Replies

1. 
   DaveRicheson | Dec 30, 2009 03:48pm | #1

   Shop, storage and garage?

   Build it twice as big as you think you need :)

   Seriously, I have a 1200 SF shop, heated and air conditioned and a detached garage next to the house. DW has a 900+ SF studio and kennel building. My shop may be adequate size one of these days, but I doubt it. Spill over from the other two buildings seem to keep it looking like a land fill.

   If you are really going to use it as a shop try to plan for a wood floor or overlay of wood on concrete for at least that part of it. Your feet and legs will thank you. Your comfort level will increase significantly and you will be more productive.

   Some of the other regulars here have great shops. Maybe they will be along shortly to lend thier sage advice.

1. 
   rdesigns | Dec 30, 2009 04:02pm | #2

   Agreed: under-sizing is the biggest mistake you can make, and the most un-fixable.

   Other basics: insulate the slab perimeter with 2" of high-density foam, either down alongside the foundation or flat around the perimeter for at least 2' inside. (Maybe more, if you're from the frigid north, as "Muskeg" implies.) Also, have the ceiling be open, if possible, by using scissor trusses or a cold roof. The extra ceiling height you get is really great for storage, maneuvering long stuff, and lifting heavy stuff with a block and tackle.

2. 
   BossHog | Dec 30, 2009 06:23pm | #3

   What they said already:

   Make it big.

   Plenty of headroom.

   In slab heat is great if you can afford it.

3. 
   davidmeiland | Dec 31, 2009 03:29am | #4

   What's the longest board you
   What's the longest board you might ever want to rip on the tablesaw? Make the interior twice that long plus some for the saw itself. It isn't long before you start needing 40 feet clear.

4. 
   TomT226 | Dec 31, 2009 06:22am | #5

   My shop is 24'X30'(720 sq ft)
   My shop is 24'X30'(720 sq ft) with a 20'X20' carport with double 8' garage doors. I've got TS, jointer, BS, DP, DC, router table, and chop saw. Everything is on rollers except the jointer, DP, and chop saw, which is mounted against the wall on top of a 12' cab for material support. Lumber storage is in the loft (10' walls with a 14' peak.) In the winter I heat it with two propane heaters which gets it to about 60 deg on the coldest day. All metal building with R12 in the walls and ceiling. In the summer, it gets about 92 deg inside with all the doors and windows open, and a fan blowing. I usually roll the TS and DC, and router/shaper out on the carport to work then. Also have a roll around sheet goods rack. Put in more plugs, 220 also) than you think you'll need. Lots of light. I've got 10 dual T12 fixtures, plus some drops. Put some floor outlets where your saw/jointer will be. You need them close so you can rip and joint w/o walking across the room. You should be able to rip, turn, take a step or two, and joint.

   Build plenty of cabs. I put mine on rollers so I can pull stuff out of the shop and clean it. You don't need a huge amount of table space either. Just a good heavy bench, and a bunch of old 3/0 HC luan doors that you can put on folding horses. Good for gluing face frames. Hit'em with some poly or lacquer so the glue won't stick. Stack'em against the wall when your finished along with the horses. Hang your jigs and tools on the wall, and periodically review what they're used for. Memory is a fleeting thing.

   ;-)

5. 
   BilljustBill | Jan 01, 2010 12:25am | #6

   If you add a 220v floor plug for your table saw, run a wire cable that also has a green ground wire. Using a four wire cable, or an extra wire that is solely a ground, you can tap into that floor plug and at the end of the table saw you can have options for an addition 220v plug for another big tool or the abillty to have several 110v plugs for those portable bench and power tools from a small subpanel.

   When you build your roofing framework, be sure to "beef it up" so you can use the attic floor for storage and consider 'walk-through' trusses for easier movement from one end to the other. With a big snow load, I'm betting you'll have a steep pitch roof and lots of possible storage area. Just remember where it comes off the roof and think about any doors that will get blocked.

   At the local monthly flea market several years ago, a fellow would come with a long and wide low-boy trailer stacked 4' high with mostly unfinished Oak cabinet doors. He sold them for $3 each, no matter the size. I'd always pick out some of the tallest and widest of the solid raised panel doors. At that price, I couldn't even buy the hardwood, and could almost get as much surface area of Oak doors equal to the cost of a full sheet of 3/4" Fir plywood. I still have over 100 solid Oak doors up in the shop attic.

   Also, to help get all your "Some Day Treasures" into the attic...Safely..... ALWAYS spend a little more and get the pull down stairs made with wide 1" X 6" material. It's a heavier and more comfortable set of steps. I've used the attic storage so much, I ran an electrical branch circuit up there. I wired some two and four tube light fixtures with a 3-way switch, when I found one of those heavy duty $110 pull down stairs for $10 at the flea market. "Over Time", I've added the second set of pull down stairs, so I can add and retrieve at each end of the attic. If you can't store much of a load up there, or get your treasures up there safely, and you can't see what you've got, then the attic storage will become more for "dead" items.....

   With the help of that same flea market, I've purchased a 1 hp. Baldor motor mounted to a reversible automatic gate closer and while there, I've found steel cable, pillow block ball bearings, and government surplus worm drive gear boxes. This winter, my project is to make a sort of "Dumb Waiter" that can lift a couple of hundred pounds UP and DOWN from the attic...

   I had our old home's HVAC system moved into a corner closet I built in the workshop in the bid for a new Trane A/C and propane Heat system. It cost me just $200 extra. Now, with some multispeed, reversible, 48" ceiling fans, I've got an all weather workshop I thought I'd never own...:>)

   Being an young boy that grewup on a West Texas dry-land farm, I've become living proof of a woodworker that can stretch the shop budget almost as well as our late REZ did.

   Bill

   
6. 
   BilljustBill | Jan 01, 2010 12:31am | #7

   .

7. 
   BilljustBill | Jan 01, 2010 12:31am | #8

   .

8. 
   jensenaw | Jan 02, 2010 12:58am | #9

   Thanks a bunch for all the input. Defiantly gives me some more stuff the think about. Keep the ideas coming.

1. 
   junkhound | Jan 02, 2010 06:46am | #10

   Ditto on what everyone else has said about size, you CANNOT make it too big.

   My wood shop is in 1/2 the basement (800 sq ft)

   Over the years have added probably 10,000 sq ft of other storage.

   Had a pull down stairs once, would never bother again - install a regular full stairs, 40 in wide at minimum. If you have an attic, might as well make it a fully functional second story.

   A nice big 4 ft minimum 2nd story outside door is also nice, then you can put stuff on the telehandler platform or loader bucket for ease of material handling.

9. 
   Dreamcatcher | Jan 02, 2010 11:24am | #11

   It's cold out in my shop
   It's cold out in my shop right now so I am thinking a lot about what I wished I had for a heating system. Currently is just a propane jobsite heater; not so good. I have a sealed combustion wall mount furnace that I am yet to install but I assume will be very nice. My shop is too small for a wood burner but that would be on my wish list...gotta get rid of scraps somehow.

   I used to work in a cabinet shop with both a sealed furnace and a woodburner. We heated mostly with the wood burner durning the day and the furnace would run at night to keep the shop just above 50. We also used the furnace when we spayed finishes.

   DC

10. 
    popawheelie | Jan 02, 2010 02:07pm | #12

    When I think of a shop I put myself in a place where I'm going to be doing work and ask myself what will I want or need to get the task done.

    Each person and the work they do is different.

    but in the planning stage you want to put everything on the table.

    The basics are first. Heating, cooling, good lighting, electrical power, compressed air, assembly tables, tools close at hand, some of these thing can be moved around on wheels like a tool cart/cabinet. But others (if they are big) don't move around well.

    Personally, One thing I like is a table desk along one wall with a window behind it. Sitting at the table you can read, design, do small detail work. Listen to the radio.

    I figure that if you want to do good work it takes time and the more comfortable you are in the shop the more time you will spend in it. All these beautifull things you see took time to make.

11. 
    charlie44732377 | Jan 02, 2010 05:27pm | #13

    I'm going to put the
    I'm going to put the receptacle for the table saw as well as the ducting for the dust collection system for it in and under the floor where the table saw will be and all the other machines along one wall with the dust collection ducting behind them on the wall cause I get aggravated by cords on the floor, ducts going up in the middle of the room, etc. Also gonna design the shop for as much passive solar heat as I can get.

12. 
    BilljustBill | Jan 03, 2010 11:15pm | #14

    Look for commerical buildings with flat roofs being upgraded or re-roofed in the coming spring and summer. Under that roof coating are sheets and sheets of thick foam insulation.

    The local school district reroofed the high school. The roofing company took off the old sheets and tried to actually stomp them into smaller pieces, only to find their huge debris haulers were filling up way too quickly. So, they began to stack the 1-1/2" thick, 4'x8' sheets on the empty parking lot. Of course, the winds tried to fly them like kites, so they tried to tarp them down....

    Asking the roofing foreman, who spoke English, he said I could have all the old sheets I wanted. I rented a U-haul and carried 90 sheets home for free... As I loaded the sheets, on the ground and in the sheeting were 7" long metal screws with 4" stamped washers. I picked up over 300 of those to use in holding the sheets to 2x4 lath stringers on 4' horizonal centers all along both the Hottest West wall and the coldest North wall.

    Between the free foam sheets 6" thick, and foil faced 6" thick pink fiberglass insulation also pulled out of some suspended ceilings, those walls rate over an R-50. It keeps out the heat in summer and keeps heat inside in the winter. The old recycled Lennox pulse heat propane system keeps the shop plenty warm, and the old 2-speed compressor does as much for keeping down the humidity as it does keeping the shop cool in the summer.

    Just by asking, and saying "Thankyou", one of those

    1-1/2" thick sheets equals to two 3/4" foam sheets you'd buy in the box stores for $10 each... Probably never would have insulated that heavy if I had to buy it...

    Keep your eyes open for finding things like that. You'll find a workshop is almost a never ending project as your skills improve and you add/update your equipment...

    For the interior walls, I covered them with Hardiboard 4x8' sheets of exterior siding. Home Depot and Lowes get returned/damaged sheets and sell them for as little as 10c on the dollar.

    Paint? Look for returned gallon or 5-gallon buckets of semigloss exterior paints at the box store's paint dept. There's usually nothing wrong with the $30 gallons, or $110 5-gallon buckets of paint, just returned because it 'didn't match'.. They'll see the gallons for $5. Lowes sells the 5-gallon buckets for $20; Home Depot sells their 5 gallon buckets for $15 each. Just try for the semigloss, it much easier to clean/dust the walls than the flat finish paints... ;>)

    It takes a regular rhythm of visiting those stores to gather the amounts you need, but Boy!!! sure makes the house budget stretch!!

    Here's an raised panel kitchen island/wet bar that had no counter or elevated bar top. I turned it into a storage cabinet for supplies as well as a disc, belt, and spindle sanding center, miter saw extension supports, and a place for a small 4" jointer. I used discarded damaged solid core doors for the extension tables and heavy duty counter top supporting the bench top tools. I only bought a "Purple" color returned Formica laminate and a gallon contact glue.

    Bill

    
13. 
    mwgaines | Jan 04, 2010 05:31pm | #15

    As much as I appreciate these guys, I respectfully disagree with the mantra that bigger will prove to be better.

    Many years ago I had a dream of building a 24x24 shop. My friends gave me similar advice: "Build it Bigger!" So I did. Twice as big. I ended up with a 24x48 building. It did start out being a good thing, but then in morphed into something less desirable.

    My huge shop became a huge warehouse. Instead of providing more room for me and my projects, it simply provided more room for JUNK. There have been many times when I could hardly walk through the place for all the stuff that accumulated because it had to be stored for whatever reason.

    I also learned that a building twice as big costs twice as much to construct, equip, heat, cool, illuminate and maintain. It also takes twice as long to clean up and organize.

    If I ever build another shop, it will definitely be a little smaller. I know guys with smaller buildings who manage just fine by simply utilizing their floor space effectively.

    Plumb it for hot and cold water and include some structured wiring for speakers, internet, television and a decent security system.

    Seal the envelope good and tight and build one wall for easy expansion (leaves you the option).

    And one more thing..

    Auto repairs and woodworking should not take place in the same building unless each has a well defined space that is isolated from each other. I've been mixing the two for years...and it shows.

    My two cents worth.

14. 
    BigK | Jan 06, 2010 03:36am | #16

    Some people have advised leaving the ceiling open, I strongly disagree with that advice. An uninsuleted cieling will cost you in lost heat in the winter and huge heat gains in the summer. Perhaps a better solution would be to have the attic accessible for storage, perhaps a pull down ladder. I am a strong proponent of insulating and drywalling the shop space, give it a two coat finish, and paint it white. These finished walls go a long way to maximize your lighting, dark shops are hard on older eyes and make it harder to do good work. Painted drywall is far easier to dust then anything else. A comfortable shop is always a pleasure to use.

    If hot and cold water is available then do set up a laundry sink in the shop, these are much more practical to use for everything.

    Pay attention to your shops security. Tools have a way of attracting thieves, I call them idiots (my code word for those easily offended) and sh-theads when talking plainly to other contractor/woodworking buddies who understand this problem. You really do not want to have to replace everything that you already payed for once. Wire up the overhead door outlet to an on-off switch with a red indicator, this will protect you from your door opening via stray radio signals. Security doors and window bars are really an excellent idea.

    Good luck with your new man cave.

15. 
    byhammerandhand | Jan 06, 2010 10:26am | #17

    For someone that has a too-small shop now, I think I can agree with this. I have a friend that built a one-man 5000 sq.ft. shop. He does not A/C it, but I think heating it, with his high ceilings has to be a killer. You also almost need to pack a lunch to go from one end to the other.

    An author in a recent book on the subject suggested 800 st.ft. as about ideal for one person. Enough room to work without spreading out too far.

    Of course, all this depends on whether you are carving knick-knacks or building sail boats.

    Since I'm also into a devoted area for finishing, I am thinking my ideal is about 1000 sq.ft., which I think works out to about a 4 car garage size.

    MWGaines says:

    >I also learned that a building twice as big costs twice as much to construct, equip, heat, cool, illuminate and maintain. It also takes twice as long to clean up and organize.

    If I ever build another shop, it will definitely be a little smaller. I know guys with smaller buildings who manage just fine by simply utilizing their floor space effectively.