New shop space ideas welcomed-

[WaterlooMarc]

CBS? Help the slow guy out.

[PedroOhare]

CBS? Help the slow guy out.

I am guessing Cement Block Structure?

Pedro

[Cian]

The space my shop will occupy in the next house will be in a roughly 24' by 28' attached garage. 

That's HUUUUUGE! 


Especially in comparison to where you're in now.  Congrats!

If this will be a dedicated shop space and you won't be bringing the cars in, you may as well over the floor. Tongue and groove on top of a foam underlayment or 1x laid flat with insulation should work nicely.  Your lower half including your back will thank you.

[mongo]

That's HUUUUUGE! 


Especially in comparison to where you're in now.  Congrats!

If this will be a dedicated shop space and you won't be bringing the cars in, you may as well over the floor. Tongue and groove on top of a foam underlayment or 1x laid flat with insulation should work nicely.  Your lower half including your back will thank you.

Hi Cian,  

Yup over 50% more sq footage.
   Was one of the few must haves from me for the new house was a bigger shop space. No cars in the shop. T&G underlayment might be a great idea.  I always hated the slab floor in my old shop.

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Run air lines alongside the electrical in many areas. Run dust collection piping before too much stuff moves in just to make it easier to get around with the ladder.

Otherwise, plan for storage. As much as possible. There's never enough.

I like the idea of air along with electric.....  smart.

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Hey Mongo welcome back glad to see you posting again. Where did you move to ? if I remember correctly you were abot 2 hrs +- from where I live.  Anyhow I had all my electrical done, 4 ( 4 ) gang boxes 50" off of the floor and ( 1 ) 220 outlet for my compressor etc. My shop is my over size 2 car garage also and I was lucky to have a utility sink in the garage which I use all the time. I need to run a few lights but so far I have managed as my work bench is near the over head door and faces to the exterior. Hank is right I wish I had a wood floor also and I might try and build a couple wooden platforms around my bench area. I also have 10' ceilings which is nice.


So I guess what I am saying running electric and adding lights if needed would be a priority, I am not sure if you have access to water or not but a utility sink is helpful for a number of things. A lumber rack if you need one also. Let us know what you are doing and your thoughts.

Also if you were planning a dust collection system you may want to run the duct work. I use mostly hand tools now and I do have a dust collector which I can hook up to each machine I use if need.


Steve

Hi Steve,   I ended up in the north end of Gainesville Ga.  I will have to see if I can budget in some flooring relatively early.  Good to be back.

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Being a garage, you should insulate the walls, the ceiling and the door. I say this because I live in north Texas and the 100 degree days wouldn't allow me much time in the shop without swimming in sweat. I have finally (after 10 years) insulated the walls by blowing in cellulose as dense packed as possible. Then I repainted to brighten up the space. Finally, if your budget allows, add AC and heating.  I just had a mini-split AC/heat pump unit installed. Now I am a comfortable 75 degrees on 100+ degree days. Best thing I have done to the garage/shop ever.

I have a larger window unit from the old shop that I may use for now.  Been looking at insulation.  We rarely get to 100 here but 95 is hot enough.  House has natural gas so I was debating using that to run a heater in the winter.... not sure yet.

[EricU]

figure out how many outlets you need, double that and then double that.

Well, maybe not that many, but I wish I had a more outlets

[Window Guy]

Wow I moved from Peachtree City, Ga so you are on Lake Lenier (sp) been there a few times with our boat, nice area.  I have - 16 ( 4 - (4) bank boxes ) outlets and that is more than plenty IMO.

Will be anxious to see what you end up with.



Steve

[jteneyck]

I would insulate w/o question, and have heat/AC if at all possible.  A wood floor would be really, really nice.  I still have concrete in my basement shop.  It doesn't bother my back, but it sure messes up my tools when I drop them.  I also would want finished, painted walls and ceiling.  Alternatively, natural wood walls would be really nice, too.  Windows would be great, says a cellar dweller.  

I would keep most of my wood stored somewhere else.  I say this from experience as my nearly 25 x 35 ft shop is hard to work in now that I have so much wood stored in there.  I just don't have even an inconvenient alternative.   If you have room to store wood somewhere nearby but not in your shop you will be able to maximize usage of the space.  A sheet goods rack might be OK, but lumber storage can get out of control in a hurry. 

I have moved stuff around a couple of times, but not much.  I would make a shop layout and then run power, DC, air, etc. based on that.  Running all your utilities with no specific layout is bound to end up both expensive and wrong.  Lighting can be more general, but you will still want extra lighting in some areas. 

Power; at least 60 amps available just for your shop.  100 amps if you have a couple of 5 HP motors running at the same time or your AC is running off that panel, too.  

Sink and faucet with hot/cold water, w/o question.  

An assembly area and a finishing area.  Could be the same space, but a space large enough to build and finish the largest thing you will ever want to build.

John

[Ray Newman]

Agree with what others posted about electrical, heating, wood flooring, and insulation.

Depending upon the quality of any windows, it might be worthwhile to replace them with energy efficient ones. Energy/utility does not become cheaper.

Light --  you can never have too much light in my opinion. Especially as one ages, the need more and brighter comes with increasing age. White walls will help increase the light. Wire lights so you do need to light e whole shop if you are only working one area.

If doing electrical add-on, consider a welding circuit. 'Ya nevva' know when a welder might follow you home.

Alarm system. Tools are a natural attraction for miscreants. Seems like they can smell an unguarded shop and tools miles away.

Outside access/location for DC system and air compressor. If impractical, construct a sound deadened closet in the shop.

Run a line for 'phone. If there already is a line present, think about a 'phone with the key pad in the hand set. If you're ever injured -- heaven forbid -- and need to crawl to 'phone and knock it off the base, it will be useless in an emergency if you can not reach the key pad.

Install a smoke detector

First step: take large sheet of butcher paper and draw a very large scale drawing of your shop, showing windows, doors, electrical, etc. Then draw  same-scale cut outs of your tools, any mobile cabinets, work bench potential wood storage, etc. This will give you an idea on workflow and time in motion. I did this when I had my free standing shop building constructed and it saved me a great of time, effort, moving things around etc.

I unsuccessfully tried to use a computer program to layout the shop, but found that a larger scale drawing and machine cut outs were easier for me to work wit and visualize the final set up spaceh.

[Steve N]

Otherwise, plan for storage. As much as possible. There's never enough.

Truer words never spoken, and I don't agree that you can NEVER have enough clamps.

[dg152]

As others have already said, you can't have enough lighting.  If I were putting new lights in my shop I'd put all LED lights in.  More expensive, yes, but power efficient.  And, unlike florescent lights they don't take time to power up when it's cold.

Put electrical outlets in the ceiling.  I have 2 retractable electrical extension cords mounted on the ceiling.  They are invaluable and help keep power cords out of the way.

When we built my shop, the contractor said that I wouldn't need any more than a couple of circuits and outlets.  Wrong!  Since then I've added 6 more 20 amp circuits and a 220v outlet.  You may not have anything that requires 220 now but there's always a chance......

I've also got a hotel style AC/Heater.  Since my shop is stand alone with water I don't want the pipe lines to freeze during the winter.  So it's at least 40 degrees in there at all times.  By the way, you should also insulate your garage door, too.

I also have a utility sink in my shop.  Very useful for cleaning stuff.

I'll think of some more stuff once I post this note.

Congrats on the new house and shop!