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Building a Shop

Joined
Oct 6, 2008
Messages
379
Likes
252
Location
North Charleston, SC
I have been very concerned about the way some of our members have gone about building a shop. I sent an inquiry to Joshua Friend, the editor of the AAW Journal, to see if he would be interested in a "how to" article. This will be a general look at design, hiring a contractor, permits, changes during construction. payment schedules etc. I hope this will help our friends to avoid wasting money and to have a happy experience.
 
Joined
Jun 6, 2018
Messages
1,948
Likes
996
Location
La Grange, IL
I hope you will go into some of the nitty gritty with the design part, e.g. type of concrete, insulation, etc. I need less help deciding whether to have windows or a roll up door.

Would regional variations be much of an issue? Maybe this is a multi part article.
 
Joined
Jul 26, 2015
Messages
328
Likes
429
Location
Hot Springs, AR
i think it's an article worthy of the AAW's magazine. I designed my current shop and am pretty pleased. could have been bigger........:)
 
Joined
Jan 22, 2018
Messages
261
Likes
312
Location
Cameron, Illinois
I think it would be a useful article, maybe even a series of articles by different people. Paul could provide an article on the construction process, and maybe others with articles on interior design issues, and other considerations that Mike touched on above.
 
Joined
Jul 19, 2018
Messages
1,686
Likes
2,077
Location
Ponsford, MN
It would be my guess that by the time the article covered all of the Cover Your A** issues no one would be able to keep their eyes open long enough to read the meat of the article.
My priorities when I put up my shop:
  1. Make it big enough (Note they all shrink after you fill them with good stuff that you can't have to much of).
  2. Use OSB or plywood on the inside walls so you can hang anything anywhere.
  3. Use all surface wiring to facilitate easy future changes.
  4. Insulate for local conditions.
  5. Finish the entire outside with maintenance free siding and roofing.
 
Joined
Oct 23, 2015
Messages
210
Likes
288
Location
Springdale, Arkansas
Not a good time to be writing an article about building anything. Price of wood building materials has entered the stratosphere. What worked yesterday would be too expensive today.

Might be a good to go all metal red iron and tin but I don't know where those prices are at to be honest.
 
Joined
Jan 31, 2020
Messages
181
Likes
132
Location
Hoschton, GA
I think an indepth look at design considerations would be very interesting. Like locating the dust collector and air compressor outside of the workshop area. The selection of doors and placement of skylights/windows. Lighting, Dust collection ducting and wiring for various machines. Lots of things to consider if starting with a clean slate.
 
Joined
Dec 15, 2017
Messages
255
Likes
140
Location
South Plainfield, NJ
If you're building with a permit, some code areas won't let you leave OSB or plywood exposed, due to fire concerns. But the ply or OSB could be covered with sheetrock, and just use longer screws to hang stuff
 
Joined
Jul 19, 2018
Messages
1,686
Likes
2,077
Location
Ponsford, MN
Like locating the dust collector and air compressor outside of the workshop area.
Locating the dust collector outside of the shop has very little effect on noise due to the fact that the noise comes in with the duct work, which of course has to be inside. The outside location will save space inside the shop, how ever during the heating months of winter there is heat loss and frost build up that can prevent the blower from starting. Note: I have my blowerer and collection bin inside and it is no more noisy than my brothers outside system that frosts up and requires a space heater to thaw it.
 
Joined
Dec 28, 2012
Messages
1
Likes
2
Location
Bismarck, ND
I don't often write replies; however, I do read the forum routinely. I couldn't let the topic of having your dust collector inside or outside your shop, slid by.

I build a new shop a couple of years ago and the shop is slip in to a heated/cooled work area and the other part is just heated storage area (North Dakota, you want heat). My plan was to place the cyclone dust collector in the heated side and pull the dust from the heated/cooled work area via the duct work into the just heated side. The plan was to reduce the noise factor.

Two problems, the dust collector pulled all my cool air from the work area and I couldn't open the door from my work area to the just heated side where the dust collector is due the vacuum that the cyclone dust collector had pulled. So, I had to add air return from the dust collector closet back into the main work area, so I could open the door (good thing I had a remote on/off switch or I may still be stuck in my shop, not all bad).

Having the dust collector on the other side of an insulated wall did reduce the noise some but the air return openings limited the effectiveness of the noise reduction.
 
Joined
Aug 14, 2007
Messages
5,435
Likes
2,792
Location
Eugene, OR
I built a new house and shop, and moved in almost 2 years ago. Having done mostly residential concrete work, I chose this for my exterior walls:

https://faswall.com/what-is-faswall/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIls7_7tu26wIVcwnnCh2LaAXkEAAYASAAEgL2svD_BwE

I consider this type of material to be the future of construction. I am lucky because it is manufactured just down the road from me. It did add about 20% to the overall cost of construction, but the sound and thermal properties make it worth the cost. I haven't used the air conditioning at all. Hottest days are maybe 100. We are lucky that it cools off at night here, so with fans in the windows, inside temps go to about 65, then I close up the buildings, and at most it goes up to 75 or so. Even when being gone for 2 days, max temp was 77. In winter, I heat with a wood stove, and burn less wood in the 2 buildings than I did in my old 70's house. There are similar products, mostly styrofoam. My experiences with them was that they were fine as long as you didn't care about plumb, level, square or straight. Not to mention the styrofoam pellets all over the neighborhood. Can any one heard a bunch of Persian cats around to pick up the pellets????

robo hippy
 
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