HAMBer Help needed: What shop to build?

H.A.M.B.ers,
I'm looking for some shop-building advice. This weekend I'm bringing home my first rod project - an A roadster, and reality has hit me. I have a car farm. I need to build a workshop/garage for storing and working on the 'project cars'. I really have no idea what construction type would be best. Stick-built? Pole? Steel frame? Steel monocoque (sp?)? I'll be doing the bulk of the work myself.

I'd love to hear some tips from the BTDT crowd. What are your opinions on the advantages/disadvantages of the various types? Thanks!

-Ben

 

A friend of mine just recently bought a Mueller steel building 30' X 40' single roll up door for just about 8K. The foundation cost him another $6200.

Looks to be high quality (but the instructions ****!)

If you do go with a steel building don't buy into that "you and a couple of buddies can have it up in a weekend" ********. You will need to rent a forklift (for the I-Beams) and it comes in handy when lifting the roof supports as well.

I'll try to get him to email me some pics if you'd like.

 

http://www.garagejournal.com/ try this ryan site!

 

That's just the sort of straight-shoot'n advice I need.
Pics would be great! Thanks.


-Ben

 

It's better to have a long building with doors on the side that a wider one with doors on the end.

 

Seriously, go to garagejournal! It is the mother lode for this stuff. It covers everything you could possibly want. Lots of knowledge over there.

Tucker

 

Thanks for the tips. Keep'm coming if you got 'em. I am looking around at garagejournal. Thanks for pointing that out, guys. I had searched for something like that (a forum) but came up empty. Thanks! Its a great site.

-Ben

 

The garagejournal site is killer. I had morton buildings come out a give me a price for a 30 x 40 24,000. I can have a concrete block garage with a room upstairs built for 28,000 from a local builder.

 

I just went through an old timers car collection....1 steel building with insulation and a dirt floor...1 wood framed building with wood walls and wood plank floors...the steel building had tons of moisture inside...the wood building was bone dry inside and the cars were in better shape...wood absorbs the moisture and moves it away from the cars...steel with a wood floor might be nice...just my opinion

 

First question would be, what will the city/county allow you to build on your property?