Planning a dream shop. What should I know?

Well the time has come. We've moved out onto a little under 5 acres this summer, and after a mad dash of getting all the big projects out of the way before wintertime, it's now cold and I have time to sit down and start figuring out a shop.I've never done this before, so I figured asking would be the best option, as there seems to be quite a lot of knowledgeable people on here.

I'll start off with my initial thoughts. We're out in the country, ( closest neighbor is a couple miles away), and zoned agriculture. So i don't believe there will be very many issues as far as what type of building I can put up. As of now, I have much more time than money, alongside a very flexible job, and would like to do as much of the building myself  to save money. However, I'm trying to determine what exactly I can do myself and what I need to pay someone to do. I have some experience framing, and building, as well as having friends who have building experience as well. To add to that I have a tractor, as well as access to larger tractors and skid steers. All that to say that I feel i'm fairly well equipped to DIY most of it. Its just a matter of figuring out what I should tackle. 

Right now I'm thinking my best bet is a pole shed, that way I can build it in stages. Build the shed, then later pour the concrete, then after that finish and insulate the inside of the shop. I haven't decided on size yet. I know shops are never big enough, but I'll have to draw the line somewhere. Right now i'm thinking 40x60 (or whatever's close that cheapest), and having 40x40 of that being concrete and the other side be dirt. From my understanding pole sheds aren't terrible difficult build, but i'd like to hear thoughts. I'm thinking 12' sides should be tall enough for a lift and second floor storage?

Concrete, is a 40x40 pad DIYable? I know this is most often the thing that people say to farm out, it's also one of the largest expenses. I feel confidant I could do the the dirt work and build forms. Its the pouring and finishing that i'd be concerned about. What am I not thinking about here? A lift planned for the future, so I know that's something I need to think about.

After all that, what about the misc stuff i'm not thinking about? What sort of things do you wish you did when you built yours, or do you have any must do advice? I have several years before i'd break ground, so I want to make sure I have everything absolutely lined up.

Sorry for my rambling, hopefully you can make sense of it!

Good advice I got from a friend of mine is, "It's too small so make sure you can easily add on." He does concrete for a living and has been back to the same properties a few times. Pole is one of the easiest to add on to, both as you go by sectioning, as well as basic design to add to the back/sides with leantos, etc. Every garage I see is packed so I believe this advice to be real. If you want less stuff, get a smaller garage as full is easier to hit. 

12' wall should be fine for a lift about to put one in mine that's 11'3 and I just make it. Make sure you spec the height to the finished floor not the dirt or you will lose some inches there as well. Attic trusses (and lumber generally) have gone up a lot this year, it's cheap square footage but double check that vs just a wider or longer building to get the same. There are some desigs that only have double/triple trusses on the poles and are framed between which save some money on trusses (I think Hansen and Morton both use this design). With the 12' walls you can do scissors for cheaper and build some mezzanines or do high shelving, lots of options there. Really depends what you are good at if you are DIY.

A 12' tall pole shed has some long posts, and some trusses are heavy, be prepared to get help!

Haven't built one, but I live with one :)

If you're pouring a pad, it seems to me that you might as well make it all concrete.

Concrete - 40x60x4" is about 30 cubic yards. Figure a truck carries about 9 yards, so you're looking at 4 truckloads worth. Costs about $120-140/yard. So only doing 2/3 of the shop would save you  $1200 or so - but you'd have a dirt floor. If you're just parking tractors on it, no worries. But you know that at some point you're going to have to slide under a car that's on that dirt area and you're going to regret not having a full concrete floor.

Windows. My shop doesn't have many windows. It means I can't tell if it's night or day very easily, which is kind of a bummer when it's a nice day outside and I'm in the shop for hours.

Lifts take up a surprising amount of room. You'll want to figure out where it goes first so you can plan for enough vertical clearance and to add some extra thickness to the slab under the lift location. Bonus points for being really precise and sinking anchors right into the slab.

Yep, do it all in concrete. In terms of space, yes I wish I had more, but really I wish I was better at saying "no" to accumulating stuff. 

Right now my shop is packed and my main job for a few months is just getting rid of stuff. 

It's usually cheaper to build "up" than "out". Adding height (if allowed) can give you more usable space for less $ to a point vs increasing the footprint.

By the time you finish a pole barn with interior walls, insulation, wiring, wall covering, etc the total cost is not usually much if any cheaper than a stick built building. You can spread the cost out, but it sucks to pull everything out of your big shop after 2 years of using it to pour a floor, or install a ceiling, etc. Unless you really, really need basic storage asap, I'd probably save up until you can do the floor and ceiling at the same time as the shell.

I'd plan for a hard paved surface extending 20 ft from the overhead doors. Something big enough to park on. Could be concrete or asphalt, but you'll end up tracking in a bunch of stuff if you just do the bare minimum for a floor in the shop and have dirt or gravel or something right outside the door.

If it's going to be heated/cooled, then insulating under the slab can really help to reduce sizing/cost of HVAC systems. It's a huge heat sink.

Don't just put the metal directly onto the framing. Use a moisture barrier like Tyvek for the walls and something like "double bubble" insulation under the metal in the ceiling to control condensation. Then you can insulate to your heart's content or when time/money allow and it won't rain inside your shop.

I'd also spend a bit more for things like decent overhangs, gutters, and snow bars (if you live someplace that gets snow). If you do get gutters, I'd spring for some kind of gutter cover or guard to keep things out too. You don't want to be cleaning gutters on a 40X60 building with 12-14ft walls, unless you rent a scissor lift or something every year.

Robbie (Forum Supporter) said:

Yep, do it all in concrete. In terms of space, yes I wish I had more, but really I wish I was better at saying "no" to accumulating stuff. 

Right now my shop is packed and my main job for a few months is just getting rid of stuff. 

My life exactly.  I have a 36 x 48 pole barn with a 15' ceiling.  It is all very nice, insulated, heated/cooled, with a 9K lift, and too damned small!  I also have too much stuff and am slowly getting rid of it, but the biggest space issue is that I store a 33' class A motorhome in there along with the racing stuff.  THAT takes up too much space for sure.

As for concrete, I really think it is best to leave a project like that to the pros, someone who really knows what they are doing and can spec the right mix, do the right reinforcement and finishing so it will hold up over the years.  My floor was done by a really good guy in 2001 and is completely crack free.  The apron and driveway was done about the same time by another guy and it is a disaster.

1) You don't have enough storage.

2) You have too much stuff.

3) Clean up/out

4) Repeat from one.

STM317 said:

II'd plan for a hard paved surface extending 20 ft from the overhead doors. Something big enough to park on. Could be concrete or asphalt, but you'll end up tracking in a bunch of stuff if you just do the bare minimum for a floor in the shop and have dirt or gravel or something right outside the door.

FYI, my wife works in highway construction and is a big proponent of asphalt over concrete for roads - but she would recommend a concrete driveway/pad every time.

Power.  Install a big subpanel and run more wire than you think you will ever need.  If you are going to seal up the walls, install empty conduit with pull strings everywhere there is a remote chance you might need power.   Think about stationary equipment you might have or acquire.  Running conduit in the floor or ceiling to power it when building is way easier than trying to figure it out later. 

Installing conduit is fairly cheap, surface mounting conduit is a PIA, and crawling through a ceiling is even more of a PIA.

When we built our house in 2000, I ran about 15 conduit runs from the crawl space to different locations on the first and second floors terminated in empty boxes with blank covers.  I've used about 5 so far.  No sheetrock work, no mess.  Just tie the wire onto the pull string and go.

Paul_VR6 (Forum Supporter) said:

Make sure you spec the height to the finished floor not the dirt or you will lose some inches there as well.

So much this!

When my wife put up her (far too small) horse barn, she was thinking that she would park her horse trailer in the barn during the winter.  The overhead door was supposedly spec'd to clear the horse trailer, and it did-- until she had a floor poured.

Doesn't really matter in the end anyway-- there wouldn't be enough room to store the trailer, hay to get two horses through the winter and the tractor in the barn anyway.  

Did I mention it's too small?

Another thing we found out during a recent power failure was that the overhead doors can't be raised past the operator trolley/shuttle.  So, if you've got the vehicle you need in the barn when the power goes out, you need to pull the door release AND hand crank the operator to move the chain and shuttle far enough along the track to allow the door to open.

Karacticus said:

 you need to pull the door release AND hand crank the operator to move the chain and shuttle far enough along the track to allow the door to open.

Liftmaster 8500W has a battery backup that has come in handy for me twice already.

No first-hand expereince, but I did a video for a steel-arch building manufacturer once. We visited a lot of finished structures, and the completely open interior was the big draw for most owners.  Construction was pretty straightforward, you get pallets of stamped sheets that bolt together into arches, and the arches are connected to each other to make a structure. You can add length, but width is harder. They seem to last forever as well. I would think this would be a good DIY option because you can build with some ladders and rented scaffolding, and add loft space and shelving as you go. 

Keith Tanner said:

STM317 said:

II'd plan for a hard paved surface extending 20 ft from the overhead doors. Something big enough to park on. Could be concrete or asphalt, but you'll end up tracking in a bunch of stuff if you just do the bare minimum for a floor in the shop and have dirt or gravel or something right outside the door.

FYI, my wife works in highway construction and is a big proponent of asphalt over concrete for roads - but she would recommend a concrete driveway/pad every time.

I agree with your wife, at least for any surface where work will be common. But asphalt is usually a lot more economical (as I'm sure you know). So my shop floor/apron are concrete and the driveway is asphalt. If I were going to plan on any frequent parking or work being done outside, I'd definitely have done enough concrete outside to handle those needs. Jackstands on asphalt can get sketchy.

I wonder how the costs would compare between 

Option 1) a big (2000-2500 sq ft) well appointed pole building with concrete floor, insulated, heated, etc....

Option 2) a same size bare bones pole barn with a gravel floor only used for storage, plus a seperate smaller (say 30x30ish) well appointed workshop. 

It seems to me option 2 could have some big upsides. The workshop will be less to heat, less to clean, less likely to accumulate junk since that's what the barn is for....

STM317 said:

Keith Tanner said:

STM317 said:

II'd plan for a hard paved surface extending 20 ft from the overhead doors. Something big enough to park on. Could be concrete or asphalt, but you'll end up tracking in a bunch of stuff if you just do the bare minimum for a floor in the shop and have dirt or gravel or something right outside the door.

FYI, my wife works in highway construction and is a big proponent of asphalt over concrete for roads - but she would recommend a concrete driveway/pad every time.

I agree with your wife, at least for any surface where work will be common. But asphalt is usually a lot more economical (as I'm sure you know). So my shop floor/apron are concrete and the driveway is asphalt. If I were going to plan on any frequent parking or work being done outside, I'd definitely have done enough concrete outside to handle those needs. Jackstands on asphalt can get sketchy.

She doesn't think that cold asphalt shoveled out of the back of a truck is correct asphalt, so as far as she's concerned it costs a lot more to do a tarmac driveway properly than a concrete one. This will depend on the length of the driveway, but we started talking about a parking pad in front of a shop. 

Dad's woodshop is about 40x40, and two stories.  Back when Garage doors were one solid panel and not many hinged things, Dad got our neighbors to give him their old garage doors when they upgraded.  He put one on each wall of his shop so he could open every wall and get access to everything.

It helped in a lot of ways.  He has his main entrance, out one side he has his planer and wood storage, the backside he has access to all the crap stored back there.  Also allows him to open them all and get a nice crossbreeze.

May not be able to go with garage doors, but something similar might be useful.

I appreciate all the advice!

My thinking was to have a smaller area for a workshop that was finished, and leave the other side gravel and unfinished for storage and that sort of thing, it just comes down to sizing of the main building.

Mr_Asa, Funny you should say that. A buddy of mine actually installs garage doors, and the boss doesn't like to keep the old doors they take out around. A lot of time they still work fine, they just may have some dents, but nothing major wrong with them. So the way your dad did things would work really well for us.

Well, glad I mentioned it then!  Make sure you factor that into your lift height, I could see the doors and their railings possibly getting in the way.

To spread out the expense I'd say do the concrete first and go with the pad larger than your shop. I would rather change a flat or do brakes on concrete as opposed to gravel or dirt.

Given the plan of building out eventually one could find a separate building for wood working or body work would cut down on dust contamination of other.

My new house has a garden shed on it's own 8x14 concrete pad and I love that.

1) moar bigger

b) moar taller

2) electrical outlets every 48" 

3) moar lighting

If you think it's big enough, you're wrong. Add 20%. If you think you have enough power outlets, you're wrong. Add more. If you think you have enough lights, you're completely wrong.

Ventilation would probably be a good thing to plan for.

Hell, I'd probably run wiring for speakers for an awesome sound system as well.  So long as we're planning everything.

Put all your equipment, machinery, benches etc on wheels.

This is the way we do it at work and it's a lifesaver.

I'm digging the gratuitous door idea. You could also do this with barn doors without the overhead hit.

It's not big enough, ever. 

I do concrete for a living, do not under any circumstances do it yourself if you've never done it. Concrete is really expensive to do twice and to remove. 60 tons to move 3 times is a lot. Figure 1.50$ a square foot for costs of finishing it, it's ridiculously worth it