Heights, and Fleetwood are the only neighborhoods I'm aware of that have them.

[travelguy_73]

Originally Posted by test icicle

Attached with a "port cochere" is a good alternative, park your hot car under the porte, roll in after it cools or just leave it if you're too lazy or the garage is too messy. Also the garage is set back and doesn't share an elevation with the front and you get to keep green space out back.

I love the look you are referring to. It was popular in the 50s and 60s, but I don't see it as much now. It gives extra covered parking, plus the garage recedes into the shadows, further minimizing its presence.

I love having a detached garage, but over time, these do tend to suffer from deferred maintenance and so decline faster than the house itself. You see this a lot in old neighborhoods, where the garages are falling apart. I don't know if a new hardiplank-sided garage would suffer the same fate, but likely so over time.

[nervouslaughter]

Originally Posted by gwarnecke

...My favorite scenario is rear-entrance attached garage with access via alleyway. You end up with a nice, clean front facade, fewer cars and less traffic in front of the house, and you can get away with putting out your garbage cans in the alleyway a few days early so that they don't stink up your garage. Unfortunately, alleyways are rare in Houston. Southampton, the Heights, and Fleetwood are the only neighborhoods I'm aware of that have them.

That's what I have. Love it. I'm in Cottage Grove, but it's pretty much a rarity nowadays.

[fordlover]

Originally Posted by gwarnecke

Prefer detached if side entrance is an option or if plenty of land is available. On most tight-ish city or suburban lots, the driveway required for a rear detached garage eats up a lot of space, and the garage may take up half of the backyard. For some of the new builds in West U, you'll actually find second-floors that stick out 3-4 feet out over a long, narrow driveway running down the property line on one side of the house. Looks almost as bad as a front-entrance attached garage IMO.

My favorite scenario is rear-entrance attached garage with access via alleyway. You end up with a nice, clean front facade, fewer cars and less traffic in front of the house, and you can get away with putting out your garbage cans in the alleyway a few days early so that they don't stink up your garage. Unfortunately, alleyways are rare in Houston. Southampton, the Heights, and Fleetwood are the only neighborhoods I'm aware of that have them.

I like our setup best. Corner lot, home faces the front (obviously) and the detached 3 car garage faces the side street. We do have about 11,000 sq. ft. of lot, plenty of yard.

I'd never be happy with an Alleyway as we have a fairly large trailer that we park next to the garage. I'd be difficult to do that from a typical alleyway.

[HookTheBrotherUp]

I've had both, but I prefer detached for the reasons everyone else mentioned... it just looks nicer. After my last home, I wondered why I never noticed how horrible, and cheap a house looks with a huge garage door that takes up either half, or one third of the facade in the past.

When you add years to the house, and then see the concrete stains, maybe oil stains, in front of that big ass door, the house and neighborhood begin to look cheap, no matter the cost. About the only exceptions is when it is out of site, like the back of the house, or inset on the side where you cannot see it, not the ones that are sideways, but still in front of the house.

It would not surprise me if some reading these posts will begin to notice the same thing, though they've never given it one thought in the past.