Help setting up the space in my new shop?

[®smpr_fi_mac®]

My new shop is a three car garage.  Two of the bays will be my shop; the third will be partially walled off for my wife to park her car in.

I'm removing the rails and motor for raising the two doors on my side; I'll have stationary tools in front of them and will store my lumber on racks above the (now stationary) doors.  I've already laid out (roughly) the location of my tools and future work bench (bench will be under the two windows), but need help with utilizing *all* the space...in particular, the ceiling.

My work space will be 24'x24' with a 12' ceiling.  It will take me months, maybe a year to set it up as I want; the expenses of moving will set it back a while, but I'm okay with that.  I do have some ideas that I'd like to put into play and would like advice on what to change or do differently.

I plan on hanging two ceiling fans, two air scrubbers, and as many LED shop lights as I can fit in.

Here's what I have to work with:

Standing in the doorway to the house, the bay to the left is number one, where my wife's car will reside.  Bays two and three are to the right; I'll remove their rails and motors.



Standing in the opposite corner.  Notice the round support?  I'm going to build a wall from that support to the house wall to the left of the point of view.  I'll use that to hang tools and a set of cabinets.



This is standing in front of bay one door.  The wall I'll put in will run to the house wall.  I will have an electrician install a sub panel near the entrance door.  My hope is that the wall I'll add will help minimize dust exposure to the sub panel's guts.



I'll build a Roubo bench that will go under the windows.  A hand tool cabinet will be hung between them.



What do I do with this wall?  I'll put my light duty work bench there, which holds my mini lathe and grinder.  I know at least one row of cabinets should go on this wall, starting at about 5' up.  Maybe two rows?  I don't mind needing a step ladder to reach them if it means more storage for things I won't use often.

Fortunately, the house's main panels (a pair of 150A boxes) are on the opposite side of this wall in the basement, so getting power from them up into the garage won't be *too* expensive.  I'll get the largest capacity sub panel I can installed.



My table saw will be in the center, with an Incra table and 52" rails.  It will be stationary.  My PM100 and 8" jointer will be on casters.  My RAS will reside in front of the bay doors.  The DP will likely be on a rolling base, pushed into the corner of the windowed wall and the house wall.

The only living space above the garage is a closet; the other space is attic area.  I plan on installing a small wood burning stove later in the year, with the chimney passing through the unoccupied space above.  There will be outlets galore, with both 110 and 220 installed (five of my tools are 220).  I'll spend the first months after moving in laying out power circuits, insulating, and then covering with drywall.

DC, for now, is a mobile unit that I have that works quite well for my light duty use.  I may, in the future, install a fixed-location unit and add in ducting, but I'm not convinced I need to.

Yet.

From the outside, bay three is to the left.  Note the upper window on the left wall; that's to a large closet, so the chimney has to be closer to the bay door side of the garage.



So, having laid all that out, can you gents point out any mistakes or stumbling blocks I might encounter?  Any thing I'm missing?

[Alan S]

It sounds well thought out to me.  Just make sure that if you inactivate two doors and wall off the other that you still have a way to get lumber in and work out.

[®smpr_fi_mac®]

Alan, that's why I'm only partially walling off the two bays from the first--there will be an 8' wide gap between the new wall and bay one, allowing items to be brought in and out.

[BrentDH]

I have a suggestion regarding the electrical wiring.  For certain you want to run individual designated circuits to each of your 220V machines.  But I maximized my flexibility for converting 110V outlets to 220V outlets by doing the following.

For the 110V circuits I used 12/3 wire into each box but only used the black or red alternating to each of the 110V outlets.  (The unused hot just gets wire nutted together and passes through to the next box.)  Then I used a double pole, 20 amp, GFCI breaker in the panel.  To switch any outlet in that circuit to 220V I can just remove the 110V outlet and install a 220V using the red and black wires that are in each outlet box. 

Granted this does not create a dedicated 220V circuit as it is still in the circuit with the other 110V outlets and it limits you to the 20A breaker.   But in my case the walls are sheetrocked so it is better than having to run a completely new 220V circuit.  Maybe if you are leaving the stud bays open it isn't as big of a deal.

[BrentDH]

Another thought on the electrical.  If you think you might want to add a 220V machine in the future but don't want to make the outlet 220V until you need to, you can run a dedicated 12/2 20A circuit there and hook it up as 110V.  Then in the breaker panel just make sure you don't trim the neutral wire too short when you connect it to the neutral bus.  Leave it the same length as the hot wire that runs to the breaker itself.  Then leave the adjacent slot open in the panel so you can just replace with a 220V breaker.  That way you have a more useful 110V outlet until you actually need to convert it. 

As I think about it I guess you could put more than one outlet in the circuit but unlike the suggestion in my previous post you would have to either have all outlets in that circuit at 110V or all outlets at 220V.

Again if you use 12/2 you will be limited to 20A so if you are thinking someday you might add huge bandsaw or something you might want to adjust the wire size accordingly.

[Paul-in-Plymouth]

Looks like you’re going to have some fun putting this together.  Sounds like you have things quite well planned already.   For refinements, be aware of tools like this shop planner available on the Grizzly website:  http://www.grizzly.com/workshopplanner
I used an earlier version of that and found it helpful.

 I like the high ceiling.  Do you need any anchor points installed up there now to help set up your machines? 

I wonder about finishing the walls, insulation and HVAC.  I live in Minnesota, so I think about keeping warm.  But I also used to live in the DC area and remember the heat and moist salt air ready to infect my tools with rust.   You have the best opportunity to do something about that now while it’s empty.  

I’ve been very pleased with a heat-pump/inverter for heating and cooling (supplemented with a gas furnace for when it gets really cold - it still does that occasionally around here, but probably not needed in MD).

Have fun with this and good luck.  Let us see how it comes out.

[®smpr_fi_mac®]

Brent, I plan on running three 220 circuits with (6-8) outlets spaced along the walls. I'll only run one 220 machine at a time, maybe two if I get a bigger DC. I'll probably run at least fifteen, maybe twenty 110 outlets in the space, broken up among several circuits.

Paul, I'm not moving very far from where I am now and haven't had any problems with rust in an unheated/uncooled garage. The house has a heat pump, backed up with a gas furnace, but the garage isn't plumbed for it. A small wood stove should work great and I'll produce the fuel for it, so no added expense beyond installation.

With fans installed, I might get by without AC in the summer, but haven't ruled out a wall mounted unit in the future.

[Paul-in-Plymouth]

The wood stove should make it nice and cozy.

[TomFromStLouis]

This is in what climate? Here in Saint Louis I am glad I insulated my detached garage/shop. It helps both extremes.

[Harold O.]

There are a lot of things to consider. Sounds like you've been down this road and are set to go.

As it happens, the Wood Whisperer just moved his shop into a three car garage. He's pretty good at explaining his thinking.

 Video link here.