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Designing New Garage

121K views 247 replies 52 participants last post by  macrobert68 
#1 · (Edited)
I planning on breaking ground on my new Garage/Shop in June 08.

I thought I would start a thread here and update it as the project progresses.

Right now I am in the design phase so comments and suggestions will be appreciated.

First, I am posting a picture of a gas station that is the inspiration of my design:



I am planning on a 24' X 48' building with a 19' X 14' drive through. It will have a 10ft. ceiling throughout and the garage doors will be 8' X 8' (Edited 1/6/08 to 9ft wide by 8 ft high)
Here is rough sketch of my plan:



Here is my floor plan so far:



The room on the east will be for my "Clean/Dirty" work area. Sanding, painting, etc. I will have no tools or furniture in that room so it can be cleaned out easily.
The 3 rooms in the back from left to right will be the bathroom, compressor & dust collector room and the beadblaster & parts washer room. The rest of the area will be the main work area.
 
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#130 ·
shop

My main shop in central Utah is metal 40 x 120 with minimal insulation .. very cold in the winter even with the wood stove going full blast.. how much head room will you need if you decide later to add a lift. we have 16 ft sides walls, warehouse racking for storage. My wife's farm near yellowstone park shop has a cinder block walls that are filled with ground newspaper insulation that her brother-in-law manufactured...sheetrock ceiling and a gas furnace. an nice place to work but this time of year it is filled with produce we sell to the grocery. that should be gone by january. I have been looking at the ICF type of construction. strofoam block-wall systems filled with concrete. very energy efficient in hot and cold weather. we have been talking about building another storage-shop and Quad Lock is almost a do it yourself except pumping in the concrete.
 
#131 ·
Cabinet Plans go to the cabinet maker on Monday

Here are my cabinet plans. I'll give them to the cabinet maker on Monday with half the money.

My plan is to get the floor epoxied while they are being built.
I will paint them myself with my spray equipment.
White or gray, I haven't decided yet. I do believe I am going to go with light gray for the epoxy floor however.



 
#133 ·
just read thru this thing. Very nice.

will give you three :thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup: cause the cat is with me...

What do the neighbors think?
 
#135 ·
Garage Doors Painted and Hardware installed

Took me 2 days to sand, primer, paint (2 coats of oil-based) and install the hardware. A lot of work but I am very pleased with how they turned out.

 
#136 ·
Elect panel code requirements

Your shop looks excellent, Mine is a tin building and it gets very cold in the winter... Your electrical panel is very neat, better than a lot of pro jobs I have seen...BUT the white wires going to the circuit breakers. If they are current carring conductors ( a feed to a 220 outlet for compressor- welder. etc) the electrical code requires they be painted/ taped some other color and the other end of the conductor at the device box also needs to be marked...Green is reserved for the ground. bare copper is ground... white is reserved for only the Neutral wire . yellow should not be used for the current conducting wire since some warehouse type lights make white and yellow hard to see which is which. the problem is that in the future someone else could get shocked touching a white wire.thinking it is a neutral wire...
 
#137 ·
timothale said:
Your shop looks excellent, Mine is a tin building and it gets very cold in the winter... Your electrical panel is very neat, better than a lot of pro jobs I have seen...BUT the white wires going to the circuit breakers. If they are current carring conductors ( a feed to a 220 outlet for compressor- welder. etc) the electrical code requires they be painted/ taped some other color and the other end of the conductor at the device box also needs to be marked...Green is reserved for the ground. bare copper is ground... white is reserved for only the Neutral wire . yellow should not be used for the current conducting wire since some warehouse type lights make white and yellow hard to see which is which. the problem is that in the future someone else could get shocked touching a white wire.thinking it is a neutral wire...
Here is a better shot of the breaker box:


Thanks for the compliment and comment.

There is only one white wire that is connected to a breaker.
It is the 30 Amp 230V water heater. I know what you mean that it should be color taped because it is not a neutral. It's funny, I've seen so many installations of water heaters where electricians didn't color tape the white either. The city inspector looked at it with me there and didn't say a word about it.
I have wondered why 10-2 wire isn't manufactured with black/red/ground instead of black/white/ground? I would think most 10-2 wire that is sold is used for 230V water heaters.
 
#139 ·
59 wagon man said:
depending on what it would take and if you have the power i might suggest you look into a tankless water heater. it takes up much less space and even if you used 4 hours of hot water every day you would still save around 7500 hrs of electric a year.
I only put in a 100 amp sub in my workshop so I didn't have the power there for a tankless. I put in a stout shelf in the compressor room to put a 30 short water heater on. My wife insisted that I put in a washer/dryer in the shop to keep the shop towels and rags out of the house. I left room for a stackable w/d combo.

 
#142 ·
Update

Kevin45 said:
I'd go with Wolverine Coatings. As far as color, somewhere I have a bookmark with probablt 50 different colors and chip combos. When I get home from work (just getting ready to leave the house) I'll send it your way.
Thanks Kevin.

For the 660 square foot main area, I just ordered Wolverine epoxy from the AlphaGarage supplier yesterday. I ordered light gray with white, black and dark green flakes. I upgraded to their urethane clear coat instead of clear epoxy for the topcoat. I did a lot of research and it seemed they have an extremely high quality product for a reasonable price. Their epoxies are 100% solids and the urethane is 90% solids. I will have a total thickness of about 26 mils.
I have already prepped the concrete by grinding instead of using acid. I used a 7" hand grinder with a diamond cup. It took me about 15 hours over 3 days to grind the 660 sqft.

Btw, I completed the outside painting last week.
Still waiting on the cabinets. Looks like next week for sure. I will have to paint them after they get delivered. I am sure that will take me 3 or 4 days to do.
 
#144 ·
shine said:
roger, throw those flakes away ! i used them in my build room and absolutely hate them. you drop something small you'll never find it . :(
Shine,

I appreciate the advice and have given this some thought.

I didn't use the flakes in the clean room, compressor and blaster rooms and those rooms are already done.
If I build a car along with any kind of work that will create dirt, dust or overspray, it will be in the 14X24 clean room. (I call it the clean room only because it will be simple to clean.)
I used a marine type of oil based paint for the walls and ceiling so this room can be washed down if necessary. For the floor, I used the single coat EpoxyGuard epoxy so it would be easy to repair or re-coat if it ever gets damaged. When I do occasionally paint a car, I will be able to cross vent it with a filter set up like a paint booth.

I am going for good looks in the large main area. I will do occasional mechanic type work in the main room but I will just have to put up with the inconvenience of finding small dropped items. If I built an engine or something like that in there, I could get one of those large vinyl mats. And, I'll keep one of those pole magnets handy.
 
#145 ·
Update

I got the cabinets painted and installed. (I still have to paint the drawers and doors.)





Now I am ready for the epoxy floor. The epoxy is on order.

Here is a thread over in the "Flooring" section of the Garage Forum where I am documenting the epoxy job:

http://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=26308
 
#148 ·
Rambo_The_Dog said:
OK - OK - just stop already :p

Wow - this place is nicer than my home! :thumbup:

Really nice work and attention to detail!

Are you really going to be able to "dirty" it up and do any work in there?
Thanks!

You bet I'll do some work in there. The clean room (aka dirty room) is where the heavy duty work will get done.
 
#150 ·
Update

Finished painting and installing the cabinet doors and drawers.
That was a lot of work. Sprayed them with oil based, inside and out.

I also have attached 1 1/8" OSB for the workbench tops. I am going to put black/white (checkerboard) 1/8" VCT tile on it. I am planning on cutting the 12" tiles into 6"X6" pieces. Then I will coat the tiles with clear urethane.
I also have on order some 1 1/4" polished aluminum counter edging for the top edges.

I am ready to epoxy the floor when weather permits.



 
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