I don't now if this is where I should ask or if it came up already. So sorry if i am stepping on any toes I am looking at buiilding a new shop, thought it would be good to have a forum to see what others are working out of and ask ? about different ideas
This is what I say about shops. But I'd like to hear more. Build a high ceiling. It's nice to be able to lift the dump truck box inside. Floor heat. It's much more comfortable working in shops with floor heat. In winter when you drag a snowy chunk of iron in at the end of the day it and the floor is dried off by morning. Lots of lights. You can never get a shop too bright. If you have a high ceiling put lights on the sidewalls 6-8 ft off the floor. It's much nicer for working on the underside of equipment and trailers. Windows. No one likes working in a dungeon.
We are in the process of building one right now. We have done most of the work ourselves and have done quite a lot of research on it as we don’t plan on building another one. First thing to do is get site prep done make sure you have good compaction as settling ground will cause cracks in concrete. Get all plumbing and electrics were you want them before starting. Our shop didn’t start out to have a bathroom and just before we poured the floor we changed our minds so we had to go under the footing with the septic line witch was a pain and we lost compaction every were we dug. If you will be parking heavy machinery in it make sure your concrete is thick enough and put your rebar on 12 to 16 inch centers. If you have trucks a pit would be a good idea but take in account you will need a drain in it. If you pour frost footings you need to insulate them or the frost will go through them as concrete has very little r value. My wife raises dogs and I put heated floor in here kennel last year. We love the constant heat and the ability for the floor to dry rapidly but it is very costly the tubing ,insulation, and boiler are much more than a used oil heater witch is what we are going to use in our shop. Abscraper guy was write about lights windows and ceiling. I would recommend spray foam insulation as it has excellent r value and stops all wind. Make your shop is big enough to accommodate all your needs but don’t make it way bigger than you need as it will take a lot more to heat it. If you need a lot of storage a lean-to off one or both sides wont add a lot of cost and can give plenty of storage. Another idea I have seen is a piece of culvert or large field tile poured in the concrete were your press will set so you can accommodate extra long shafts in the press and some good heavy anchors in the floor for chaining to, I have used these with the cheery picker to remove tight cylinder rams from barrels in the past. I will try to get some pictures of our shop and post them. Good luck with your plans and sorry to see your dozer burn.
I moved the thread to General Industry Questions as the Support Forum is for tech questions.
High ceilings and wide doors. I started out at 14 ft. and till i got stone and 8 inches of concrete ended up at 13ft. 4in. The floor heat is the way to go if you are in a cold climate. It works best with a good slabshield insulation under it. If you can heat it with a wood burner a couple of ceiling fans help get it down where you need it. Mine is 40ft.x80 with 12 ft. doors on each end and another on the side plus 2 man doors. It is great to be able to drive through or drag something in when needed.
Our shop is 60' X 100' with 20' walls. Where we are, we worry more about good ventilation for the 100* plus tempatures in the summer. Our doors face the South since we have a South prevailing breeze, and we have 3 48" exhaust fans. Good wide and tall doors are a must. Ours are 16' X 16'. A small office, bathroom, and another sink in the shop for washing hands are nice to have also. We have lots of 240V 50A plugs for the welders, and an abundance of 120V 20A plugs also. We do alot of heavy lifting, so we we put in a 10 ton bridge crane. If you do that, it is a good idea to consult the crane company prior to building your frame. An apron or lean-to on the side is where put in our steam cleaning area, which has turned out to be real nice have. Build it a little bigger than you think you need, you will appreciate it later.
At work I work under a 24x40 carport with 12' walls. They wanted to enclose the sides but I refused, if the crews get to go home when it rains, I want to too:drinkup. At home I am building a 37x60 shop with 16' walls. The walls are 12" block, the trusses I have are designed with a 16x60x8 room. I decided not to build stairs to the room inside, that would take up shop space. I put a door in the gable end of the shop and the plan is to build a landing and staircase outside to access the room. The shop has two 12x14(tall) garage doors and two walk-in doors on either side at the rear of the shop. The garage doors face the west and with the smaller doors at the rear I am trying to get a natural draft through the shop for the summertime. I poured the floor 6 inches of 4000psi concrete, would have loved to have done it thicker and with rebar, but I am operating on a tight budget. The roof is green metal, and we installed vinyl siding on the gable ends. I am wanting to install metal for the ceiling, my trusses are spaced three feet apart and using anything else will cost to work out in 4x8 sheets. I am thinking the metal would be easier to work with in 12 foot lengths, work out with the trusses and provide fire proofing-no worrying about sparks from grinding.So far I have walls, roof, floor- I need to do the ceiling, wire it and garage doors. I want to build lean-tos on both sides to park equipment under. I am waiting to start on the upstairs room when it turns colder and wetter here. For heat I don't know what I will use, in my other shop I had at my other house I had a ceiling mounted gas furnance, i would like to do that again but I probably need two of them. I have been working outside at home for 8 years so just to be sheltered will be an improvement
A lot depends on your budget. The building I would love to have is not the one that I want to pay for. The last one I built is 40 x 60 with fourteen foot walls. It doesn't cost much more to build something with walls fourteen or more feet high or to install larger drive in doors. 2x6 construction is not expensive. Strap the walls on the outside surface with 1x4s at two foot intervals and apply colored metal vertically. The same works for the roof. Insulate the walls to R20 and the ceiling to a higher level. Then cover the insulation inside with a light gauge metal or gyproc. If you want to run heavy equipment on the floor, pour six inch thick concrete, with a thickened perimeter to act as a footing for the walls. If you want to minimize cracking, install rebar in both directions spaced twelve inches or so apart. Thicker concrete and more rebar would be nice, if you can afford it. In floor heating, as some have mentioned, would be great, if you can fit that into your budget. A simple building need not cost a lot, especially if you can do the work yourself. Lumber is at its lowest price for decades. Steel also is relatively cheap at the moment.
Just a few things to add. Put in lot's of electrical outlets- lonestarCobra sounds like he has a great setup. We only have one 36" fan an I had to put that in after the fact. Don't let your boss spec your shop . We have 2 drive through bays and I can get our 3axle pup trailers in and close the doors- with 3" of clearance on each end! The extra doors aren't really needed but it is nice to open them to bring in some sunlight. There is only 2 1/2 feet from the edge of the outermost doors to the west wall. This makes that wall alot less useful, especially with something parked in that bay. Most of the north and south walls are taken up by the 4 doors. You need wall space for shelves, benches, etc. Don't let them attach the office to the shop - the boss will always be poking his head in and the secretaries will complain about noise and the smell-Put the compressor outside for your own peace and quiet. Our first propane bill for the heated floors came to $1100.00 last year. I set the thermostat back to 50 degrees. Workers complain but in this economy, I'd rather spend money on parts to keep us working than work in shirtsleeves. I've been told to look into waste oil heaters.
Google "Sketchup" is a handy little 3D graphics program that's free. It came in handy laying out the shop and the airlines which are aluminum by "Transair"- really nice product to work with. This isn't the whole shop, there is another bay for pickups, my office, and a bathroom and a second story loft for storage.
We use a waste oil heater RobVG. The air circulation it creates keeps the shop comfy. Problem is, damn, things are so slow...just ain't generating the used oil I used to a couple of years ago. I have to hustle oil from some shops around me. But I love the heater.
I'am sorry, i think I came across wrong. I was looking for a forum for shops. Thank you for all the imput But i thought it would be cool to have some were to see others shops and and what others call home (office,shod,ect.)
pm sent
check out http://www.garagejournal.com/forum/index.php
I have three 55 gallon drums full of waste oil you can have if you want to come and get them:drinkup. Comes complete with a steak dinner:drinkup
No problem Tim, this is an interesting thread and a good read.:drinkup
One neat idea I ran across was putting railroad rails in the floor about a 1/4" higher than the floor surface. Perfect for driving dozers on. We all know too well how hard those single grousers can be on a nice floor. Of course this idea was brought to me about a month after we were in our new shop.
rails would be hard to sweep around. I would use plates of steel 3/4", level with the cement. When they gouge out you just weld them back up. This way you can still use that bay for any thing else and use a creeper and clean the floor
The shops at work have steel plate welded together over top the concrete. It's got a frame work of steel built into the concrete and the plate is welded to the framework. No idea how thick the plate is though. Walking D11s in and out all day long would be pretty tough on any plate, so I would imagine it's pretty thick.
the rail way rails are a good idea. my dad at the college in brandon manitoba has thm in the shop. but you need a good concrete man because concrete expands and will cover the rails. that is what happened to my ex-brother inlaw. also check in to a pit, buddy barry has a pit and it is handier then a pocket on a shirt. if you make a pit, make it long and with a sump pump. the top edge has to have thick angle iron so you can jack up equipment and use cross beams. thansk KoO Published Author
If you get a chance, go to http://iconbuildings.com/pricebuilding/default.aspx They have a neat online calculator that gives you pricing on the spot after you enter in all your desired building specs, zipcode, etc.. It gets you pretty close to what a metal building kit will cost you. You add the windows, doors or whatever you need and the online calculator gets you a price. I bought one from there 2 years ago, they knocked off 5 or 10 percent of the online calculator price, which was cheap to begin with. I bought a 50 x 100 @ 12' eve. Nothing came up short as far as the contents of the kit. A guy charged me 7500 to put it up including the anchor bolt setup. Would buy again. :drinkup
to have a pit here, if you are goind to have workers use it, you need it ventalated, explotion proof lighting and plugs, and be tested for gases regulary. It would be cheaper to have a host big enough for gravel trucks $12000-20000 depending how fancy
We put in a pit and its the best thing we did. Its hard for this fat kid to get under those lowboys. My only regret is it isn't long enough
the pit at buddy barry's shop is used from everything from small cars to the d6r (when he had one rented). the pit is so handy compared to lying on a creeper and rolling under a vehicle. thansk KoO Published Author
We have a 60' by 100' steel building. We put in natural gas radient heat. Best money we spent, pull in a machine when it is zero degrees with the heat set at fifty within an hour you can go lay your bare hand on it and feel warmth. Biggest regret not putting in a pit.
We have never put anything down on the concrete and it still looks great!! Use high psi good quality concrete and finish it nice and smooth. Have you ever seen the floor in a dealership's shop? I have never seen them put anything down and most floors I see look great also. I have actually drove in forward on our concrete counter rotated the tracks and drove back out. I will take pics of our concrete to show how they have held up. but we also dont have HUGE equipment either Also dont know how many people you have employed for you but check the regulation's on pits. Labor and industry requires the pit to be barricaded off to their specs when not in use.
Great link Thanks:drinkup
Hey Tim, ask your mechanic! He knows his stuff and he is a pretty decent shot as well. He proved it yesterday!
what are you talking about???
I second putting hugh jazz steel plates down on the floor in one bay. The other upside is if you get something REALLY bent up you can weld down cleats and tie downs and start pulling and pressing and beating. The other upside is if you need to build a chassis for a custom car project being able to tack and measure off of a known true surface makes everything much easier to get true. when your done you can Carbon arc the d rings off and grind down the welds and have a nice smooth plate again.