As you guys know, we have embarked on a never ending nightmare. Building a new shop and moving. What I am trying to do is come up with everything I need to do on the front side to make my life easier later. For example: Trying to figure out where to put conduits to route things under the floor to save wire. Trying to lay the shop out so that I can have easy pulls for the electrical at a later date. Any suggestions? They don't have to be electrical related. Another Example: I am plumbing in a clean out for my RV sewer, so that I can drain the RV in place. Make sense?
Air and power lines down the centre of the roof of the shop. It is then easy to "drop down" power or air later where you want them. I put retractable hose reels for both air and power at the roller-door of my shop, up at roof level. Makes it easy to run out an air hose or power lead if I am working outside. Bought industrial-grade reels, as the domestic-grade ones don't last too long. Cheers, Harv
I talked with a buddy that is an electrician and he told me to add "a gutter" to my electric box to help with conduits from either overhead or underneath the box, depending on where you trunked it out from. Something like this. https://www.mainelectricsupply.com/itemdetail/BL6624GRTNK He said it will make my life easier when I get to the point of building all my conduits.
Also add some plug boxes outside,the ones that are waterproof.Makes it easier to plug in a cord without having to run it under the door,i have them on all 4 side of my shop. harvey
Yes sir. I use a ridiculous amount of outlets. I also plumbed an air chuck out front of the shop with a 10' air hose for airing up tires.
I’d want water, air, and electricity at each door outside. I hate to have to run a hose around the building because I only have one spigot outside.
If you are planning on doing any sandblasting ,i have a dedicated 1/2 air chuck plumbed into the shop compressor on the back wall where i do some blasting.Dont forget the motion detector lighting,i leave mine turned on all the time,makes it easier to approach at night if its dark.Also spend the money upfront for good eavestrough and down spouts,you dont want water pooling up near the side walls. harvey
I overdid it on electrical. I used a huge panel, and ran duplex boxes every so many feet, and no more than 2 duplex boxes on a single breaker. That disburses the load in the panel so I can run multiple tools at one time. I did the same with 220v outlets, which I standardized with 3 prong welder outlets. Everything 220v gets that outlet; the mill, lathe, welders, oven for powder coating, etc. I found extension cords to be unavoidable, but putting everything where it would only need to reach into the center of the room has made things much easier. I know you're not supposed to do it, but I used PVC to plumb my air lines. Put a rubber whip in between the compressor and the hardline and don't shock the empty pipe when you turn the ball valve from the tank and it'l be fine. That said, PEX has a lower PSI rating than PVC, but won't explode into shrapnel like the PVC will. Even though PEX is only rated to like 160 psi, the tests I see on the internet show no failures until well over 400 psi, far in excess of anything my compressor will make. Anecdotally, my buddy's shop is fully plumbed in PEX for air and he's never had a failure. And he has a top-notch professional operation in every sense of the word, running air all day every day. If I ever have to replumb my system, that's how I'll do it. If you have an area where you might be doing body work, it might not be a bad idea to put some lights in the wall. Install a wifi thermostat. I'm a little off the grid where I'm at and we heat with oil. I have a 200K BTU forced hot air furnace in the shop to heat the place, but I don't leave it up. I keep it at 40 degrees when I'm not in there, not that it usually gets that cold in there in the winter. But when I want to go work in there, I just log into the wifi thermostat on my phone, put it up to 67 degrees, and wait 15-20 mins. By then the temp is up and I can work in short sleeves. It doesn't need to be anything fancy. I think my thermostat was like a $60 Honeywell.
So, you know that stuff that everyone buys now for their shop air? That stuff that comes in a roll and is really expensive? Well, from my years of working in the aircraft business, you find out that people don't generally invent new stuff, they repurpose it. So I started researching the different forms of pex tubing. They make one that is aluminum lined. Guess what? It's half the price of the fancy stuff. See below: https://www.supplyhouse.com/Bluefin...wd80AYQWsRntyhxNQ739FymEMt2q54jRoCfZsQAvD_BwE
The fittings are still expensive, but that is the name of the game for that kinda stuff. This place seems to be fair. https://www.ferguson.com/category/pipe-fittings/pex-fittings/
I am thinking of burying 4" PVC every so often, along the walls, to fish my pex under the floor. I am building a 40x80x16 with clear span trusses, so I would need about 70' for every run to get to the other side of the shop. Roughly 12' up and 40' across not taking into consideration the 6/12 pitch. Then back down say 12'. If I go underground I have 4' down and 40' across and 4' back up. Plus, I don't have to rent a scissor lift. No more ladders for me. Thoughts?
I used hot PVC, might be CPVC, 3/4 for my air lines 30 some years ago. Never had a problem. Put your air compressor close to the panel to save on big wire. Run the intake outside, that's where the noise is in a compressor. I have no windows for snoopies. There's a plastic that is used in chicken houses that will hold a few hundred pounds for ceiling. Will easily hold 2 feet of insulation and acts as a vapor barrier. It comes in 4 or 8 foot wide rolls, and staples up. DO it before you put ANYTHING in the shop. It's cheap, bright white and looks good. The local contractor can install it cheaper then you can buy it. I have tried to tear the material, can't be done.
If you haven't poured your floor yet we had a metal trough built which we mounted in the floor that ran different places so our wiring and air is in the floor in the middle of the building. We made it so we have metal plates on top of it now so any and everything runs over it with no problem.
Thick wall 4” pvc sounds like a good idea to route air and possibly electric through. You could put in junction boxes every so often just like you would smaller conduit, that way if you have a problem between boxes you wouldn’t have to replace a whole 40’ run. Maybe one run for air, a separate run for power, both individually marked. They make metal and plastic junction boxes for pipe that big, but your local building supply might not carry them. Might have to hit up an electrical supply house. I’m just not brave enough to run pvc or cvpc for air line. It might work for years, but it would still be a bomb waiting to explode. The pex sounds like a good alternative, at least if it blows it should be more like a rubber line than shatter into sharp shards.
Make sure you plan where your lift will go before you pour the concrete. I dug down 12 inches where the posts would be so there is plenty of concrete for the anchors. The manuals say 5 inches is plenty but I made sure.
Mount a vacuum outside so it will be quiet and plumb it to several inlets in the shop so you can reach everywhere with a short hose.
What about a mechanical room? I have pondered a well insulated room that would house my fuse box, the compressor, the pressure tanks for my well, the water softener etc. I could put a central vacuum in here as well.
Sounds good, all the noise in one place. I made a box for my 3 phase converter and it was insulated too good and got hot. Even in a separate room I would run an intake pipe outside or above the ceiling for the compressor. makes a big difference. I also used a car air filter for my compressor.
I used to work for a heavy equip company and we used a canister type filter on the one we had in the shop.
The older I get, the more light I need, even though my vision is still pretty good, so ... LIGHTS. Everywhere. For your utility sink in the shop, cut a piece of wire shelving that will fit over the sink opening. Use it as a shelf for washing and drying things. The vinyl coating keeps it from rusting. The lip that stiffens the shelf can be used to hang it off the side of the sink when not in use. The other advise ... Big Ass Fan ... literally the name of the company.
Heat and AC, insulation is your friend. I built separation wall with a garage door and service door inside building, but I've seen guys use clear heavy plastic strips from the ceiling that overlaps, no doorway needed and movable to split up shop to reduce the square feet for heating/ cooling/storage, I recommend windows with screens for venting/cooling, several ceiling fans on your nice days, I used 4 industrial 52" variable speed type. I live in Wisconsin so the heating is used more so than the AC. Do not use propane which my shop is, it's real expensive today here compared to natural gas, propane now 3 times more than 3/4 years ago, used to pay as low as .60/ now never under 2.00/ and as high as 4.00/ certain times of year. Make sure you use wide garage doors as I made a mistake on the side overhead door, 9 foot wide 108" minus trim, I can't back the enclosed trailer 102" wide in that door which was my original thought or the 102" snowmobile trailer. If you get snow in Ok that adds up, do not park anything next to the building because when snow comes off in spring it will damage things big time, shakes the ground here like an earthquake. Bend over when you buy the copper wire, I'm finishing up an addition to my home and Everything is Skyhigh in recent years. Good Luck, Enjoy your new building and don't worry, You will fill it up, mines 30x54 with 12 sidewall, when the slab was poured I thought Wow, Huge, now full to the point of PMO, also a 28x44 garage full, I'm in process of selling off stuff, we are all fortunate as we have Too Much Stuff.
Biggest hack for me is a forklift. I work by myself and while most of my work is not automotive, the shop is still full of car/truck stuff. I use my forklift for Everything, couldn't and wouldn't do much without one. This is even without pallet racking which I just got 2 years ago, huge difference in organization and access etc. I'd lay out the shop with pallet racking and forklift access in mind. Get one that will hit app 14ft high and make or buy a man basket and you have a scissor lift now with the help of a driver. It will take a little while to find the right machine for the right price, but the sooner you get one, the easier life will be, including building the shop itself.
I am thinking of buying a tractor with a front end loader. Buy the fork attachments. That way I only have one machine to maintain.
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