30 X 40 Shop Build on a peninsula

[bgaidan]

Like I said didn't cost me anything except an extra 200 amp panel. I guess it does cost me like 7 bucks a month for the separate meter but it's charged at regular residential rates. I'm guessing it'll take a really long time to pay back that transformer and the directional drilling.

Yeah, I'd totally go bigger if the cost were the same. I cringe at the thought of what Duke would charge me to upgrade to 400a at the shop. Right now it's my house, shop and 1 neighbor's house on the transformer so I'm sure they've have to upsize it and I'd have to pay for it.


The drilling didn't cost them much since they're probably paying for that crew whether they're working or not. But transformer aren't cheap.


Did they actually drill it? At my old house when I lost a neutral on my buried service, they sent a crew out to run a new line and they dug a series of potholes and used it pneumatic ram hammer thing to pound a path from hole to hole and then just puled the new line through. First time I'd seen it. A crew of 4 guys knocked it out in like 3 hours for about a 150' run. Even a little drill would have done far more damage to my yard.

 

[aczlan]

Yeah, I'd totally go bigger if the cost were the same. I cringe at the thought of what Duke would charge me to upgrade to 400a at the shop. Right now it's my house, shop and 1 neighbor's house on the transformer so I'm sure they've have to upsize it and I'd have to pay for it.


The drilling didn't cost them much since they're probably paying for that crew whether they're working or not. But transformer aren't cheap.


Did they actually drill it? At my old house when I lost a neutral on my buried service, they sent a crew out to run a new line and they dug a series of potholes and used it pneumatic ram hammer thing to pound a path from hole to hole and then just puled the new line through. First time I'd seen it. A crew of 4 guys knocked it out in like 3 hours for about a 150' run. Even a little drill would have done far more damage to my yard.

In the early 2000s, I saw a lot of that where Bell South (I think it was Bell South anyway) was adding fiber service to existing subdivisions that had underground utilities.

They had a hole every few houses and near each distribution box and they would have several crews rolling through the subdivision.
Sounded like muted jackhammers running all day.

Aaron Z

 

[m016324]

Yeah, I'd totally go bigger if the cost were the same. I cringe at the thought of what Duke would charge me to upgrade to 400a at the shop. Right now it's my house, shop and 1 neighbor's house on the transformer so I'm sure they've have to upsize it and I'd have to pay for it.


The drilling didn't cost them much since they're probably paying for that crew whether they're working or not. But transformer aren't cheap.


Did they actually drill it? At my old house when I lost a neutral on my buried service, they sent a crew out to run a new line and they dug a series of potholes and used it pneumatic ram hammer thing to pound a path from hole to hole and then just puled the new line through. First time I'd seen it. A crew of 4 guys knocked it out in like 3 hours for about a 150' run. Even a little drill would have done far more damage to my yard.

They did actually drill it saw the drill sitting next to my transformer for a couple days.

 

[TTMotorsports]

Shop build looks awesome. I knew I was going to run into same issue with only having a reach lift when erecting my building so I rent a scissor lift and that was crucial to get the building up in a timely. manner

 

[m016324]

So the next part of the build is finishing up the concrete. As with all things in this build there were unintended consequences. Once the building was in place we started to realize that the slope of the driveway getting down to the building was pretty steep. The original plan was to concrete about 6 feet up from the building and call it a day. After spending more time looking at it we need to regrade the entire driveway and to ensure that I wasn't going to have a river running through the building when it rained we'd also need a mechanical drain. We had initially built into the plan a pipe drain but after watching what happened when it rained and the amount of debris that went through both the contractor and myself agreed we'd build a drain into the concrete as a more permanent solution.

So remember I broke parts of the pad moving the telehandler around, but it ended up working out because it was below the doors where I broke the concrete. It also allowed us to have the entries at each door slightly sloped which was nice. So my contractor cut out the areas where the pad was broken and installed some foam between the new pad and the new pour for the driveway.

Here's the layout of the pour and you can again see where the pad was damaged and cut was going to be cut out. Laid down about 12 tons of base for this area as there's a pretty good slope.

Here you can see the areas that were cut out in the new pad that became part of the driveway pour. Brought the same crew back with the original pour so you'll see the same truck in the background again mixing 5k concrete. One of the other things I hadn't thought of is putting a pad underneath the door coming out the side of the building. My concrete guy mentioned this and I'm really glad we did it because anytime it rains the ground is pretty soupy in that area and because there's a pad there it's not a huge mess every time you walk out of the building. You also have a chance to not bring in as much dirt since you can walk just on the concrete to get in. You can kind of see it in these pictures.

Easier to see in this one

You can also start to make out the mechanical drain in the pour. It's going from left to right in the picture.

A little more concrete

Then this guy showed up

Apparently dogs can't help themselves with wet concrete. He ended up running up and back the pad on both sides. So the guys spent the next hour resurfacing the concrete as best as possible to get rid of paw prints.

So can see some of what they were floating out here. But ended up being pretty much perfect after the second refinishing.

The next part of this is the drain outside of the pad which will go right here. Used rip rap and dug a angled chute covered in plastic to divert the water down into the natural gully in that area.

 

[m016324]

So here's a picture of the final results.

Dropped from crush at the top of the pour to connect the regraded driveway to the concrete pour.

Here's short video of the entire thing might pull it together and see some of the pitches all together.

 

[m016324]

Here are some better pictures of the drain which I wanted to document because I think it's a pretty good solution to the problem I had.

It's always hard to show grade in photos as I'm sure we all know from off-roading pictures. Can't always show how sharp or steep something is. Hopefully these next couple of pictures show some of the grading challenges we had to overcome. One of the other challenges is the amount of dirt that was created by regrading the entire driveway.

So the first picture is the bottom of the driveway looking up and the last one is the top of the driveway looking down. The second picture shows what we did with some of the extra dirt. which was to create a pad out to the side that I'll probably rock over at some point for another parking spot. You'll also see all the hay and seed we put in to hopefully stop erosion and get some of the plants to come back up.

So that pretty much catches us up to where I am right now. Next on the list is lift or lifts installation (trying to figure out if I"m going to do one or two lifts). I currently have one but also negotiating another one as we speak. Also going to start working on organization inside and running of compressed air.

 

[ridered3]

Awesome detail in this thread so thanks for taking us along.

 

[m016324]

So made a little more progress. Found a workbench locally that I'm pretty stoked about. It's just under 34" tall has metal pipe for legs and a metal covered wood top. It's 8' long and just under 4' wide. Been needing a place to mount my vice and work on stuff not on top of my toolbox.

Also pretty happy it's on big casters so I can move it around the shop as needed. Well I did get one of the lifts up and working but not the one I was expecting. So I had a 12k lift that I used in Texas for several years. Ended up moving to Virginia and about a year ago I went down and retrieved a bunch of my tools including the lift. Well I found a guy locally who would sell me a used lift and install my lift for 3k which isn't a bad deal for an 9k lift and installing two lifts in my opinion. Well Austin showed up with his guys and started looking at my lift and figuring out how they were going to get it up and mounted. Turns out one of the columns is slightly bent and the carriage on one side wouldn't retract (head down) without significant force. So decided to see if I could find parts but turns out this one is not easy to find parts for and I didn't want to mount something that wasn't going to work well. Guess I'll try and find someone locally that wants to spend some time finding parts or using it as is and sell it cheap. They were able to get the other used lift up and it looks like this.

Took them about half the day to get it up and going but everything works well even put my buggy up on it for a short ride up and down on 110v. need to wire it in hopefully weekend after this one. Like I said my lift was not in great condition but Austin finds and installs used lifts all the time. He was able to find this for me the next week.

planning on getting it installed Friday after this one. So a little more progress with of course some steps backwards. Once it's all in i'll take some additional pictures of how it's all set up. Still need to get going on the compressor but between work and vacation I've had zero time to work on it.

 

[jhama78]

Update?

 

[m016324]

I have one coming got the second lift installed and purchased some warehouse racking to start organizing better. Don't have any decent pictures yet as I'm on the road for work until Friday. I'll try an update this week.

-ben

 

[ridered3]

I have one coming got the second lift installed and purchased some warehouse racking to start organizing better. Don't have any decent pictures yet as I'm on the road for work until Friday. I'll try an update this week.

-ben

Hopefully time for an update...

 

[m016324]

Yup definitely time for an update. Haven't gotten of ton of new stuff done but things are coming together pretty well. Honestly been spending a lot of time using the garage and figuring out what stuff I need and where it needs to be.

So first picture shows both lifts up and installed and wired correctly for 220v. Both lifts work well general thought is the western would be for long term project work and the magnum is for everyday stuff like changing tires and oil and things that you know you'll have the vehicle off the lift by the end of the weekend.

So I found someone on FB marketplace that had some would shelving for sale. Most of mine was ruined when I left it outside because originally this was going to be a 2-3 month deal not over a year. Anyway went down to check out the shelves and low and behold he had some pallet racking too. So going over to buy 50 bucks worth of shelving turned into 200 dollars of shelving plus pallet racking. Looked like this on the trailer ride home. It's just over 13' tall which is great for my building which is 14' at the sides.

So I started building them by myself which wasn't that easy. One side is 8' long and the other is 10' Rigged a couple of different things with ladders and straps and even cut some of the boards down to fit as shelving which was pretty good for the 8' side and got it mostly built. Started working on the 10' side and honestly it was just a little too heavy and awkward to do it by myself by hand.

I was really happy that I could fit it above the door in the back between the roll up door. Allows me to pretty much maximize some space that was probably going to be somewhat wasted. Needed to wait a couple days to get some friends over to finish the work.

So no action shots but had two friends come over and help me knock out all the shelving in an afternoon. We ended up cutting out two sheets in each pallet rack location so it's about 1.5" thick which will be great for holding weight. It sure is easy to find people to help when you have a lift they can use! Now I have tons of storage up high on this side of the garage. At some point I need to get something that can actually place the pallets up high but for now this works well. Will be great to throw all those tires on a pallet and lift them up out of the way!

 

[m016324]

In addition to the racking there are a couple of other small things I've started to accumulate through FB marketplace. I've been looking for a decent drill press for not too much money and found this guy for 65 bucks. Haven't completely decided where it's going to go yet it's not mounted, but of course I used it a couple times exactly where it's sitting. Need some clean up and maybe a coat of paint and some point but action is smooth and belts are tight enough to run through some 1/2" plate with a 1"2 bit so I've been pleased so far.

Also been looking for a ball bearing bench grinder. Found this one for $35 doesn't look great but sounds and feels really smooth. Trying to decide if I'm going to mount both of these to the big mobile work bench or build a smaller one to combine the two together somewhere else on wheels.

Finally my best score which was through an online equipment auction company here in town. I've been wanting a fridge for the garage but wanted something that looked more industrial. So I've been watching these restaurant auctions trying to find a commercial glass front fridge. After many unsuccessful bids I finally won this guy for $54 including auction fees!

Getting it home was a little sketchy as it is very top heavy and it's not great to lay these things down especially if they are older like this one. I've broken a couple of similar coolers when I worked in the dairy industry transferring them on their sides. So took all the back streets home and didn't have any issues. Used the lift to get it off the trailer and with a friend pushed it over in the corner. Now for 54 bucks I wasn't expecting too much. Fully realized that it probably had a locked up compressor or motor or something. Well we plugged it in and it instantly started was quiet and started blowing cold air! We spent some time finding the manuals online for this thing as the control up in the corner is not intuitive at all. It started cooling down really well with the door open but when we closed the door it started heating up. Turned out the condenser is completely clogged with grease from the restaurant it was in. I'll try to get a picture of it before I clean it and include it here. Hopefully some elbow grease and we'll get this thing up and running. I think it fits the décor of the garage pretty well. Good piece of equipment that's slightly beat up but plenty of life left in it!

 

[m016324]

So the last update this the final grading of the driveway. I don't think I mentioned it specifically before but when they dropped the two truck loads of rock to re-rock my driveway the second dump trailer dumped under my trailer because it was sitting in the way. Wasn't really a problem at the time, but after they did the initial grading I ended up moving my trailer and now on one of the bigger verticals in my driveway I had 14" of rock. Well needless to say it made it quite hard for anything to make it up without either flooring it and putting rock all over the driveway or putting it in 4 low which obviously isn't going to work for everything we'll end up working on in the garage. So after some back and forth with my contractor (I had held back final payment so I still had some leverage) he came back and finished the job. If you look at the pictures before you'll see there's a start of a spot to the right of the building above the apron. You can also see a start of another place to the left side that was always to be for my trailer. Well here's what it looks like now.

And because we somewhat thought it out from the street my trailer is hidden which my wife likes and I think is an added security bonus.

So from the outside pretty much done. I might do an update on some of the work we needed to do for the waterflows at some point. Still figuring out how to get everything where I want it so I'm not constantly moving things around but since most everything is on wheels it's not a huge hassle to move things around every time we're working on something.

 

[ridered3]

m016324 great updates to the shop and nice finds on those various items added!

Also like how you failed to mention the set of tons on the trailer load of shelving and pallet racking

 

[MONSTERMUDDER]

m016324 Also like how you failed to mention the set of tons on the trailer load of shelving and pallet racking

Hey, those axles look familiar...

Great progress on the shop, it looks awesome!

 

[aczlan]

At some point I need to get something that can actually place the pallets up high but for now this works well. Will be great to throw all those tires on a pallet and lift them up out of the way

Look at walk behind forklifts, I have one of these (an older version) and it's great for putting stuff on pallet racking: forklift - heavy equipment - by owner - sale

Aaron Z

 

[m016324]

Hey, those axles look familiar...

Great progress on the shop, it looks awesome!

Yup those are definitely the tons I got from you. Left them on the trailer for a couple months and just worked around them. I do have them off the trailer now though since I have the lifts to move stuff on and off.

Look at walk behind forklifts, I have one of these (an older version) and it's great for putting stuff on pallet racking: forklift - heavy equipment - by owner - sale

Aaron Z

yeah I've honestly been looking for a backhoe for awhile to use to also put up pallets occasionally as I have some work around my house that would be way easier with a backhoe. I also don't have a ton of room inside the shop that I'd like to dedicate to something like that. I'd much rather have something I can leave outside and be able to move around on non-concrete areas.

The longer term plans are to have a lean two on the left side of the garage where I can keep a backhoe and possible a project or two. That was another reason so have the 14' side walls. I won't add any concrete just throw some more rock down.

Thanks for all the comments happy about the progress over all. I do need to finish up the compressor install and get the inside organized the way I want. Also need to get the fridge up and running. I'll try and get a more timely update in the next month or so.

-ben

 

[aczlan]

yeah I've honestly been looking for a backhoe for awhile to use to also put up pallets occasionally as I have some work around my house that would be way easier with a backhoe. I also don't have a ton of room inside the shop that I'd like to dedicate to something like that. I'd much rather have something I can leave outside and be able to move around on non-concrete areas

I have used a backhoe loader as a forklift and it can be maddening in a tight area (anything but straight in from the door), with what you are doing you might want to find a small cushion tire forklift that can run on gravel, or use a backhoe outside and a walk behind forklift inside.
When I park it under the pallet racking (ie: forks into a pallet), my walk behind forklift takes up about a 2.5' deep by 3' wide space for the "body" and another 6" deep by 1' wide on each side for the legs.

Aaron Z

 

[m016324]

I have used a backhoe loader as a forklift and it can be maddening in a tight area (anything but straight in from the door), with what you are doing you might want to find a small cushion tire forklift that can run on gravel, or use a backhoe outside and a walk behind forklift inside.
When I park it under the pallet racking (ie: forks into a pallet), my walk behind forklift takes up about a 2.5' deep by 3' wide space for the "body" and another 6" deep by 1' wide on each side for the legs.

Aaron Z

Yup used a backhoe for years with pallet racking at my family's place in TX. Completely agree it's not ideal but I wouldn't be putting up stuff on a regular basis, but you've got me intrigued will have to put a walk behind on my alert list on market place.

-ben

 

[ridered3]

Anything new to share with the class?

 

[m016324]

Well some good some bad. Start with the bad. Had some pretty good storms over the last couple of weeks and this happened.

As with the rest of the thread there's at least some humor in it. I walked in the garage over the weekend three weeks ago and there was water on the floor like .25" across one whole bay. It had rained really hard so I was pissed because if you've read the thread we spent a lot of time figuring out the drainage because the slope is so steep down to the garage. I pulled out my phone and started looking for the contractors number so I could get him over to figure out why the drainage didn't work and why water had made it into the garage. I literally had his number up and I looked over into the other bay and there's a 12' long branch siting on the ground. Then I looked up and saw what you see in the pictures above.

Of course this happened during one of the rainiest times of the year so I've spent most of the last couple of weekends cleaning out the latest rain that's come through the hole. I did find a company to repair it and they'll be by tomorrow to replace the two panels (of course it went right at the seam and needed two panels replaced) and button the garage back up.

On a positive note looks like I'm going to end up with either a 3k cat fork with 3 stages and side to side or a 2 stage 4k hyster. Both are older machines and with in the amount of money I don't mind spending for another tool. One is local and one is about an hour away so hoping to make a decision in the next 10 days on which one and then I'll take some pictures.

-Ben

 

[ridered3]

Well some good some bad. Start with the bad. Had some pretty good storms over the last couple of weeks and this happened.

As with the rest of the thread there's at least some humor in it. I walked in the garage over the weekend three weeks ago and there was water on the floor like .25" across one whole bay. It had rained really hard so I was pissed because if you've read the thread we spent a lot of time figuring out the drainage because the slope is so steep down to the garage. I pulled out my phone and started looking for the contractors number so I could get him over to figure out why the drainage didn't work and why water had made it into the garage. I literally had his number up and I looked over into the other bay and there's a 12' long branch siting on the ground. Then I looked up and saw what you see in the pictures above.

Of course this happened during one of the rainiest times of the year so I've spent most of the last couple of weekends cleaning out the latest rain that's come through the hole. I did find a company to repair it and they'll be by tomorrow to replace the two panels (of course it went right at the seam and needed two panels replaced) and button the garage back up.

On a positive note looks like I'm going to end up with either a 3k cat fork with 3 stages and side to side or a 2 stage 4k hyster. Both are older machines and with in the amount of money I don't mind spending for another tool. One is local and one is about an hour away so hoping to make a decision in the next 10 days on which one and then I'll take some pictures.

-Ben

That sucks on the tree intrusion!

 

[aczlan]

On a positive note looks like I'm going to end up with either a 3k cat fork with 3 stages and side to side or a 2 stage 4k hyster. Both are older machines and with in the amount of money I don't mind spending for another tool. One is local and one is about an hour away so hoping to make a decision in the next 10 days on which one and then I'll take some pictures.

As long as both lift high enough, sideshift all the way...
Both will probably lift more than the rating for the first stage.

Aaron Z

 

[arse_sidewards]

4k all the way.

If you were comparing a 10k and a 12k it wouldn't matter but since you deal in automotive shit the closer you can get to being able to safely pick up a car the better.

 

[aczlan]

4k all the way.

If you were comparing a 10k and a 12k it wouldn't matter but since you deal in automotive shit the closer you can get to being able to safely pick up a car the better.

Depends on how the lift is set up for free lift, need to make sure that he'll be able to move around inside the shop with the forks all the way up to the ceiling without punching a hole in the roof from the inside with the mast.

If the 3K lift with side shift gets him that and the 4K DOESN'T, I would avoid the 4K lift.

By free lift, I mean being able to lift the forks from the bottom of the mast to the top of the mast without the mast extending. A picture from a random site showing the difference: Forklift Mast Guide

Inside a barn, full free lift would be critical if the top of the mast would hit the ceiling before the fork carrige gets to the top of its stage of the mast.

Aaron Z

 

[onemanarmy]

Wow....what an ordeal! I would have moved.

Nice build though...I just put up a 30x40x12 metal garage....on a nice, dry, flat piece of land thankfully

 

[bgaidan]

Depends on how the lift is set up for free lift, need to make sure that he'll be able to move around inside the shop with the forks all the way up to the ceiling without punching a hole in the roof from the inside with the mast.

If the 3K lift with side shift gets him that and the 4K DOESN'T, I would avoid the 4K lift.

By free lift, I mean being able to lift the forks from the bottom of the mast to the top of the mast without the mast extending. A picture from a random site showing the difference: Forklift Mast Guide

Inside a barn, full free lift would be critical if the top of the mast would hit the ceiling before the fork carrige gets to the top of its stage of the mast.

Aaron Z

I have an old 5k Komatsu that will not free lift the first stage after it's been sitting for a while....but if I run the it all the way up and max it out to the 3rd stage, when I drop it back down the first stage will free lift like it's supposed to. Biggest thing is remembering to do that before you get it inside the shop and have something on the forks.

 

[aczlan]

I have an old 5k Komatsu that will not free lift the first stage after it's been sitting for a while....but if I run the it all the way up and max it out to the 3rd stage, when I drop it back down the first stage will free lift like it's supposed to. Biggest thing is remembering to do that before you get it inside the shop and have something on the forks.

Probably the stage valve is sticky, or (depending on how it's setup), the first stage may just have that much resistance in its chain/sliders.

Aaron Z