The question I have been asking myself these days is whether it is smarter to build a carport or a garage? My wife and I recently bought a ranch style house on 3/4s of an acre. The house is perfect for us but there isn’t a sheltered area for our cars. The harsh Island winters make this a fairly startling oversight. The lack of such a structure didn’t hinder us as the price of the house was great.

Now that we have moved in we have approximately 2 months to get the construction done before the snow flies. Of course 2 months is plenty of time to build such a structure but we have to make some important decisions before we can break ground.

So first is deciding whether we want/need a garage. Of course, most would say that a garage should be your first choice if you have the time and budget. But I’m not so convinced. The thing is that I think we could build a closed carport, essentially this will be a carport with partial or full walls on some or all sides. The better half is pretty convinced that a garage is the better option, whereas I think a carport will be sufficient plus give us a few advantages that are not so obvious.

No matter what, a carport is going to be cheaper, easier and faster to build. Building a closed carport will add a bit of time and cost, and might be a good compromise. Adding a structure to the property is going to raise my property taxes, and a garage will cost more in taxes. Perhaps not a significant amount per month, but in the grand scheme, it may be significant by the time we want to retire and we could have put that money into rrsps. One more pro for a carport in my opinion is the simplicity of it, meaning we probably won’t pack it full of junk and clutter like we might do with a garage.

My wife is drawn to the security of the garage. She likes the idea that her car and its contents are secure but she also likes the idea of storing items like bicycles and Christmas decorations in a secure garage. There will be access from the structure into the house through a side door off the kitchen. She thinks the kitchen will be too cold if the side door is used to access a carport. She might be right.

We know we need to get something up to keep the snow off the cars this winter and time is running out. Either a garage or a carport would serve the basic need for weather protection (for us and the cars), the only thing left before we start constructing one or the other is to decide whether the extra benefits of a garage are worth the extra time and money.