I'm jealous already....
New place needs a shop.
When we sold our previous place back in June, we left 2 acres, a shop and a barn. We got rid of quit a few thing that were taking up room in both structures. This new place is only .54 of an acre with nothing but the house and a pond.
Not long after we move in and got halfway settled, I began my journey toward building a shop. Because of the lack of real-estate available and a location that was agreed upon between my better-half and I, the shop size will be smaller than I wanted to build. My last shop was 24' x 24'(576 sf.) I decided on a 20'x35'(700 sf.) building with 14' sidewalls. It will be located directly behind the garage portion of the house. Plans are to build a mezzanine over a portion of the shop to store thing overhead, which will give me as much working floor space as possible.
I sent basic drawings and building specs to the Parish(County). After reviewing, they sent me info on what the proper floor elevation will need to be. After laying out the approximant location, I contacted a surveyor to set a pin for Base Flood-Water Elevation. Some of the backyard is within the Flood Zone. The shop floor has to be 2' below the set pin, which puts it at 19' above sea-level.
I then ordered fill-dirt(clay/sand mix). In our area, if fill dirt is hauled in, a Fill Permit is needed. I paid for the permit before work could begin. Only a certain amount of total yards of soil is allowed to be brought in, form outside of the property. If that amount is surpassed, a mitigation plan for displacing rain water has to be submitted.
Besides the 3 loads shown in the pic below, a total of 12 loads were delivered over a 4 week period. I will not report on the total yardage, as it may incriminate me.
![762368]()
Once I was satisficed with the amount of dirt needed, I began building the form.
![762369]()
One of the building contractor's laborer(from house construction next door) walked over and asked if I needed help. I hired him to help complete the form.
The width of the shop(20') stops at the orange marking on the closest form board in the pic below.
![762370]()
We had to dig into the soil to install the northwestern most form board to obtain the correct height.
![762372]()
The shop will be built over the water well. To help prevent damage, I place orange cones to locate the water well while moving fill dirt.
![762373]()
I began digging the footing, but decided to wait until Mrs. FW sends a mini-excavator from her workplace.
![762377]()
I prepared the area around the well-head, built a form and poured a concrete slab around it.
![762374]()
![762375]()
This afternoon, a couple guys will come over to mortar the concrete blocks onto the well-head pad, up to about 1/2" to 3/4" below the string line. I'll build a steel cover to be able to access the well once the concrete for the shop floor is poured.
![762376]()
More to come.
Not long after we move in and got halfway settled, I began my journey toward building a shop. Because of the lack of real-estate available and a location that was agreed upon between my better-half and I, the shop size will be smaller than I wanted to build. My last shop was 24' x 24'(576 sf.) I decided on a 20'x35'(700 sf.) building with 14' sidewalls. It will be located directly behind the garage portion of the house. Plans are to build a mezzanine over a portion of the shop to store thing overhead, which will give me as much working floor space as possible.
I sent basic drawings and building specs to the Parish(County). After reviewing, they sent me info on what the proper floor elevation will need to be. After laying out the approximant location, I contacted a surveyor to set a pin for Base Flood-Water Elevation. Some of the backyard is within the Flood Zone. The shop floor has to be 2' below the set pin, which puts it at 19' above sea-level.
I then ordered fill-dirt(clay/sand mix). In our area, if fill dirt is hauled in, a Fill Permit is needed. I paid for the permit before work could begin. Only a certain amount of total yards of soil is allowed to be brought in, form outside of the property. If that amount is surpassed, a mitigation plan for displacing rain water has to be submitted.
Besides the 3 loads shown in the pic below, a total of 12 loads were delivered over a 4 week period. I will not report on the total yardage, as it may incriminate me.
Once I was satisficed with the amount of dirt needed, I began building the form.
One of the building contractor's laborer(from house construction next door) walked over and asked if I needed help. I hired him to help complete the form.
The width of the shop(20') stops at the orange marking on the closest form board in the pic below.
We had to dig into the soil to install the northwestern most form board to obtain the correct height.
The shop will be built over the water well. To help prevent damage, I place orange cones to locate the water well while moving fill dirt.
I began digging the footing, but decided to wait until Mrs. FW sends a mini-excavator from her workplace.
I prepared the area around the well-head, built a form and poured a concrete slab around it.
This afternoon, a couple guys will come over to mortar the concrete blocks onto the well-head pad, up to about 1/2" to 3/4" below the string line. I'll build a steel cover to be able to access the well once the concrete for the shop floor is poured.
More to come.
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Scarified the ground.
Carried fill in approx. 2" - 3" lifts.
Filled loader bucket with dirt for extra weight and drove over lifts to compact.
Scarified again and repeated the same until approx. elevation was met.
Below are the drawing submitted to the Parish.
Below is the tractor(Kubota) I used to move the fill dirt.
It belongs to a good friend of mine.
Ah and the delays start. I know a lot about building delays.The brick layers to mortar the concrete blocks didn't show up today.
Not surprising. Your job, while a big deal for you, is probably less of a priority to the sub-contractor. Keep on them.The brick layers to mortar the concrete blocks didn't show up today.
Not really a delay, Mike. I have no hurry-up time frame. The building isn't scheduled to arrive until late January.
They were trying to finish up the house next door before dark:30.
I can do the job myself. I've laid brick and blocks a few times in the past. I just don't want to do it. There are other things on my agenda.
Glad we don't have to mess with that. We hauled in something like 120 ton of recycled cement fill and 3 dump trucks of black dirt this summer. Plus a lot before then.
It is interesting construction to see footings only down 24". While we can do slab on grade like that on a detached building, my garage has full footings. We are really close to the line where it needs to be down 5' so we just went a bit over 5' to play it safe. A bit south of here they are fine with 3.5'. That makes for a lot of block work though.
Thanks, I am still kind of pissed about them though. They built them sideways..... Grrrr.sennister, the drawing of the footing I submitted are proposed measurements only. The engineers at the Parish(County) may change them. It happened to the drawings of my last shop build back in 1999.
BTW, awesome footings.
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Not sure why some of these earlier pictures of my built had issues with photo rotation.. They look right when I am typing the post and in my gallery but when I post them they get rotated..
It actually wasn't done in this shot. There was another two courses of 6" wide block that went on top to give a 2" lip around the inside of the foundation for the slab to sit on. You can see where they were starting that in this shot. Likely also going to be rotated.
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Not sure if it is in your plans or not. While our garage build was attached to the house. We have a couple other separate detached buildings like my pole barn/shop. When the footings were dug we hit the power lines going to these other buildings. We pretty much knew we would as I could see where they left the house and knew where they came into the other buildings so if I were to draw what I assumed would be a straight line between the two we would hit them as we did. So this meant we were going to have to trench in new power to the buildings. While the trenches were open I threw in a bunch of 3/4PEX rated for 200 PSI. There are three runs from the new garage to the pole barn along with two 2" conduit runs. One of the 2" runs was taken up by power but I still have a 2" open. For the 3/4 PEX runs I have one for water going out there. I have a big 60 gallon air compressor in the pole barn/shop so one PEX run is for compressed air to come back to the new garage so I didn't have to buy and listen to a compressor in there if I need air for filling tires and such. I also put the tank from an old dead compressor up in the attic of the new garage for air capacity. The last one is for fiber optic for internet and a thermostat wire. The thermostat wire is there because I also ran an insulated 1" PEX loop from the boiler in the new garage to the pole barn for glycol to a water to air heat exchanger.
The point is if you are trenching for power to the new building. Take advantage of the open trench for internet. It is best to run fiber optics for this between buildings. Looks like you might have water close with the location of the well head so that might not be needed. Even if you just ran cold water to it you could get one of those low volume point of use tankless water heaters to have a sink with hot and cold water out there for washing up. Even if you only could run the drain to the ground.
Here is a write up I did on this.
www.greentractortalk.com
The point is if you are trenching for power to the new building. Take advantage of the open trench for internet. It is best to run fiber optics for this between buildings. Looks like you might have water close with the location of the well head so that might not be needed. Even if you just ran cold water to it you could get one of those low volume point of use tankless water heaters to have a sink with hot and cold water out there for washing up. Even if you only could run the drain to the ground.
Here is a write up I did on this.
Green Tractor Talk
www.greentractortalk.com
You are a bit out for this but the other thing I did was light planning. There is a forum called Garage Journal that do lighting plans for people. Give them the dimensions and ceiling height and they can do a layout for you using special software for lighting planning.
My garage was an even size 30x40 so I was able to find someone else that build one that size and just used their plans. I went with florescent fixtures that I pulled the ballasts out of to convert them to line voltage and used line voltage LED bulbs. In my case it is so bright in there I only installed half the bulbs.
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If I could do it over the only thing I would change is I went with two switches to control half of the lights. One is all the lights down the middle and the other is the perimeter lights. I never just turn on one bank unless by accident. So I could have just gone with a single 4 way switch.
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The Garage Journal Board
Light Fixture Layout Collections Lighting & Electrical
www.garagejournal.com
My garage was an even size 30x40 so I was able to find someone else that build one that size and just used their plans. I went with florescent fixtures that I pulled the ballasts out of to convert them to line voltage and used line voltage LED bulbs. In my case it is so bright in there I only installed half the bulbs.
If I could do it over the only thing I would change is I went with two switches to control half of the lights. One is all the lights down the middle and the other is the perimeter lights. I never just turn on one bank unless by accident. So I could have just gone with a single 4 way switch.
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