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Show us your shops!

architect said:
Interesting stuff. I have never worked industrial and the closest thing my firm touches in are science research laboratories, which I avoided. These projects were similarly specialty equipment and mechanical engineer/hvac driven projects, so the work was less appealing to me but of course still very fascinating. I have worked commercial projects from the developer-owner landlord side that leased to food service and major grocery store tenants, and like you said are all quite similar. The closest insight I have is watching all those "How It's Made" episodes. Really interesting stuff!

Having work across many typologies, I find them all with just different types and definition of constraints. For me, nothing beats hospitals which is a microcosm of a 24/7 city: food, waste, work, sleep, health, culture, technology, etc. The most memorable constraints are working with senior department chiefs that have worked their entire lives in low-rise, horizontal oriented buildings based on North American history of "abundant", cheap, sprawling land development. We have tried to share and propose vertical oriented spatial ordering, popular in European health care (and general development approach) due to their many historical dense urban forms, all backed by empirical data to demonstrate equal or improve efficiency. But these department heads would rather walk 100ft across the entire span of a building and take longer doing it than go up or down a floor, even with all the adequate safety backup in place. We were given all sorts of "evidence" that ultimately boils down to socialization and anecdote. The few youngers, upcoming department heads were more open to these different, proven models. What disappointed us is that these department heads, with not many times left in their career, essential prioritized their desires and needs of a very short time span over those of next generation. We build hospitals for generations to come, complete with "100-year" wall assemblies that endure past our own life span. These constraints (and possibilities) are always people and the structures that produce them... which is also the most interesting for me.

Having worked on mainly large projects meant it was often run by Ellis Don, PCL, and the now defunct Bonfield Construction. Generally positive and no issues working with them, but we can tell when if put their A or B team on a project, and smaller projects usually get the latter.

For government buildings, I have worked on courthouses to transit stations and major hubs with heritage designation and requires a heritage architect consultants. I have avoided top-secret projects because these required annoying security clearance (you get grilled by federal agents with a heated lamp in a dark room) and also working in isolated rooms in the office, complete with a vestibule where you surrender your phone before going into a room completely cut off from the world. Coordination with outside consultants is done with an encrypted USB sent out daily. Colleagues would spent months inside these rooms and described as emerging out of a cave daily. I think we later installed a TV for them with some DVDs or something to keep them a bit sane. No thanks!
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Down here, hospital jobs are specialized and involve significantly more attention to detail for life safety (and the specialized equipment and other requirements). Plan review is a nightmare.
 
Chicken lights said:
I wondered how that worked. If it's German (europe) you'd have to meet European food standards, then USA standards? I could very well be wrong but doesn't Australia have Aldi's?

I guess that's probably politics but it's just questioning global food chains. You'd have to set up one line for USA food and packaging, and a second one for Europe, and a third for Oz?

I don't know, I'm just the village idiot
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ALDI is a retailer and doesn’t make any of their products. While they do offer some name brands, the majority of their items are private label made to their specifications.

Wherever you are, food products must meet the local food safety rules. The German influence is mostly visible in the high level of finishes (like granite & marble in public spaces), the requirement that _all_ offices (other than the regional VP) are identical down to the inch (they can be mirror images, but otherwise identical). This caused no end of problems during the design of the regional headquarters in Southern California: the Architect was local and we were almost a consultant since we had dine all of the new construction and most of the remodels & expansions since 2004. The preliminary design concept was for another project that had received local approval so the appearance was “fixed.” It took all of my, our project Architect’s and the Builder’s (who had constructed half of ALDI’s facilities fir longer than we were involved) patience and persuasion to convince them they were wrong. Add to this the requirement that the project meet LEED Silver at a minimum, the rulings of a Sierra Club lawsuit, was the largest facility ALDI had and was ALDI’s first venture in California: a most “interesting” project.
 
I have designed several public works shops and heavy equipment shops, some with in slab heating, some not. It came down to the mechanics preference, some where strongly opposed to in slab heat while others insisted on it.
In cases where in slab was installed it went into bay’s primarily for vehicle storage such as snow plows and graders. We did not specify it in wash bays, welding bays or hoist bays. In slab is low grade heat, great for keeping slabs dry but always supplemented with above overhead door air curtains / radiant heaters plus a make up air system.
I did not install it in my shop or vehicle parking bays. One reason is I anchor my metal working equipment into the slab and though I could layout radiant pipes clear of machine anchors, placement could change in the future. Secondly I have not heard good things about small boiler systems, a good friend owns a pump and motor business and services hydronic boilers, he just built a new shop and chose to not install a boiler (his current shop has a boiler and in slab heating).
A well insulated perimeter foundation and/or understand perimeter insulation is in my opinion a cheap means to keep slabs warm.
I insulated my five foot deep foundation walls with 3” expanded polystyrene to a four foot depth. I used 20 psi below grade spec polystyrene.
 
canuck750 said:
I have designed several public works shops and heavy equipment shops, some with in slab heating, some not. It came down to the mechanics preference, some where strongly opposed to in slab heat while others insisted on it.
In cases where in slab was installed it went into bay’s primarily for vehicle storage such as snow plows and graders. We did not specify it in wash bays, welding bays or hoist bays. In slab is low grade heat, great for keeping slabs dry but always supplemented with above overhead door air curtains / radiant heaters plus a make up air system.
I did not install it in my shop or vehicle parking bays. One reason is I anchor my metal working equipment into the slab and though I could layout radiant pipes clear of machine anchors, placement could change in the future. Secondly I have not heard good things about small boiler systems, a good friend owns a pump and motor business and services hydronic boilers, he just built a new shop and chose to not install a boiler (his current shop has a boiler and in slab heating).
A well insulated perimeter foundation and/or understand perimeter insulation is in my opinion a cheap means to keep slabs warm.
I insulated my five foot deep foundation walls with 3” expanded polystyrene to a four foot depth. I used 20 psi below grade spec polystyrene.
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Floor warming (resistance or liquid) ideally should be placed in a “mud slab,” below the structural slab: the only thing that needs to be routed around is plumbing.
 
ChazzC said:
Floor warming (resistance or liquid) ideally should be placed in a “mud slab,” below the structural slab: the only thing that needs to be routed around is plumbing.
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??

I have been in construction a long time and i have never seen in floor heat installed in a "mud slab", it is either in the structural slab and generally poured over rigid foam insulation or it is poured into the topping (if there is a topping)
 
I would assume it depends a lot on the climate you live in. I live in southeast Saskatchewan and have 2 buildings with infloor heating. The house is approx 1750 square feet with a 6 inch concrete slab set on 8 inch finger foam supported by 49 12 inch piles 16 feet deep. The house is ICF walls with no basement or crawl space. The radiant tubing is on 12 inch spacing near the bottom of the floor and powered by a Viessmann boiler. The frost regularly goes 4 to 6 feet deep in the winter, more in high traffic areas. The outbuilding is 5800 square feet and a mish mash of styles. South end is 60 by 40 slab with embedded tubing on a styro baseplate designed to hold the tubing on 12 inch spacing running on a geothermal heatpump. Middle is 60 by 40 with no underfloor insulation and low pressure natural gas tubing to run the heating on 18 inch spacing but only for the outer 10 feet with no tubing in the center. North end is 25 by 40 slab with tubing spaced at 12 oc and foil/bubble/foil insulation under the slab. The center and north end are run by a geothermal heat pump as well. Both the house and the south end of the outbuilding are cheap and easy to heat. Once you have lived with infloor heating, it would be hard to go back to forced air. The middle and north end of the outbuilding are much more difficult to heat. With no insulation under the middle section and no useful insulation under the north end, (the foil/bubble/foil insulation is useless, I would have been better off to put a layer of 100$ bills under the slab) the heat was just leaking into the world. I ended up putting vertical perimeter insulation under 2 sides of the middle and north ends just in time for Covid to kill our business but even that made a huge difference in the heating cost of those portions.
Essentially, don't take advice on layout from someone who is unfamiliar with your climate. What works in southern Ontario won't necessarily work or be needed in northern Alberta.
 
In central Alberta I have never seen in slab heating set into a mud slab, the heating lines are always set into a reinforced structural slab, 6” to 8” slab depending on specific use. Slab set on below grade expanded polystyrene, typically 60 psi.
I have designed plenty of indoor ice rinks, heated lines set in sand bed under the rink slab with the cooling lines suspended in wire cages very close to the top of the slab. The cooling slab was separated from the heated sand bed with below grade expanded polystyrene.
Geo thermal, in my experience has been a consistent failure in Central and Northern Alberta. Our firm refused to specify it in any of our projects after a Geo thermal system could not adequately heat an indoor swimming pool and also failed to perform adequately in a seniors lodge.
I understand Geo thermal can and does work in other parts of Canada.
YMMV
 
phaxtris said:
??

I have been in construction a long time and i have never seen in floor heat installed in a "mud slab", it is either in the structural slab and generally poured over rigid foam insulation or it is poured into the topping (if there is a topping)
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We designed countless cold storage warehouses in the U.S. and the floor warming Glycol tubing was always in a mud slab, regardless of location/climate.
 
ChazzC said:
We designed countless cold storage warehouses in the U.S. and the floor warming Glycol tubing was always in a mud slab, regardless of location/climate.
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Not in canada, at least not in alberta, insulation, rebar, heating pipes, or in the topping, i doubt it would even be up to the current building codes to pour in floor heating into an uninsulated slab

not only would you potentially be destabilizing the ground by slowly melting the perma frost, you might as well be throwing money into a barrel and setting it on fire, pumping heat into the cold frozen ground

Arizona may be a different story
 
phaxtris said:
Not in canada, at least not in alberta, insulation, rebar, heating pipes, or in the topping, i doubt it would even be up to the current building codes to pour in floor heating into an uninsulated slab

not only would you potentially be destabilizing the ground by slowly melting the perma frost, you might as well be throwing money into a barrel and setting it on fire, pumping heat into the cold frozen ground

Arizona may be a different story
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Yup. Same in MB, although in Red River valley there’s also a crushable support under insulation and a pier floor system due to horrible clay substrate going down 30-40’. Grumble, grumble as we write the check… Must say, though, about $120-150/ year to heat my 1100 sq ft shop with in floor electric boiler heat. Not bad in my opinion.

Would also note there’s a difference between a guys home shop garage design philosophy and commercial space with their requirements.
 
Sorry for the latest topic wandering…

Ryan, with your area’s wild daily temperature swings in winter, do you have to modify your slab heating controls? Hysteresis?

As you know from living in Wpg, we get cold and stay cold.
 
phaxtris said:
Not in canada, at least not in alberta, insulation, rebar, heating pipes, or in the topping, i doubt it would even be up to the current building codes to pour in floor heating into an uninsulated slab

not only would you potentially be destabilizing the ground by slowly melting the perma frost, you might as well be throwing money into a barrel and setting it on fire, pumping heat into the cold frozen ground

Arizona may be a different story
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Sorry, yes the insulation is below the mud slab (even in Arizona & Minnesota).

Lucky7 said:
Yup. Same in MB, although in Red River valley there’s also a crushable support under insulation and a pier floor system due to horrible clay substrate going down 30-40’. Grumble, grumble as we write the check… Must say, though, about $120-150/ year to heat my 1100 sq ft shop with in floor electric boiler heat. Not bad in my opinion.
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Clay always adds structural issues, either piles or in warm enough climates (Texas) deep water injection prior to construction.

Lucky7 said:
Would also note there’s a difference between a guys home shop garage design philosophy and commercial space with their requirements.
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More chance of drilling a hole in the pipe/tubing in a thin slab, so the mud slab makes more sense. It does add cost, but one misplaced anchor can result in a lot of cost (or permanent loss of heat).
 
ChazzC said:
More chance of drilling a hole in the pipe/tubing in a thin slab, so the mud slab makes more sense. It does add cost, but one misplaced anchor can result in a lot of cost (or permanent loss of heat).
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Yup, so true. There is one advantage to -35 deg January’s, a Flir camera or the like can accurately locate heating tubes. 🙂
 
ChazzC said:
Clay always adds structural issues, either piles or in warm enough climates (Texas) deep water injection prior to construction.
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Yup. I did a 15 story office building on clay before I retired. It was a fight from beginning to end between guys like me who wanted to be innovative and the guys who wanted same old same old.

I lost a few battles, but I won a few too. To avoid piles through the clay to the bedrock miles down, we engineered a huge self righting boat that quite literally floated on the clay. It was an amazing engineering accomplishment.

Yet even today my hackles go up thinking about some of the battles I lost.
 
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