100x120 Fleet Maintenance Garage

The estimate at 100x120 moves with four computed quantities: 12,000 square feet of floor, 440 feet of perimeter, 6,160 square feet of wall and 12,369 square feet of roof. Everything else is site and specification. Interior divisions are the last decision that should be fixed, because they are the first one that usually changes.

The oversize provision is what the plan pays for, and it is worth naming as its own line so it survives value engineering. Removing it does not save its area; it moves the problem into the yard.

• the number of lanes and openings the dispatch window needs
• charging or fuelling infrastructure positions
• opening height set by the tallest fleet vehicle
• yard staging area outside the building

This page is ordered around access, because on a 100-foot endwall the opening arrangement settles how a fleet garage at 100x120 is actually used.

The footprint holds 14 vehicle stands — 7 across by 2 deep — and leaves 30 feet of depth for an oversize position for the one vehicle that does not fit the standard stand, kept where its maneuver does not sweep the rows.

Efficiency is the useful number here: 857 square feet of enclosed floor per vehicle stand, against a 448-square-foot module. That is generous — the footprint is doing more than hold modules. Ground conditions and drainage decide the floor before the frame does.

A fleet garage is an operational vehicle facility: it is planned around getting a group of vehicles out on schedule and back again, not around storing them. Density is deliberately loose, because a vehicle blocked in is a vehicle out of service. A 100 by 120 footprint is a mildly directional plan: 12,000 sq ft enclosed by 440 ft of wall, at a 1.2:1 length-to-width proportion. Along its 120 ft dimension it takes 3 runs of vehicle stands at 32 ft, leaving 24 ft over — the 24 ft is where the argument about this size actually happens. A mixed fleet is the hardest case, because a grid sized for the largest vehicle wastes space on the smallest, and a grid sized for the average cannot accept the largest at all. This footprint is planned around the exception: one or two oversize positions, and a regular grid for everything else. A vehicle blocked in by another is out of service for practical purposes, whatever the maintenance record says.

At 100x120 the operating question is a specific one: does the largest vehicle in the fleet dictate the whole grid, or does it get a position of its own? That is a different question from the one a fleet garage of another shape has to answer, and it is why this footprint is planned as a covered yard for a mixed fleet of very different vehicle sizes rather than as generic covered area.

At 100 feet the gable will not comfortably take one opening per vehicle stand: 7 positions with 2 feet spare leaves too little wall for piers. A single wider opening, or a sidewall opening, is the workable route. Plan the exit as carefully as the entrance; buildings are emptied under more time pressure than they are filled.

Opening size is set by the exception and position by the rule. One opening sized for the largest vehicle, placed where its swept path is clear, usually beats two average-sized openings placed conveniently.

At 24-foot nominal bays the structure works with the layout instead of against it: one vehicle stand per bay line, walls free of awkward half-positions. A leftover strip earns its place only when something is deliberately put in it; otherwise it is circulation with a nicer name.

Two-plus rows change the access question entirely. Every rear position at 100x120 needs either its own opening or an aisle, and 2 feet of spare width is what that aisle has to come from. The corner nobody plans for is the one that fills first, which is an argument for planning it.

Extension is cheapest along the 120 ft dimension, where each added bay repeats work already framed; widening past 100 ft is a different frame rather than a longer one. Growing to 100 by 152 adds a 4th run of vehicle stands — useful if the constraint is vehicle stands rather than the 24 ft already spare at the far end.

Configured as a covered yard for a mixed fleet of very different vehicle sizes, 100x120 is judged on whether the 14 vehicle stands it holds match the operation, and on whether the 2 feet of spare width leaves the route this mode depends on.

• Does the work need an interior street with independent zones on both sides and turning room at each end, or does it need a second lane that this 100-foot span cannot give?
• Is the 120-foot length being bought for depth, or for the repeated bays — a long repeating bay sequence, so segment boundaries are set by bay lines rather than by walls?
• How many vehicles have to leave within the same window, and does the lane order allow it?
• Are service positions separate from the parking lanes?

It is reached several movements per vehicle per day, concentrated into a morning release and an evening return. The operating pattern this base slips into when the roster changes is a drive-through lane arrangement where vehicles enter one end and leave the other: there is no tail bay, so the vehicle leaving first has to be parked first, which forces the whole lane to be loaded in departure order. Dividing the 12,000 sq ft by the 14 by 32 ft vehicle stand gives roughly 15 positions before circulation is deducted a second time for cross movement. Whether the plan keeps 15 or drops to 12 comes back to the question this footprint is really answering: does the largest vehicle in the fleet dictate the whole grid, or does it get a position of its own?

Depth arithmetic leaves a working end zone here. 3,000 square feet sits past the last row, which is why 100x120 tends to be planned with an oversize position for the one vehicle that does not fit the standard stand, kept where its maneuver does not sweep the rows designed in rather than added later. Neighbouring buildings, setbacks and the approach road often decide the orientation before the plan does.

Width is fully committed at 100x120. With 2 feet spare, wall storage and passing room compete with the vehicle stands directly. The plan should survive the day the largest item the operation owns has to come inside.

Sequencing matters more than in a uniform fleet: the largest vehicle should be first out or last in, because any other position makes its maneuver everyone else's problem. Pedestrian movement peaks at exactly the moment vehicle movement does, which is the safety question the plan has to answer. The perimeter is fully enclosed and secured, because keys, fuel cards, tooling and telematics live with the vehicles. That movement pattern, not the 12,000-square-foot total, is what decides whether the leftover 30 feet is useful here.

The stored configuration carries a 14-foot eave and computes to 26.5 feet at the ridge on a 3:12 pitch — a 12.5-foot rise across 100 feet. Height is therefore not uniform, and the sidewall is the constraint. What the building holds in its busiest week is the honest brief; the rest of the year is slack.

Height on a 100 ft span is a separate decision from the 120 ft length, and it is the span that sets the frame's behavior. Raising the eave over 12,000 sq ft affects every bay along the 120 ft dimension, so the test is whether mixed fleet stand sizing genuinely needs the extra clear height or only the floor area.

• 60x80 moves the count from 14 to 8 vehicle stands (4 across by 2 deep), which is the reason to choose between them.
• 40x120 moves the count from 14 to 12 vehicle stands (3 across by 4 deep), which is the reason to choose between them.
• 50x100 moves the count from 14 to 6 vehicle stands (3 across by 2 deep), which is the reason to choose between them.

Because this footprint is planned as a covered yard for a mixed fleet of very different vehicle sizes, the useful next reads are different from the ones a differently shaped fleet garage suggests: mixed fleet stand sizing, swept path planning, oversize vehicle provision.