Building a new shop

[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

[Jordan Baker]

Picked up three shelving units yesterday from a rather large warehouse yesterday just outside of Milton. I went with 96” long, 24” wide and 60” tall. Now I can finally get some organization going on with the “stuff”.

First picture is of the suppliers warehouse, and I thought my shop was pretty big.

[Jordan Baker]

It’s been a busy time getting the shop floor prepped for the concrete pour. About 20tons of gravel was brought in and levelled off. I then spent the better part of an evening running a compactor around and around getting everything packed down. HotRock insulation panels were put down followed by 2000’ of PEX and then about 100 pieces of rebar. Lots of time was spent by myself getting this all set and just right. The cement guys put in a couple of rebar spikes for height pins. They went in about 5” then stopped. Turns out I got the base compacted pretty good.

Today the guys showed up before 0630 to get ready for the concrete pour. The first truck rolled in at 7 and the last one left around 10am.

Finally the site supervisor wanted to come out of the house and take a look. After pointing at everything, he approved.

[David Dunlop]

Very nice, Jordan!

What length of cure time did they give you for that size of pour, and will you be sealing/coating it before rolling the vehicles in?


David

[Jordan Baker]

David,

They told me to wear slippers if I go in tonight to turn off the lights and lower the doors a bit. They are coming back tomorrow to put some cuts in and also apply an acrylic sealer. Then it’s wait at least a week before anything heavy goes in.

After about 7-8 times around with the power trowel over the course of about 5hrs, they and myself were quite happy with the floor and it’s smoothness.

[chris vickery]

I’m really surprised to hear they are applying sealer right away.
My concrete contractor suggested a minimum 28 days for a full cure then after that do whatever I wanted.
Mine was cut next day as well using a green saw for uncured concrete.
I used a water based epoxy on mine after careful prep work and it’s held up great after 9 years.
Looking great, I’m sure you will enjoy your new garage.

[Mike Cecil]

Good job, Jordan. A great result for all your hard work.

The LED lights: are you still happy with them after the 10-odd months they have been installed? I'm currently evaluating lights for our new shop and would be interested in your experience.

Mike