30x40 home shop build

[crazybluerider]

A couple years ago I decided it was time to build my own shop/garage at home. I am lucky enough that I was able to store toys at the shop that I work at but my employer had purchased a lot to build a new larger building on that probably wasn't going to have a good corner for me to hide my stuff in and I was ready to bring my stuff home to make it more convenient to work on.

I purchased a pole barn kit from a local company named Parker Buildings. They had the most complete kit that I could find and were able to do the engineering stuff so that I could build in the city of Portland. Many pole building places didn't want to touch stuff in city limits. The only thing that Parker's kit doesn't include is concrete and labor.

I started off doing dirt work and making sure that I could get permits. There were several struggles permitting a building of this size in the city, square footage limitation and height limits among other things. That was one of the reasons I went with Parker. Many places didn't want to modify their kits to lower the roof height while keeping a 14' tall door for example.

 

[crazybluerider]

Parker was cool enough to produce all the plans and drawing so that I could get permits before I had to pay for the building. After getting the city to allow me to move forward and paying permit fees that cost literally half of what the materials did I got the building ordered up and delivered.

Their delivery driver managed to get his truck stuck in my yard. That was kinda fun.

 

[crazybluerider]

The day we drilled the holes for the posts it decided to freeze overnight. That made it a bit of a challenge to break through the top layer of dirt and resulted in us getting the machine a little tippy a couple times.

On the day the inspector came out for my footing inspections I had a half dozen does running around my back yard.

 

[crazybluerider]

Then it was time to put the poles up.

I built a kinda sketchy boom extension for my friends excavator in preparation for the truss install.

 

[crazybluerider]

Then it was time to build and install the trusses.

 

[crazybluerider]

Concrete day. 6" thick 4500# with 1/2 rebar on 2' centers.

 

[crazybluerider]

I stole a scissor lift from work which made putting up the walls and roof structure way faster.

 

[crazybluerider]

Then it was time to get it dry inside.

 

[crazybluerider]

The city requires a drywell and gutters even on out buildings. There was a small problem here because I was not allowed to dig within the canopy of the tree in my backyard or within 10 feet of the side of the building. I had to fudge it a little on both sides by trimming the tree and "mis-measuring" on the garage side of the trench. The joys of living in the city...

The wife helped me out on several of these projects throughout the build.

 

[crazybluerider]

Then it was time to get the driveway and trailer parking straightened out.

 

[crazybluerider]

In order to run a sub panel out to the garage I had to replace the 80 year old magnatrip 80 amp panel in the house. Not only was it out of breaker space and amperage it was also pretty unsafely wired from many homeowner modifications. Not to mention that I'm fairly sure these are one of the panels that weld themselves closed and won't pop. I replaced it with a 200 amp square D panel. An added bonus with this larger panel is that now the lights don't dim in the house when the dryer kicks on anymore.

I ran 100 amps out to a sub in the garage.

 

[crazybluerider]

Wtih power out at the garage it was time to get some lighting going. I also ran a 50 amp plug for the welders, a 30 amp circuit for a future air compressor, a couple of plug circuits, and a camper plug to the back wall.

 

[aczlan]

Looks nice.

Aaron Z

 

[bgaidan]

Looks like a variant of Zinsco/Sylvania Breakers. You can still buy new breakers and even copper bus bar replacements. Apparently it was the aluminum busses that would cause the welding action.

 

[Muckin_Slusher]

That panel is tiny.

I cannot believe they make a 20 circuit 200 amp panel. You run out of room real quick, especially with those mini double breakers they have now.

How do you only have two 2 pole loads in your house?

No split receptacles?

 

[crazybluerider]

That panel is tiny.

I cannot believe they make a 20 circuit 200 amp panel. You run out of room real quick, especially with those mini double breakers they have now.

How do you only have two 2 pole loads in your house?

No split receptacles?

I do kinda wish I would have bought a larger panel in retrospect. I'd like to add A/C and I basically already filled that panel all the way up. I could however pull a couple of the single load breakers and install the ones that allow two loads. Which would free up some space for an additional 220 breaker.

Not sure what you mean by split receptacles?

 

[Muckin_Slusher]

I do kinda wish I would have bought a larger panel in retrospect. I'd like to add A/C and I basically already filled that panel all the way up. I could however pull a couple of the single load breakers and install the ones that allow two loads. Which would free up some space for an additional 220 breaker.

Not sure what you mean by split receptacles?

You can run a 3 conductor wire (2 hots and 1 neutral) to a receptacle (house plug) and have each receptacle have it's own feed. When configured like this they share the neutral and require a 2 pole breaker. You'll read 240 volts from hot to hot on the receptacle. Usually found in kitchens and outside block heater receptacles.

Anyway, I don't want to derail your thread. Cool project.

 

[crazybluerider]

You can run a 3 conductor wire (2 hots and 1 neutral) to a receptacle (house plug) and have each receptacle have it's own feed. When configured like this they share the neutral and require a 2 pole breaker. You'll read 240 volts from hot to hot on the receptacle. Usually found in kitchens and outside block heater receptacles.

Anyway, I don't want to derail your thread. Cool project.

Cool, yeah none of that in the house. House is 80 years old though. I did wire some of the garage plugs that way, nice to be able to have something charging on one plug and not have to worry about plugging in a big dumb grinder or chop saw right next to it. The two two poles are both actual 240 stuff. Water heater and dryer. Everything else is gas.

 

[crazybluerider]

One of the best feelings of this build was finally bringing my tool box home from work. It was a fairly strange feeling to have my complete set of good tools at the house for the first time ever.

I purchased an air compressor and when I got it home I discovered that I hadn't really planned how I was going to get it out of the bed of my pickup. A little ingenuity with the scissor lift got it down.

I installed hose reels and electrical reels between the two front doors and in the center of the rear wall. Having power and air on reels is maybe one of the best things I've ever done. I also plumbed the shop using a maxline 3/4 kit.

Side note: don't buy these kobalt hose reels. In a littel under a year both of the short lines lead lines and one of the large lines has failed. They have probably only seen full pressure, regulated 125 psi, around 25 times.

 

[crazybluerider]

After getting power and air situated It was time to get some work surfaces set up. First I built a smaller table for my tabletop mill. I built it to fit over the top of a craftsman tool box so that I'd have a place to store tooling and such. The second bench is 36"x120" and also has a craftsman box underneath, I use that box mostly for storage of consumables like cut off wheels and that kind of thing.

 

[crazybluerider]

That pretty well brings it up to where it is now. I'm still trying to figure out the best place to keep certain things, it seems like there is never enough wall space and things like my welders and engine hoist just kind of float around the center of the shop. I'm considering doing an enclosed small lean to down the yard side to move my shelving and some of the other storage kind of stuff out into to free up more floor space in the actual shop. I'm also shopping around for a two post lift and trying to decide where I want to locate it. I'm leaning toward the back corner where the tool boxes and benches are but if I put it back there I'll have to move things to get our cars on it when its time for oil changes and brakes. However most the time it will probably be used for working on the offroad stuff and it would be nice for the "broken" toy to be away from blocking doors.

 

[Dethmachinefab]

Nice work. I like the benches fit to the toolbox, may do that here where I need some tool storage but don't want to loose workspace.

I had a four of the junk hose reels from tsc, same type different color and all failed in a few months with little or no use.

 

[Pt_Ranger_v8]

Why not build a leanto for your toys and free up more floor space? As it is, it looks like you built a garage with some space for tools


Seriously though, you need to figure out what you're working on and what you're storing. If you're storing something, WTF are you storing it in a shop?

 

[crazybluerider]

Picked up a two post 9k lift today. This was the last big piece of shop equipment I still wanted. I'd been trying to buy a new bendpak for a few months but they have been out of stock. Got lucky last weekend and stumbled on this thing for a price that was too good to pass up. It's a US made Benwil GPO-9. Should be a nice lift for what I'm doing.

 

[Pony_Driver]

Bitchin

 

[GLTHFJ60]

Fuck yeah

 

[crazybluerider]

So this happened this week.

 

[WoodburyZuk]

Fuxk yeah

 

[Pt_Ranger_v8]

Hey don't look, but someone put a Jeep in your shop



lift looks tits.

 

[crazybluerider]

Hey don't look, but someone put a Jeep in your shop



lift looks tits.

I knew I was going to regret not wedging my old sami skins onto the new buggy...