Can You Fit a Golf Simulator in a New Zealand Garage?
Most New Zealand garages can take a golf simulator. The thing that stops a build is almost always ceiling height, not floor space. Depth and width are usually fixable with a smaller enclosure or a different launch monitor. Height is either there or it is not.
That is the short answer. The rest of this page is how to check your own garage in about fifteen minutes, where hidden height sometimes lives, and the four things about a Kiwi garage that catch people out after the simulator is already in.
Start With the Club, Not the Tape Measure
Before you measure anything, do this.
Stand where you would hit from. Take a slow driver swing and stop at the top. Then take another and follow through to a full finish. If the clubhead touches the ceiling at either point, you have your answer already.
Most people measure the ceiling and forget that the clubhead travels higher than their hands. Taller players and steeper swings need more room than the numbers suggest. A 1.70 metre golfer and a 1.95 metre golfer do not need the same garage.
If the club clears comfortably, measure properly. If it clears by a whisker, keep reading, because there are usually a few hundred millimetres hiding above you.
BEFORE
AFTER
Where the Hidden Height Usually Is
Many New Zealand garages are lined with a flat ceiling below a truss roof. Above that lining there is often a void.
Removing the ceiling lining can recover useful height. In some garages that is the difference between a project that works and one that does not. It is also the cheapest height you will ever buy.
Two hard limits apply.
Roof trusses are structural. You cannot cut, notch or remove a truss member, and you should not let anyone tell you otherwise without an engineer and a consent. Trusses can often be worked around by positioning the hitting area and the screen carefully, but they cannot be modified casually.
As seen above, we helped this customer figure out what they could do with their ceiling without an engineer, now their whole family can play!
LIGHTING!
You must be able to control sunlight into the shed.
This is the ultimate killer to a projector
INTERNET
Make sure you can watch youtube videos without glitch in the garage on your phone WHILE USING THE WIFI.
If you dont have this, then a wifi extender can be added for around $100 to push that wifi into the shed. Again, you need to check this runs videos easily.