I'm building from scratch here so I have an opportunity to do things right. First question, a contractor has proposed Roxul insulation. He said he has heard fibreglass bats settle in a tall wall (18'), opening a gap at the top of the wall after a few years. Anyone ever heard of that? Roxul is more expensive of course, so the question becomes, is it worth it. The door will be one of these. http://www.powerliftdoors.com/ Once you get over 25' or so, these doors get really cost effective. Plus, you don't lose headroom like a rollup. I've never seen one in action, but the reviews are really good. Its worth a try. Ken
Ive built many shops... is your building structure going to be pre-engineered steel? how wide a door are you needing? there are a lot of pros and cons to these systems.... insulation as a general statement on the Roxul.....with it vs batts the building wall system should be designed so the batts do not sag ....sagging has never been a issue in any construction system i am aware of(unless it was poorly designed).....in most cases your allways better to spend your $ for more insulation thickness if possible.....Roxul is normally used where acoustics is very important doors overhead doors are easily ordered to go vertically up the wall to the roof so you do not lose headroom......the cost of a hanger door as your looking at is much more than just the door itself the cost of the structure to support it is GREATly increased...considerations need to be given to opening these doors in heavy snow conditions, power outages,etc...
critical considerations for a shop building in my opinion are lighting...well light shop is a productive shop floor design...slope..drains..strength..heat...coating...etc(you only get one chance to do this right) cranes....many shops need lifting capacities ventilation.... access....doors etc
One thing that I think of is access. if you have one big piece of equipment in for minor repairs that turn major after it is dissable can you still get other equipment in and out? And what ever size doors you think are big enough, go one size bigger. They built us a nice inside wash bay and now the last two haul truck we got will not fit through the door!
We have looked at many jobs that involved this type of door and it was always a airplane hangar. While we were talking to these folks, we learned about a Mooney that was parked under the door while they swept and cleaned the floor - the door fell suddenly and parted the Mooney in half. Around these buildings at the airport there are always signs warning to keep these doors closed when there is any notable wind of 10 mph or so. If I considered a door opening on the entire side but not the entire side at one time, I would also investigate sliding panels. On a real cold day it would be nice to maybe only open a door just big enough to move the one item as opposed to open the entire door to drive the snowblower outside? As to the fiberglass settling, we have yet to actually see this fiberglass movement to occur. No real preference here, all these insulations have their characteristics. FG has been in use for a long time and is probably considered a good value by most. Have you considered radiant heating? Many folks that use the buildings have lauded this for example when on a creeper under a vehicle or standing near a workbench or a machine. This tubing in the slab may not have been the type of heating (most seem to want space heating). Perhaps a layer of insulation under the slab or if this is not acceptable perhaps large aggregate as a form of block for heat conduction may be a step in this direction?
A shop a work in around here has one of those doors and I think it's a joke. Especially on the side walls, snow piles from the roof in the winter and rain in the summer suck. And they don't seal well. And they're slow. And u can't just open it part way to run something in quick. I wouldn't buy one. But with 30-40 foot openings there isn't many good answers. Best one I've seen so far is two overheads next to each other with a post that flips up with a winch. Hard to picture but seems to work good Have you looked into spray foam? More expensive but sure helps the building rigidity. And hail damage is all but totally eliminated I'd also price an all steel building Have a plan for a jib crane. Even if you don't want. Someday u might... Floor heat! Cheap and so nice to work in Don't over do the drains. I'd just put one in front of the door and slope a lil to it and make the rest dead flat. If you can do it concrete cured under water has a way harder finish. If you can flood it with 2" of water for a month...
Hold the tubes, not load the tubes If you go with hot water floor heat put a minimum of 2" of insulation under the floor on top of the slab and hold the tubes as near the top as possible. Most all the latest building specs call for it that way. testing over the years have shown this way as being way more efficient that tubes under the slab or near the bottom. Wet cured concrete is a great way to go. We use rotary lawn sprinklers on timers to cycle the valves to keep the concrete wet. 7 days in the maximum time required on even the most stringent specs I've seen for the wet cure. Still do not want anything heavy on the slab for 28 days. Make it 2 times bigger than you think you need and it will still be to small. I have never seen properly installed fiberglass insulation secured with pins settle. If they just stick it in in a wide bay it can settle.
Stud bays in an 18' tall wall should not be open from bottom to top. There should be a fire stop at 12' max. Here in the Northwest we also have to have all edges of wall sheeting nailed to something so we end up with a block every 10' max. That's just the code where I live and build, not sure what Canada is like. With walls that tall all the heat is going to end up at the ceiling. The radiant floor would be sweet, having an air circulation system to get the hot air back down would be nice as well. Multiple doors would be a good idea. That big ass door that swings up is cool but really how often do you need to do that? Putting in a regular roll up door that's 12x14 would get most things that can go down the road in.
i would go with a bi-fold door in one end and then roll ups on the sides. the bi folds are a lot more stable and have a lot less weight and dont require as heavy of a frame. i am not sure what all you will be working on but but i would lay 2 pieces of railroad rails paralell to each other and leave the top of the rail about 1/4" above the floor in one bay. i have seen it done in a few shops and it is great for tracked equipment. Also if you are going to have a welding area i would put chain pots in the floor like what they use in autobody shops so if yo ever need something secure to tie down too for pulling a frame straight or pulling a rod out of the barrel on a cylinder you have one or two or ten depending on what you want to do. Another idea i have heard and think i might do if i ever build another shop is to put some 2" square tubing in the floor in a few strategic places as a pocket then you can mount bench grinders or vices or whatever to a piece of tubing that fits inside of the stuff in the floor so you can move them aroud the shop easily. Something else that i think would be neat is to install one of the old single post floor lifts into the welding area and then make a big tabletop for it so you can have an adjust height table that you can set in the floor to set heavy stuff on and then raise it up to a comfortable height to work off of. No matter what you do you will always wish you would have done something different. it is a fact of life. You build something 100'x200' and a year later you wish it was twice the size. Good luck with the shop and i hope you are satisfied with everything you do.
I want to correct/clarify a couple of possibly misleading comments on concrete curing and strength....yes water curing is a great way to CURE concrete...(but it doesn't make it any harder than its original design strength) ....no matter what you do you want to CURE your concrete correctly to keep it from LOOSING strength ......the correct way to get a hard top on a concrete floor is use a hardener product on the concrete ....DYODD .....gettting your floor correct ...sub grade...aggregate..reinforcing..control jts...mix design...flatness/slope/thickness...correct placing and troweling....curing...hardners.....coatings.....is a great place to hire a good engineer and subcontractor..
Absolutely good point. Proper placement and cure will only help insure you get the strength you expect from the mix design.
Go to "NewAgtalk.com" and search.
One of the guys posted this and I have to disagree "Don't over do the drains. I'd just put one in front of the door and slope a lil to it and make the rest dead flat." We did this in a building per the tenants request and every one has hated it since. Every time a vehicle is pulled in from the rain/snow it leaves a puddle. Washing a vehicle leaves a huge mess. My 2 cents
Our shop was built with one floor drain down the middle that just spilled out on the ground outside the shop. Then after many years the environmental people in the company decided that was a no no! They filled in the drain. Now if the floor gets flooded we have to sweep the water out the door, yep right on the ground where the drain would have put it:Banghead Shop is built on a solid stone floor in a quarry so there is no dirt around the out side and no sewer system out in the country. Only good thing is that if we were to have a major oil spill in the shop it would be more or less contained inside as the floor is slopped towards the center and would contain many gallons of oil before it did get to the outside.
My take on floor drains, for what it's worth. If it's a garage for parking equipment, slope the floor with plenty of drains. Consider trench drains with cast grates. If it's a shop, sloped floors would be a pain. I'd want the floor absolute level. You just need to decide which you prefer. Pros and cons to both. I'm a metal building contractor and have built plenty of shops. If your door is 24' and narrower, consider overhead doors. Pay a little extra for the doors and insist on 3" tracks. If you're in the north, go with a insulated sandwich style panel Raynor makes a good one..their tri-core series. Insist on high cycle springs..standard spring design is 10,000 cycle. Ask for the highest cycle you can get on a single shaft. Cost should be $400-$500 more but should get 50,000-100,000 cycles. $1,500 or so for new springs. Do the math. High cycle springs are cheap. Door installers will not recommend them. 24' and wider, look at Horton Stack doors. No weight on the structure. It's all on the floor. My $0.02.
Maybe the initiator will comment again.... Since all these ideas are sage, I will add in this one: some airplane hangar slabs are not built level (the floor is flat) but maybe half to one percent to the front door....think of it as a tipped plane. The building is literally erected plumb to this surface by using a washer glued to the big plumb level. Most will never notice this until you check it. But it allows for directional control of the water to go toward the door. And no the plane doesn't roll out the door. Seen some that had two way slope (this way the cross slope can approach 1 or more percent while the parallel to wall slopes are each less than that). By sloping the floor, interior plumbing drains are less of an issue unless liquids have to be sent to a controlled pathway...but it is my thinking internal sumps and associated drain pipes are not desired by the FAA (fumes? flammable? etc) and the outside drainage is the control point for these liquids and associated vapors etc.
I'd make the floor flat, but not necessarily level. Drain across the building just inside the overhead doors with the entire floor sloping towards it. Andrew
I am a builder, an eighteen ft wall will have two rows of fire blocking so insulation settle shouldn't be a big issue but I use roxal for all walls wether it's a work shop or a house the only time I don't use roxal is when I use spray foam, ( depending on your budget you may want to consider foam) also use an air barrier on the outside under your exterior cladding and tape the joints ,make sure the vapour barrier is meticulously installed with all joints and laps taped. As for the doors if it's for anything road legal I find multiple 14 x14 doors are best less heat loss when doors are opened they last longer than huge doors and anything going down the road will easily fit through them. If it's a farm building 20x14 or 16 are best bigger are costly but rarely necessary . Most times we put floor grates just inside the doors and in the main bay length way in the centre of the bay with a fairly aggressive grade on the floor, then the rest of the shop with a gentle slope to wards the closest floor drain . If the shop is to be heated 24 -7 all winter you can't do better than floor heat, but if you just want to keep it from freezing and warm it up to work on a project you may want to consider something else like forced air or over head tubes. Just my two cents PS. Foam under the floor wether you use floor heat or not!!!
Personally, I'd make sure the floor was sloped to in floor drains. It doesn't have to be a very aggressive slope, but it will make sure to water runs. I really don't like working in puddles. As for the door, have you looked at a MegaDoor? We have them on some of our shop doors, and they're great. It's amazing how they can insulate them so well, with such a thin door. http://www.megadoor.com/default.asp
All doors have their strengths and weakness's, the more moving parts there are the more things to fix, it gets down to preference and what you want, you couldn't give me another roll up door, I'm beyond tired of fixing and fighting with them over the years, at one time I had 12 roll up doors to fight with and replace parts on and it was almost a full time job to keep them working and adjusted properly. I built a one piece hydraulic door for my shop and love it, the design has been around for decades, the popularity has also grown for them in recent years, if your seriously looking at one pm me and I'll give you the good, the bad and ugly on what I've found out on all the brands being made today. As for insulation, the more r value you can get the better off your going to be, as for what product to use, that again is personal preference and what's available in your area at competitive prices and how you plan on using it, there are pro's and cons to each type, in my shop we used four different types of insulation depending on where it was in the shop and what it was used for. In my opinion, do some research on your own of the different types and decide what "you" need before listening to anyone selling or installing insulation, they tend to omit the downsides of their products.
Randy88 how hard was it to build the hydraulic door yourself? Do you have any pictures or info on it? 701-680-4019
Here's 2 pages on it:
Interesting topic as I sit here recovering from a near death COVID experience. Prior to getting ill I have been detailing a 50'x100', 2- enclosed 25' bay for storage, 1-30' conditioned bay for shop, and 1-25' open bay roof only. Additionally a separate 50'x75' for my daughter and son in law. Both are pre-engineered to 150 mph due to coastal issues. 20' sectional OHD is what I will use with HD tracks insulated in the conditioned spaces. No floor drains but any apron or open canopy will slope 1/4" ft. with plinths at the columns. Let's discuss insulation. There are as many insulation options as Carter's had pills. Fiberglass has been the industry standard as is can provide reasonable value but like everything has many of it's own issues. But it's cheap. Here is my solution on insulation. I will very tightly tension poultry netting from base angle to base angle and from base angle to rake. This will be covered by a undetermined as of yet barrier. The poultry netting will provide a secondary anchorage for rigid spray foam insulation. All walls will have R-panel liners to the roof. Sorry for any rambling here friends as I am also dealing with some cognition issues as well. Please be safe COVID can and will kill you and your family!
Ok this is just my dream if it ever happens 100 ton over head crane Rail in the floor to drive crawlers on Enough lights that you need a welding Helmet Giant doors Parking for about 12 797 trucks Walls lined with lots of storage. That maybe over kill.
nice dream . a lottery win could make it a reality
You guys do realize this original thread is over six years old right?? And for what its worth, I do still love my one piece hydraulic door, never had an issue with it in all the years its been installed and working. They have issues you have to overcome by hooking them to your building, and some to overcome if you have a free standing not attached to the building like mine is. I'll take hydraulics over any other door system on the market, simple, slick and easy and the maintenance is about none. Bifolds have their place, but you have motors, switches and cables or straps to replace and keep up and adjusted, about any other door systems have rollers and tracks of some sort to keep going and to replace. To do mine all over again, I'd have had two service pits in this shop instead of only one and added on for a flat service work area. We always have something over the service pit and plenty waiting to get over it so we can work on them. Since we put the service pit in, there has never been more than a day or so in all those years we didn't have something over the pit being worked on.