Building a new shop

[Hanno Spoelstra]

Fantastic job, Jordan!

Originally Posted by Jordan Baker

She had none of that and wanted a new shop built, even before we renovated the kitchen..have I said she is a keeper….

I wonder if she thinks you are a keeper too... or that you will be relegated to the shop once it is finished?!?

[rob love]

Congratulations on being able to accomplish a permanent workshop at a relatively young age. You will get many many good years out of it.

As someone else said, watch out for the junk that inevitably fills a shop. Set a timeline...if you haven't used it in one, three or five years (pick one) then drag it out to one of the storage sheds.

[Jordan Baker]

Thanks all

its been a tremendous amount of work and time to get it to this stage. So many things to think about long before they are needed.

Chris, ill be adding a large number of outlets to the walls. My plan is to do a pair of outlets in the shop side walls every 4 feet. They will be wiring with 12/3 wire on two different circuits. Both will be on 20amp breakers. This way I should never be short of a outlet nor worry about tripping one. I will also be doing 220 plugs on every wall/corner of the shop.

Im not totally set on my workbench/tools layout but this will give me many options.

The air compressor will be inside the utility closet under the stairs and then plumbed across to the shop side.

As for shop lighting ive bought 8 of these LED lights off of ebay. They are incredibly bright and I should have no lighting issues with them. At 20,000 plus lumens from each unit, Ill be around 166,400 lumens.
https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B07...5iJyKKups&th=1

[Jordan Baker]

This is the light from one of these units. The last two pictures are of the light unit just sitting on a table and point up.

[Robin Craig]

Jordan, great to see the progress as it has gone on. If you want a quick temporary solution to seal the door thresholds for winter make up a small dummy wall panel and set it into the gravel and allow the door to close onto that. That assumes nothing needs to come in and out daily.

I agree with Rob about being brutal on timeline of items in shop.

Congratulations

[Bob Carriere]

As you will be enjoying the workshop for many more years you may fiond that the stairs are getting longer, steeper, phew!!!!

Consider building a home made "dum waiter" elevator to the second floor...... nothing for people to ride in but something that will handle a motor on wheels, a tranny, T case...... All built of wood driven by a 110 Volts 1500 pounds winch mounted above.... you can check Phil Waterman's site for ideas as he built one ........ when you get to be 80 years old it will be a blessing .......

I use a PA 110 v. winch on the "I" beam that overrides the second floor doors.. it allows to store a full engine on a wheeled dolly...... safe and a back saver for sure. A 40x40 in. elevator floor would allow wheel on... wheel off..... one man job!!!

You are the envy of all MLU......

[Phil Waterman]

Hi All

Yes the elevator makes the storage in the loft so much more useful. Of course you have to have to the structure designed for the load. The company that built my shop could not understand why I wanted the second floor built with such a high load in mind, they usually built barns design for hay in the loft.

But the thing that makes the loft so much more useful is well designed and laid out storage shelves. You can easily double usable sq.ft. of storage space of the floor. The elevator is the key to getting those truck truck transmissions and engine store away.

The unexpected side benefit was using the elevator platform as an adjustable height work bench.

Cheers Phil