Nice! I am starting a 40x60 shop this spring also.

 

Epoxy floors ftw. A good one, not the rust oleum stuff. Spills and mud wipe right up, just don’t do it in black with silver and white flake unless you always want to be cleaning it and you never plan to drop a nut or bolt.

 

I have epoxy on my other garage (rustoleum) and it has held up well for 17 years.

 

I had some bad luck with rust oleum but it was an older floor and very high traffic, which may have been the culprit. Like most projects, prep is much more important than whatever the final step is.

 

Epoxy floors. Two post lift is on our list to add to ours. Ours has a two doors one on each end and to be able to “drive thru” has actually been very useful. Drains in our floors has been nice with the snow or pulling in from washing to drip dry. Air compressor is outside locked in it’s own little closet with air lines plumbed in throughout the shop. Even though we just use cordless tools lol.

 

Lift.

Heat.

A/C.

Fridge.

Stereo.

 

had a 30x40 garage built several years ago, it turned out to be the perfect size vs a standard 3 car garage.

 

I completed my 30x40 this year too, and the excitement is still alive!

A few thoughts, gutters or concrete for rain runoff sections above the doors. I did so on one side which I love and now have dirt eroding away on the other side. Another is to place the shop (if possible) in a direction that the rain will not blow into the shop when the doors are open. Maybe a small roof add on above the man door to block the weather as you are entering. Also run a few extra or one larger piece of conduit or plastic pipe into the shop from the outside before concrete for the just in case. Definitely place the air compressor in an outside room. I had a 10x10 section inclosed within the 10x40 lean to for a lawn mower shed to keep all the dirty stuff. A large enough breaker box for growth with a min of 200amp service. Cant forget a min of a 2 receptical (4 plug in) box every 10 foot around the inside of the shop, never will have enough plug-in’s where you need them. And 10ea 10 foot led lights. I love to have it bright as a machine shop!

Apologies for the rambling, still excited for the process of building a shop.

 

How are you heating it Joe?

 

Footings or at least thickening for hoist or hoists😉

Slab with curb.. so you can flood the floor and the walls wont soak up water or get the plates, wood or steel soaked

Floor drain

Washroom with hot water on demand

In floor heating

Receptacle above upper cabinets always handy.. power for a receiver or under cabinet lighting

Couple drops of 240 for welding and whatever man glitter maker you acquire

Obviously 8 ft doors for the truck. 14ft for the rv.. yours looks about 13' I'm guessing

And a couple cat 6 drops for internet things

Pre wired power for cameras.. and cat 6 again

Soffit lighting

 

I put a small bathroom and shower in my detached garage. That way when I’m dirty and greasy from wrenching, RZR riding , or from just working outside, I can clean up out there and not bring it in the house so to keep the wife happy.

 

A urinal.

 

3am and can't sleep so it's and forum time!

A lot of great ideas guys, thanks and keep them coming

I wanted to build a pole barn building but the current price of lumber is stupid. I was able to a metal building fully erected and insulated for the cost of the material for a pole barn. I opted to upgrade everything on the structure, 12g frame, 26g walls / roof, vertical walls / roof, etc... There will be a 12' lean-to on the backside to house the tractor, the Rhino (Yes I still have one LOL), and lawn equipment. Two roll up 10'x9' doors. I already have a 18'x50' shelter for the toy hauler so don't need to be able to put it the garage.

Where it's going right now I have a 12'x28' shed with 100A service using 1/0. I can reuse this and do a 125A or 150A panel which should do what I need. If I go to a 200A panel I would need to run new wire. I need to do some load calculations to make the call to upgrade service or not. I do all my own electrical work so I'll put all the various drops where needed.

4" Monolithic slab with exterior 1'x1' footers - 6" thick runners for a lift. The slab will be 2' larger all around than the building. The interior walls and ceiling will be corrugated tin with exposed conduit for an industrial look. Built-in steel benches with 2"x2" frame with 16g tops with slat wallboard mounted above and diamond plate cabinets.

Undecided on adding water plumbing or not because I'd have to tie into the septic system with a lift station. My county is stupid with the building codes and red tape so not sure I want to go down that road. Still pondering that one.

Already planned:

Insulated walls & roof
Epoxy floors with fluorescent flakes
2 post lift
3T Package HP - spiral duct inside
External enclosure for the air compressor
LED lighting (not sure type of fixtures yet)
Awning over the door
Exterior lighting
Cameras
Mini bar with fridge and 50" LED TV
Bead blast cabinet
Welder station
Exhaust system
Hydraulic press
Lathe / milling machine setup
Sheet metal press / brake
Powder coat oven


On the "want" list"

Radiant floor heat
in-ground safe storage

 

I didn’t do plumbing out of the gate and added it later. If you’re going this far already and considering plumbing, just bite the bullet and do it.

On the heater front, the in floor radiant heat is awesome but gets pricey. I have a relative with an hvac business and recommended an overhead radiant tube heater. I ended up getting one and don’t regret it one bit. Also, it was mentioned earlier to put a compressor in an outside room. I have an 80 gal ingersoll that I put in my “closet” and hard piped the lines in the walls and have 6 outlets throughout the shop. I thought it might be a little overkill when I did it, but am glad I did looking back.

 

For folks who have done metal buildings what the things you wish had done or had not done during construction.

 

Frame in a big exhaust fan at the peak and buy a belt driven fan to pull the hot air out of the ceiling. The biggest recommendation I can make is make it bigger! I have about 2200 ft of shop, but just poured another 960 slab to add on. It's never enough!

 

Don't forget a soda machine out front and a sign that says Bob's garage

 

My Cave isn’t metal so I had to figure out my wiring early on. I have speaker jacks for surround sound for a wall mount TV and speaker jacks for stereo at the workbench and on the high side. I have hard wired ceiling fans, remote controlled, above the TV couch and workbench.
I put duplex outlets up high for 4 LiftMaster 8500 jackshaft garage door openers, which I’m very happy with for 5 years now. One more elevated outlet powers my cable modem, WiFi router and the links to LiftMaster and security camera networks (on a high shelf). As mentioned before, Cat 6 cable and coax connecting Cave and house, LED lighting and air compressor placement. I’d decided on a portable compressor that I can wheel outside and connect power and air output to serve fittings in the workbench area and a 50’ retractable hose.
My quality of life improved drastically with the completion of the Cave!

 

I don’t have any of this YET, but will have to refer back in a couple years when I move to my retirement property and start my “man cave”


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

Oh yes. Forgot the heat..
We don’t have floor heat but I’ve installed it and been in shops with it before. It’s pretty dang nice.
is say 200a service never know what you may find to put in your shop!

 

Make sure you have a tall enough sidewall for the ceiling height need for a lift and would say that 16' is the minimum. You want to be able to fit at least a 14' door for anything big you need to get in the shop. I am thinking about a loft 2nd level on mine. Have not decided on that yet.

 

I am trying to do metal but running into resistance from my HOA. I think I may have found some steel horizontal lap siding that will pass. I had to add some beams and large overhangs on the side wall and on end wall to break up the big building look. They wanted some architectural features to look more residential and not like a big pole barn. It adds some cost but it will look nice and give me a place to park things under the overhang.

 

Your roof line will dump snow in front of all your doors.
Congrats on your new shop!

 

Your roof line will dump snow in front of all your doors.
Congrats on your new shop!

Good thing it never snows here

 

Those who say do a good job you'll never have to do it again, never shoveled a Canadian driveway- Bob and Doug McKenzie😁
Ttt

 

Alaska we plow driveways ,$60 a snow

 

The only reason you could need more than 100 amp service is if you do electric heat. Do heat pumps work in your area?

Here we don’t worry much about heating shops. I just turn on a propane heater the once a year it’s cold enough. A welding machine typically only pulls about 20 amps, your ac will also pull about 20 amps. Isn’t 3t too big for 1200 sq ft?

 

The only reason you could need more than 100 amp service is if you do electric heat. Do heat pumps work in your area?

Here we don’t worry much about heating shops. I just turn on a propane heater the once a year it’s cold enough. A welding machine typically only pulls about 20 amps, your ac will also pull about 20 amps. Isn’t 3t too big for 1200 sq ft?

Dug into that today, I'm going to do 125A service as a subpanel off the house 200A panel. That will power everything I need with headroom. Most power at one time would be the plasma cutter (25-40A normally, max 50A), air compressor (20A), HP (30A), and lighting (15A). I will not use electric heat in the HP.

Yes, heat pumps are the standard here. A 3T is a bit large but the ceiling is ~14' and I don't want it to run continuously during the summer months. June through September can be brutal here with humidity above 90% everyday. 2.5-3T will run long enough to cool and dehumidify without struggling. Plus it's needs to be able to keep up if I have the exhaust system running.

Cool thing is I work with a lot of mechanical contractors so I can get a nice package unit for damn near free from where they have removed units during renovations. I own a DDC company and we do building automation so I'll geek out and put controls on the HP & exhaust system

 

My opinion is running water is almost a must have. Maybe you can get away with a hydrant outside and a utility sink inside. You could drain the utility sink into a holding barrel or something and pump it out occasionally. It would be a pain, but worth it.

 

Agreed, been pondering it over a lot and a utlity sink is must. Problem is the building sits about 200' behind the house. Leaning towards doing a rain water harvesting system, cistern, and pump to provide water and letting it run into a french drain. I'd have to trench 300'+ and tear up half my yard to run water from the house. And I really don't want to tie into the septic system, it would take 6 months just to get permits here

 

One thing on your electric, I take it you mean your plasma cutter produces up to 50 amps, that means it only draws about 20 amps. Similar to how my 300 amp welder runs on 50 amps. That’s 300 amps x 25 volts equals 7500 watts output. So 7500 watts divided by 240 volts divided by efficiency equals somewhere about 40-50 amps. Not sure what the voltage on the output on a plasma is.

My dad’s house has 200 amp service, 3000 square foot house. Then 125 amps to the shop, which in it’s day was not a hobby shop. Never tripped the 125 and I remember running 2 welders, plasma, and compressor at the same time. We used to build, shops.

On our own shops we always put an I beam on a pivot outside, then a trolley and chain fall from it. Supposed to use to pick up stuff, usually used to hang dead things.

I like a big utility sink. Hot water would be nice, my brother has that on his, really does help to wash grease off.

 

I take it you mean your plasma cutter produces up to 50 amps,

No, it requires a 50A circuit and pulls up to 41A