Question regarding fire protection
I have a detached garage I am converting into a metalworking/welding workshop, with insulated walls & ceiling. I plan to sheathe walls on the inside with 5/8 or 3/4 plywood so I can drive fasteners everywhere.
Would a layer of drywall over the plywood add significant fire protection? If so, how thick?
Engineered-stone shower panels are waterproof, but proper installation relies on tight seams and silicone sealing.
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Replies
yep, 1/2" is code for living spaces so should be enough for your separated "storage" space (that's what its considered if its not living space).
You can put the 1/2" drywall up first, then cover it with OSB and paint that (code requires 1/2" drywall between one space and another, and the wood can be placed in the exposed surface - this is how people do bead-board and paneling), the painted OSB looks a lot like tooled plaster when you're done and screws hold stuff up anywhere you darn well please. The OSB is tough against accidental damage (way, way tougher against punctures, dings than the drywall would be).
However, since this is a separated building, and no one is sleeping in there (or on the opposite side of the wall), you could dispense with the drywall altogether and just put the OSB on the studs (that's what I did in my shop).
It is really surprising how good it looks with a good coat of white paint! I did not even caulk most of the joints, just butted them up real tight. The rough "tooled plaster" look surface hides a wealth of sins.
Here are some photos of how mine came out (it looks "too clean" because these were taken right after I moved in!).
Hope this helps,
Norm
Wow, nice looking shop. And nice wheels. I'm impressed.
I built a little workshop at my last house. Used 7/16" chipboard instead of sheetrock. Wonderful. Got it for $4 per 4x6 sheet, also wonderful. Check with your insurance agent to see what they allow. Oh, get it in writing if they say OSB is ok. Shop burns down, they'll deny it if it's not in writing.
It was also nice that all the old paneling in that house had just been sheetrocked over. You could hang a picture anywhere.
I never got around to painting the chipboard. I'm sure the new owner took care of it by now. I thought it looked good wood colored. Or I was too lazy to paint it.<G>
I hope I'm not being an idiot, but OSB and chipboard are the same thing right?
Norm,
You posted those pics to show off the shiny floor right?
Jon
You never even set foot in your shop do you? You took those pics thru the window.
Nice.
Pro-Dek move your grungy stuff over.
Now, c'mon guys, I said those were taken right after I moved in (which was this spring). It is dirtier now.
That floor is amazing, by the way, and seems bulletproof. It is the epoxy floor covering in Griot's Garage Catalog and seems like it will last for many, many years (as much as it costs it BETTER!).
I've dropped sharp, heavy things on it, and they made no chips. The claim is that even brake fluid won't harm it. I guess that it'll get duller with use, as little scratches take down the shine and that will be fine.
Surprisingly, it is not real slippery when wet (not a huge concern for a workshop). I think that if I was gonna park my daily car on such a surface I'd put in the sand grit, but wet shoes coming in from the rain don't seem to be much of a concern. Something to do with the kind of surface that the material has...
Norm "shiny floors" Kerr
:o)
But framed hanging pictures...
Look at wall behind the grinder.... Spotless.
There isn't so much as a speck of dust or a grain of any thing out of place.
there is now!
but that's because now its been used.
Norm
:oD
Cause the picture opens so small details are diggicut to see.
MGB?
Boniville and side car?
Like the electical rim trough.
'74 Midget
'97 Ural Tourist (Russian Sidecar rig, looks like early '50s BMW)
The wiring trough was GREAT!
I used Hoffmann wireway (4"x4") and it is so easy to live with. I can change my mind as often as I like and can run a tremendous amount of wiring (and dedicated 220V circuits and so on) in it. I used those plastic romex stacking clips that you usually nail to studs during rough electrical to keep all the wires sorted out and organized inside the wireway for easy future identification.
One caveat about using commercial wireway in a visible location like this: the stuff is not designed to be installed tightly fitted to its environment (its meant to be run in crawl spaces and above, in suspended arrays, places where +/-6~12" is good enough) so fitting it to the walls like a cornice moulding took some cutting and fitting. But I think it was worth it.
Norm
Done the race way thing the same way before. Used Panduit though.
Cut the trough using a chop saw. Then the filing and painting thing. Porta band made life a lot easier.
Romex takes up too much space. THHN (stranded) color coded is faster / cooler / cheaper / easier to work / less space consumption. Bused a #6 BC stranded for the bonds. Split bolted the taps.
Stranded THHN gave me 5 amp margin, in a shop I'll take it, and with 9 colors available it was pretty easy to keep things straight. Use a mix of wire gauges (sized for the task) and a 500' spools go a long way.
I was sure you had a Triumph. Not up on Beamers. Then there is that midget, if you find it's taking up too much space or getting under foot I'll stop in and haul it off for ya.
Your pics were only 3x3.
12ga stranded THHN was what I used. With lots of zip ties to keep related circuits bundled together, and the "stack-its" to keep those buldles separated.
That MG is never leaving my side! I dragged that thing home from a junk yard and rebuilt every mechanical part except for the wiper motor. It runs like a modern car now and is 'irreplacable'. It is also worth about 1/3 of what I ended up spending on the darn thing!
The tough thing is that I did all that work in an un-heated, one car garage (ccold winters) and now have this nice space but the car is done!
Norm
Thanks for your advise! Based on the responses I've gotten I intend to go the "rock over plywood" route.
Your shop looks so neat I could puke! Like you, I'm running surface wireway at top of wall, although G3000 size in my case.
Woody
5/8 fire rock over the ply. At least fire tape. Other wise the ins. co might leave you hanging in the event there is a problem.
5/8 "fire board" and the fire tape is a good idea, because it goes up quick, its expensive from what I remember, think I paid 20 a roll last time, if its high humidity it might peal off, at least it did the last time I used it
Never be afraid to try something new. Remember, amateurs built the ark, Professional build the Titanic.
Woody,
Go the distance with the fire rated rock and tape. Since you're welding, you can pretty much throw out resi-buiding codes, they won't apply. Talk to a fire inspector, these guys know how fires start and spread and can give you some great info. It's better to over build once than rebuild. Don't forget an appropriate fire extinguisher located near an exit in case the fire gets too big too fast. And keep a list of chemicals, etc. so that if a fire does start the firefighters know what kind of fire they're fighting.
JK
Similar situation...got the 5/8" fire-rated up and ready to be taped, but have never heard of fire tape...can that take joint compound like regular or mesh? Does mesh tape qualify as fire tape? Fire tape generally available at DIY store?
He asked about FIRE PROTECTION.
Plywood on top of x-rock is not going to offer a lot of fire protection, specially from the contents.
X-rock is used in attached garages not to protect the garage or the contents, but to give homeowners time to realize that there is a fire and get out of the house and maybe slow the fire down enough to protect so that the house is still standing with the fire department gets there.
A typical home garage is probably a much more "dangerous" location then a metal working shop. With maybe 20 to 50 gallons of gas, oil, paint, rags, dried leaves, etc.
Now I am assuming that this is no commercial so that for local codes it is just a garage.
First Woody needs to look at what is in the building that is conbustible and how much? And what sources of fire that there are? And what his he trying to protect, the building or the equipment.
Don't forget for fire protection, a flammables cabinet is a must. Preferably one that is vented outdoors. Expensive, but cheap insurance if you have both lots of flammables on hand, and are shooting lots of sparks around welding and grinding.
My earlier post, I kind of forgot the fire protection being the main thing. OSB with sheetrock over it sounds like a good idea. Forget putting OSB on the outside. Never heard of fire tape before.
A hard wired smoke detector that is connected to an outside siren or an in house alarm system could also be an option. I know of one welding started fire that smouldered for hours in a dust pile in the corner before burning the shop down in the middle of the night. Make sure it's a heat detector, welding will likely set off a smoke detector.
How big is it, is it heated, do you have water out there?
My shop (woodworking) is 30x42, heated and has a 1" water line to it. 5/8" fire code dw throughout, and I have made provission for a wet sprinkler system. KY does not require HO insurance companies to discount for sprinkler systems, but some states do. My ins. co gives a 10% dicount for sprinkler systems, interconnected smoke detectors, security systems, and fire extinguishers all add additional discounts. Enough that I figure to save the cost of the variouse systems in premeums in ten years, not to mention the piece of mind.
Just a thought.....
Dave
Quite some time ago I wired a barn/workshop for a local retired fire fighter. He does mostly woodworking but also runs a small forge for making his own tools and welds on farm equipment.
This is what he went with:
Concrete floor with rubber mats around the wood working area. Plywood on the walls and drywall on the ceiling. Behind the grinder and in the welding, the wall closest to the welding/ cutting table he mounted galvanized steel sheeting over the plywood. For about 3' on each side and all the way, minus a few inches for air flow, to the ceiling of the forge and hood he mounted the same galvanized steel but then mounted hat channel, it maintains an air gap, and another layer of sheet metal. He had a 4' square sheet of the metal on the ceiling over the forge so that any heat escaping the hood wouldn't cause problems.
All of the plywood, even under the sheet metal heat shields, was painted with a light grey, white on the ceiling, latex paint doped with an intumescent additive available at the paint store.
The other thing he did was install a double wall steel fire cabinet for flammable liquids. This unit is about the size of a refrigerator and was not cheap. This came with threaded nipples. These he threaded steel pipe into and, though elbows, piped through the side wall to daylight. They were then capped with slide on sheet metal caps plumbers chained to the wall, the better to allow any explosion to vent to outside, and spray painted a bright red. The cabinet was bolted down to the floor.
The idea was, he explained it to me, that should a fire break out in the shop the fusible links in the door mechanism will melt and the doors automatically close. If the fire is inside the cabinet the doors again automatically close and he can use the outside vents to put it out with a fire extinguisher or just let it die on its own from lack of air.
He had different fire extinguishers on hand, a couple of large 'ABC', multipurpose, units scattered about and a substantial 'A' only water unit for wood and paper in the woodworking area. He also had sillcocks close outside the two side doors and a length of garden hose hooked up, through a Y diverter, at each.
He said he was looking into getting sprinklers installed in both the barn and house but wasn't sure they could because he is on his own well.
I was impressed by his preparation and forethought. I would have gone with far less but he claimed that, outside the cabinet, the materials were relatively cheap. The sheet metal was available at a local duct shop and they cut it to size on their shear for a nominal charge. On the down side I think he used, dare I say it, drywall screws to hold the metal up.