What keeps me busy (Picture heavy)

[EricB]

Alright, I thought I'd show you guys why I don't ever seem to post any projects. Apologies in advance for the crappy cell-phone photos. Right now I'm working on my garage, getting it up to snuff to use as a shop. When I bought my house the garage had a couple of incandescent bulbs and a couple of 110 outlets run by one shitty old cable buried under the ground coming from a single breaker. The walls were covered in stained plywood (the kind that if it sets on fire it burns like CRAZY) and filled with leftover building materials (paper, ceiling tiles, bits of wood and plywood, etc). There was a gas-line that had been disconnected in the house, and an old leaky bit of b-vent where an old floor-mounted heater would have been. There was also one big uninsulated window, a broken garage-door opener (the plastic gear stripped out) a work bench made by putting a solid-core door on top of a couple of falling-apart old kitchen cabinets, a damaged and pieced together overhead door, a man-door that didn't like to close...

It was a mess. Not to mention that the structure itself was a mess as well. The garage was built out of scraps that hadn't been used on other build-sites (The PO was the original owner, and built several houses in the area) including big rough-hewn beams that didn't make it across the span of the garage, so they were held together by single pieces of non-dimensional wood, old cribbing-material as studs and in the roof, and all kinds of random bits of split, broken, non-dimensional wood as the bracing in the ceiling. This would not do at all.

Notice how out of square the one beam is here, and it's two parts are held together by nothing but that little scrap of wood at the bottom of the picture:

So a couple of years ago I started to tear into it. Even now the further I get into this garage project the more astounded I am at the fact that it has stayed standing all these years. It all started by tearing everything off of and out of the walls and ceiling, and then shutting off the breaker to the garage. Ripping everything out meant that I had a few VERY overloaded trips to the dump in my future...

After that it was time to dig myself a 4' deep, 47' long trench and cut out some concrete. I had decided to rent a mini-excavator to dig with, but my plumber buddy said that was silly and sharpened a shovel... He got about 1/3 of it done in a single day, which was damn impressive! But the hardest digging was yet to come (Deeper, narrower, and through clay)

Getting inspected by the pups:

I haven't had to dig like that since the army. Thankfully my brother came by to lend a hand:

Turns out that I got some bad info from the permit office, I only needed to be 2' down. That would have been nice to know. I also only needed 2" of sand above and below my cable, not the 6" they told me to put in, so now I have quite a lot of extra dirt. Anyone need some top-soil?

 

[EricB]

With the trench in, it was on to electrical. Got everything installed and up to Canadian Electrical Code, Inspection time! ...Inspection fail? Turns out that even though you're up to (or in places even beyond) the electrical code, you have another hoop to jump through: Epcor owns the power-lines and won't hook you up unless you have your meter in the right spot. Fair enough, so now I have a hole in my roof, soffit, and wall, but at least I know. Got working on moving everything which was a lot more work than you might think...

After a long while of making-do without I finally have power again, which is allowing things to move forward much more quickly. Which is good because the next task was a big one: Time to fix my roof structure. The bottom of the beams were not even with each other which would have made drywalling a nightmare, everything needed to be strengthened and straightened, and hell, while I'm at it why not make myself a bit of a storage loft? Off I went...

Used string to make everything nice and flat, and then...

Sistered every beam with 2x6 across the full length, and the back side has a 2' piece of 2x6 at every spot where two chunks of beam meet.

I don't have pictures of what I did for the rest of the roof-structure, but let me tell you, it is solid. The beams and teleposts are long-gone now, and a chain-hoist hung from 2 rafters helped me unload 900lbs from my truck the other day, and didn't even creak. At this point I'm ALMOST done insulating the ceiling (R22 Roxul), the gas-line is hooked back up and pressure tested, and...

Oh yes, there will be heat. I also have a new man-door installed, and a new opaque insulated window in the back wall. I can't watch the dogs in the yard, which makes me sad, but on the plus side people can't peek through and see the motorcycles, tools, etc.

 

[EricB]

Just took this picture this morning. Insulation in the ceiling is almost finished, just need to do the very front and very back. You can see I'm going to have two hatches into my loft storage space. Hoping to get started on the vapor barrier this weekend and maybe hang a couple of pieces of drywall during the week. I just need enough up to install the heater and then I can spend the rest of the winter working in relative comfort and hang the rest of the drywall as time allows.

 

[PeterT]

Nice work. Brings back memories (the ditch). You mentioned natgas line, do you have a gas heater plan? I chose one of those radiant heaters & its great. Sits up in the ceiling corner completely out of the way, nice soft heat to anything with mass, now ducting & air circulating. I think mine is 40,000 btu. Entry level for double garage size but I barely noticed a blip on the bill.

I did things mostly right but in hindsight I would
- cover the ceiling with more densely spaced fluorescent lights, can never be bright enough
- put alternating 110 & 220v plugs in closer proximity around the walls. Workbenches & setups & machines kind of dictate the layout but its nice to have short electrical connections
- I've heard of some guys laying in pneumatic lines & outlets behind drywall too. Kind of Jay Lenno, but hey, its a man cave right?
- there are some real nice roll-on surface coatings for cement floors. Wish I did this early while I had the opportunity. Just makes for easier cleanup & even brighter indirect lighting.
- if you foresee walls with heavy shelving, avoid drywall & opt for something stronger as a base so you are not constrained to stud mounting

good luck!

 

[EricB]

Nice work. Brings back memories (the ditch). You mentioned natgas line, do you have a gas heater plan? I chose one of those radiant heaters & its great. Sits up in the ceiling corner completely out of the way, nice soft heat to anything with mass, now ducting & air circulating. I think mine is 40,000 btu. Entry level for double garage size but I barely noticed a blip on the bill.

Thanks, Peter! I will be going with a gas heater, you can see my beautiful new Reznor in the second post. I looked into the infrared radiant heaters as well, but my ceiling is too low for it. From everything I read and was told I would get cooked if I was working in front of it.

- cover the ceiling with more densely spaced fluorescent lights, can never be bright enough
- put alternating 110 & 220v plugs in closer proximity around the walls. Workbenches & setups & machines kind of dictate the layout but its nice to have short electrical connections
- I've heard of some guys laying in pneumatic lines & outlets behind drywall too. Kind of Jay Lenno, but hey, its a man cave right?
- there are some real nice roll-on surface coatings for cement floors. Wish I did this early while I had the opportunity. Just makes for easier cleanup & even brighter indirect lighting.
- if you foresee walls with heavy shelving, avoid drywall & opt for something stronger as a base so you are not constrained to stud mounting

In response to this part of your comment:
-Not sure what I`ll be using for light yet, but I`m leaning towards LED. I was worried that fluorescents will take too long to warm up, but in the end it will depend on what I can afford.
-I`ll be doing all external conduit. It`ll be a bit of a pain in the ass and a lot of extra work as well as a bit of extra money, but the nice part of it will be the ability to add and move outlets and lights whenever I feel the need which (Knowing me) will be quite often as I change machines or decide on better locations.
-I`ll be doing all external air-lines as well, I haven`t decided yet between copper and black-iron pipe. Don`t worry, the lines won`t rely on that little Mastercraft pancake compressor to feed them, I have a 60 gal.
-The epoxy seems like a great idea, but probably not one I can afford for the foreseeable future. From what I`ve heard though it not only makes clean-up and finding lost bolts easier, but also helps to keep dust down. Maybe someday. I`d have to seal a couple of cracks first as well.
-The walls were built with crappy wood in places as well, so I won`t be adding any extra weight onto them via shelving, it`ll all be stand-alone shelving units.

If you have you got photos of your work-space I`d love to see them. Or any other insight. In the spring I`ll have to decide if I want a standard insulated overhead door, or would rather go with a roll-up style door. Decisions decisions.

 

[EricB]

Today I finished up the insulation and got started on the vapor barrier! I need to get all the insulation scraps out of here so I can have an easier time moving everything around to get at the areas that still need poly. So far I have poly on the whole back wall, and the back 8' of the ceiling meaning that I can hang some drywall and then UP goes the heater!!

 

[John Conroy]

Looking good Eric. I have the same Reznor furnace in my garage. It's a great unit.

 

[EricB]

Good to hear, John. Thanks! I was just going to get a Mr. Heater from PA, but with the lousy Canadian dollar puts them at nearly $800 now. This was $950 +tax, so seemed like the way to go.

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[John Conroy]

Mine has been in use for 6 years. I've never had any problem with it.

 

[EricB]

John, you get some condensation on your vent or something? Why the hanging drip-tray?

 

[John Conroy]

Yeah, if the furnace is not used for a while in really cold weather the vent pipe can get frost on the outside and when I start the furnace it drips when the frost melts. It would drip right on the milling machine so I put up that drip catcher pan suspended by wire. I wouldn't even have noticed if the drips didn't go on the mill.

 

[Jwest7788]

If you have you got photos of your work-space I`d love to see them. Or any other insight. In the spring I`ll have to decide if I want a standard insulated overhead door, or would rather go with a roll-up style door. Decisions decisions.

Here was my garage fix up last year: (not nearly as intensive, but worth sharing. Obviously a lot has changed since then too. Haha)


Things I would change if I could go back in time:
Do the floors first. Walls after. I'm still cleaning up the flooring prep mess that got power washed onto the walls. Haha

Power outlets should be added every couple of feet all the way around the garage. Ideally a low set and high set (table height) and more 220v too as previously mentioned.

I would have added more ceiling outlets too. (Super convenient for when you find yourself working in the middle of the shop.

I really love my epoxy floor coating. Would highly recommend. If you go down this route, I used crack filler around the edge where the floor meets the foundation, and rolled the epoxy up the ~8 inches. Whole thing in water right now, so can squeegee water out easily.

Add windows while you're at it. Natural light really livens the shop. (window bars to make them a poor break in point. Blinds to keep people looking in when you're not around. )

I have fluorescent lights, warm up time has never been an issue, even on the really cold days. The ballasts have been blowing lately though, which is a pain to replace. Either way, get way more lights then you think you will need.

May be too late, but run an Ethernet line too if you can. I find myself wanting to put a wireless router in the garage for when I am getting help from Google. With an Ethernet line you could actually have a small work station somewhere tucked away. (The computer Would also be helpful for CNC work. Maybe a 3D printer. )


Hope this helps!

JW

 

[John Conroy]

Great job. When can you do my garage?

 

[Janger]

what a crap load of work... wow looks good. I was thinking of just buying that garage floor paint. does it work?

 

[Jwest7788]

what a crap load of work... wow looks good. I was thinking of just buying that garage floor paint. does it work?

In the image gallery I posted above, the floor prep section outlines my efforts removing ~5 layers of garage floor paint. The previous owner just kept painting new over old as it came off the concrete. Could have just been poor prep in the first place, but I decided then that if I'm going to go through the steps of painting. Might as well spend the extra $200 and use a proper two part epoxy.

You should come by some time and check it out.

JW

 

[EricB]

Looks awesome, @Jwest7788 ! Funny story about epoxied floors though; many years ago I dislocated my right shoulder mountain-biking. After that it came out more often than I would have liked, but I was always able to just shove it back in (much to everyone else's disgust) But then one day I was living at my brother's house and he had an epoxied floor in the garage. I was wearing my old combat boots and when I was in the joke was that the army got the rubber for our boots from recycled hockey pucks (they were notoriously bad on ice) so it was winter and we were unloading groceries and I had a tiny bit of snow on my boots. Down I went. That was the bad one. No amount of pushing was getting it back in. Ambulance came, one of the EMTs had to leave the room when I tried one last time to put it back in, and left again when I refused to let them cut my leather jacket and took it off myself. At the hospital it took two men, a towel, and a lot of muscle relaxants to get it back in. I've thankfully had surgery since then, but I've been left with an irrational (or completely rational, depending on how you look at it) fear of epoxy floors! I'll keep my bare concrete for now. It does look damned awesome though!!

Power outlets should be added every couple of feet all the way around the garage. Ideally a low set and high set (table height) and more 220v too as previously mentioned.

I would have added more ceiling outlets too. (Super convenient for when you find yourself working in the middle of the shop.

Add windows while you're at it. Natural light really livens the shop. (window bars to make them a poor break in point. Blinds to keep people looking in when you're not around. )

I have fluorescent lights, warm up time has never been an issue, even on the really cold days. The ballasts have been blowing lately though, which is a pain to replace. Either way, get way more lights then you think you will need.

May be too late, but run an Ethernet line too if you can. I find myself wanting to put a wireless router in the garage for when I am getting help from Google. With an Ethernet line you could actually have a small work station somewhere tucked away. (The computer Would also be helpful for CNC work. Maybe a 3D printer. )

I routed new low-voltage cables through the garage while I had the trench open as well, but I think I'll be leaning towards a wifi signal booster I think. As for outlets, I'm thinking I'll have a cord-reel on the ceiling somewhere, and all my power will be routed through external conduit, so I can add and move outlets and lighting as needed which I'm excited about. As for windows, I have a huge one at the back but I won't be adding any more other than possibly some opaque glass in the overhead door when I replace it. Not sure yet.

As for an update, I got the poly finished and taped. I picked up a few sheets of drywall, so they're ready to hang (just need another couple of hands) then up goes the heater! It'll be mounted to unistrut via all-thread and spring-nuts. Sadly I just got a notice that I owe an extra $1,000 on my taxes for last year (stupid accountant) so that will slow my progress right down. Especially being on work-share still and going back to school in January. So once the heater's up it's time to stop working ON the garage and start working IN it to try and make some cash. First up will be to start fixing up the lathe. It sat for at least 15 years and the grease in it is nearly petrified.

Let's see some more garages! Keep me motivated!

 

[Jwest7788]

Yikes, an injury like that for sure warrants a little apprehension. Keep in mind though, those floor kits come with grit you can use in the clear coat specifically for the same, but many opt to leave it out in favour of gloss. Obviously a slip risk.

Keep the pics coming too! Looking forward to seeing it all come together.


Sent from my iPhone.

 

[EricB]

Realistically my fall was entirely to blame on the boots and my extreme lack of grace. [emoji14] But it severed every ligament in my shoulder and actually sheared a chunk of bone off the back of the humerus. So I reserve the right to be a huge pansy scaredy-cat.

I'll for sure keep the pics coming as things progress. While I did poly on the weekend I had this guy keep me company:

Don't worry, he won't be around for paint!

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[EricB]

Vapor barrier has been finished for a while, but I got distracted by other projects (machining for other people, snowblower repairs, lathe tear-down...) but now drywalling has begun!

 

[EricB]

Now I have to figure out venting for my heater. :S

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