New workshop

What type of work do you intend to use it for? Body, paint, welding, etc?

Everything beside Paint. So I have to put my welding stuff in, lift, lathe etc etc. I am the kind of Pantera owner who as soon the car is in working order, I'll take her all apart and do it all again, but with new lessons learnd and new idea's.

Well I am a typical Pantera owner. As soon as the car is in working order, I take her all apart and do it all again. With new lessons learned and new ideas. I do everything on the car except paint.
So I have to put all my tools in it, welding stuff, lift , lathe etc etc.
Maybe a second project car as well....

Dago, after years of putting off building my new shop I finally got started. 40'x32'x14' high, in-floor heat and a bar fridge.

First and most important, INSULATE the whole place as much as you can afford. I think mine is at R-80. Use an insulated garage door. All this will keep it cooler in Summer without AC and drastically cuts the amount of heat you need in Winter. A hanging 30,000 btu heater w/fan will keep the place at 60F all winter no matter where you live. For my 1000 sq. ft shop I tapped the natural gas line to my house and ran a spur 100 ft out to my shop, buried below the frost line with water and 220/100 amp service. Natural gas only runs at 2 psi in 3/4" black iron pipe.

Plumb your air compressor with sweat-soldered copper pipe & sink it into the walls for a neat appearance. Plastic pipe WILL leak in time from constant 100+ psi pressure, and if it's inside drywall behind benches and shelves, you have a real mess to get to it to fix.

By using an instant-on electric water heater for RVs, you avoid having to install a hot water heater. Hot water is really nice to wash up before returning to civilization (the house) especially in Winter.

And if you can, install a toilet if the shop will be a ways from the house. This will save many miles of walking back & forth.... There are RV-type toilet-waste pumps that will push wastes to your house sewer line or septic tank if you don't have the required slope for a sewer line to your home line. That also has to be buried below the frost line, which can be 24" deep in some areas.

Run electric outlets every 6 feet along with compressed air quick-disconnects in all 4 walls & the ceiling. Run at least 5 extra power or com wires out there from your house. You WILL forget something you need- telephone lines, security cameras, etc, and no one likes re-dos, especially if you have to trench.

if you are going to have water to your shop consider a sprinkler system .cheap insurance!

I thought about a sprinkler system but local codes make you pay for an inspection every year and my car has been absent for a number of years now being worked on. Nevertheless some sort of fire protection is a good idea and you could get a break on insurance.

Garage equipment suggestion first would be a 4 post lift with a jack bridge or the trolley jack that slides along the rails. Plenty of lighting. A jackshaft garage door opener. Parts washer. Small sink. Plenty of cabinets and shelves. Anna-Marie Goddard!

there are fire extinguishers that mount on the wall or ceiling and are triggered the same way a sprinkler system is. fwiw

Parts washers and air lines I understand. But I'm glad I googled Anna-Marie Goddard!

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But I'm glad I googled Anna-Marie Goddard!

Second that

Yes, every garage need one of those Anna Marie Goddards! WoW

is she a good mechanic ?

Tall ceilings for the lift and shelves for parts storage while the car is apart.

My shop is 60'x40' with 14' tall ceilings. Just a big, hyper insulated box. I put 10 skylights in the roof for natural light and big windows as well. Lots of plugs all over and bay lighting. Big, insulated roll up doors on two ends. A wood stove for heat in the winter. I'm solar powered (power company wanted $40k for a new vault and transformer!!) I catch water off the roof in two big tanks. A tiny fridge for cold drinks and a pool table have been amazingly popular. Sink and toilet would be nice, maybe next year. A hoist from the ceiling would be handy. More shelving - there's never enough. Anna-Maria would be a nice addition but my wife knows how to work the Uzi.

Great suggestions so far. If you have tall ceilings it's nice to have a loft for storage with some stairs to get up there. Also some sort of water proof wall covering like tempered hard board with a plastic coating on one side(like what they use in showers) going up from the floor to about waist or chest high so you can wash down you floors without saturating the drywall, that is if you are going to drywall. Substantial water supply for proper water pressure for a 1" hose to wash out your shop along with a good drain plan to get rid of the water. BIG BEAD BLASTER. If you have posts supporting the roof, run your compressed air supply line down a few of them for air in the middle of the shop. Get your self a 220 volt 5+ hp compressor with a 60 to 100 gallon tank (first and best investment I made 30 years ago!). Good luck, sounds like a great project.

If you want to be fancy make your overhead winch electric.

What a dilemma! How much can you invest in these great ideas for the shop and still have money for the build you want to continue on your cat?

You can utilize the domestic water for Fire Sprinklers or you can install an Ansul System with Halon ... great insurance in case something happens.

Ron

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shelves for parts storage while the car is apart

Go to your local Storables store (or visit storables.com) and get some inexpensive chrome industrial shelves on wheels for parts storage; available with flat shelves or basket shelves. This will allow you to roll the rack where you need it when working on projects and make it easy to then take everything over to the parts washer, blast cabinet, powder coat spray booth, or back to the vehicle for reassembly.

Garth's post reminded me, put anything and everything on wheels. Makes cleaning the garage much easier.

Being able to move things make the workshop easier to clean. Here us an industrial workbench from Whalen. Buy two or more to give you all the workspace you need.

Dago, how is the shop progressing? Post some pictures as you go. I am working on the in floor heating right now.
Richard

Sorry was out of the country for a while. I have visit the jungle they call Los Angeles.

But I see a lot of great ideas. The sprinklers are a novice to me but I might consider them. Also to put everything on wheels might be handy. Roll doors are OK, but the rails to support the doors are alway's in the wrong place. You can't put the lift under them. They will restrict my working place.
The loft will be there as the electric overhead winch. Floor heating!

I started to think aboud this workshop, because I could not sell my house. I was looking for a smaller house with a much bigger barn/workshop. however nobody was interested in two years. So best thing was to build a bigger workshop in my garden.
But today the phone rang. Somebody want to see the house. The first in two year. Now they are to late.

Does anyone have a single pole lift or scissor style lifts? Happy with them?

Arno

Just to throw this out there...garage doors that roll up into a tight roll...saves overhead. But not knowing your layout I would also suggest a high lift mount with a jackshaft motor to raise it.
good luck with your project, mine is almost done.

good info on the garage doors. doors that roll up in a ball are called rolling steel doors the insulated ones have an r-value of maybe 4.5, however sectional doors can get an r-value of nearly 26 lift clearance would get the doors up and out of your way spending 1,000 on a jackshaft motor isn't necessary as a 3" track system with a solid shaft and lift clearance would operate very smoothly.

Our 3-bay shop is 30x60, with 10' from the floor to the bottom of the trusses. The 4/12 pitch trusses are 10' on center, so a 10k floor lift with floor cables fits well.

I believe this is the lift we have: http://www.completehydraulic.c...-post-cj10000bp.html It cost less than $2,000 delivered to our shop, and works great.

The vehicle on the lift rises between two trusses, and even a full-sized van clears the roof easily.

We've got sectional roll-up doors with torsion springs. The door must be at least partially down to allow some vehicles to be lifted on the hoist.

We do not have running water available, yet we have hydronic heat and a sink. The hydronic system is a closed system, heated by a simple LP water heater.

Mounted atop a closet is a dehumidifier, which collects in a 50 gal. drum. This provides enough water to wash your hands with, although it's only cold.

It's cheap to heat, and only cost about $20K to build, not including labor nor the equipment.

High ceiling really make the lighting better. I have 16 foot with 4 foot windows up high. I have low ceilings in other parts of the shop and I hate it. In floor hydronic heat is simple and cheap. I'll never pour concrete with out it again. I use a standard 40 gallon gas water heater. Put a few pull anchors in the concrete in case you need to attach for a pull. You may be limited to 744 square feet. Build up! I like my insulated sectional doors. Buy them first off craigslist and then make the opening to fit. Go at least 9 foot wide, 10 is better.put a walk through 3' door next to the garage door so you can get in or out without lifting the big one.

Oh yeah. If you go with hydronic heat, make SURE you use a temp probe which reads the slab temp. I sealed one end of a water tube, and inserted it about 5' into the slab. The temp probe fits inside.

If you have a regular wall-mount thermostat, it only reads the air temp, not the slab temp.

In floor Radiant heat in the cold climate is definitely the way to go .. 30-40% less in cost to operate. Only problem is you have to layout the anchor bolts for the Automobile lift while your installing the tubing.

Ron

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Only problem is you have to layout the anchor bolts for the Automobile lift while your installing the tubing.

We used 6"x6" re-mesh, and laid out the hydronic tubes on 12" centers, then took photos from above - so we can pretty accurately locate the tubes even now. (We haven't hit one yet - knock on wood.)

The perimeter of the building got 2" foam under the slab. The center of the slab got no foam, to allow for better heat storage. We also poured the area under the hoists 8" deep to provide strong anchor locations, and made sure to keep the tubing away from the area where the anchors would go.

I laid out the pec tubing by hand, then I realized I was running out....sooo I spaced the tubes 2 feet about apart, instead of one. I figured that the heat would still warm the concrete. To my surprise, I can rub my hand over the floor and feel the cool areas. It still works great, and this shows just how fast the heat escapes the concrete and enters the room air. My advise. Keep the 12inch spacing. Mars red, no way in hell I'm drilling my floors any where! I did put 2 small anchors at the bottom of staircase, without thinking. I woke up in the middle of the night and realized how lucky I was! I love the silent clean floor heat!
Chors

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Mars red, no way in hell I'm drilling my floors any where!

LPB,

In addition to the hoist, we drilled in anchors for a trip-hammer for a blacksmith who once shared our shop. I located the anchor holes, and he welded new tabs on the base of the machine to correspond with my holes. Talk about feeling lucky...

Yeah, hydronic is the best heat for a workshop.

Oh, one last suggestion: We use an inexpensive LP water heater to heat the shop. We isolated it in a closet, and then mounted it 16" off the floor to avoid any chance of it igniting any flammable vapors from the shop floor.

I put the radiant tubing approx 8-12" apart with 2" styro insulation below the entire ground floor. Then staple up to the side of the joist on the 1st and 2nd floors. I used an instantaneous domestic water heater and zoned it like a heating system.

The key to estimating the tubing is simple .. 1' of tubing for every square foot if your doing 12" on center.

Nothing more comfortable than radiant heating

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Originally posted by Belgiumbarry:
is she a good mechanic ?

Who cares! she can hand me whatever she wants to and I will work with it.