Home Shop!

See thread on "Ultimate shop" It's gonna get better. Around here, concrete block is around $1.10 per, with a fee of $1.50 to lay them. Mortar is around $6 a bag. I forget right now how many block per bag. I'll ask my brother-in law. Metal building here (2,000 sq ft) will run you $5,000 for turnkey concrete slab. Eastern NC, almost no frost line to speak of. My buddy just built a steel building by Wickes. We did the steel, concrete was contracted. Skin installation was contracted. Supplier installed rollup doors, we did the wiring. OSB on walls inside. Gutters and downspouts. He's telling me that total cost was around $23,000, or $11.50 per sq ft. . Concrete block shop has served me well, fire-resistant for welding, but this time around on my new shop, I'll either go with steel building, wood with steel shell, or wood with vinyl siding. I'll be discussing this on the other thread, starting today, probably.

RJ

Consider the problems that you won't have with block ....... sound & temperature control, exterior maintenance, interior finish, building security, insurance ....... Block is cheap and lends it's self to building additions. Plus, if you spend a little on the design, you'll have a better looking building.

See the post I made to the thread on an "Ultimate shop". With the shop doors closed, you can't hear my compressor when standing outside.

If you still have questions, contact me off list. Make the neccessary deletion from the address.

Ted

Backlash wrote: I'll either go with steel building, wood with steel shell, or

I can give you another possibility. My basement is made of six precast concrete sections. These are made to order, with the window and door openings per your print. Styrofoam insulation is cast into them, holes are precast into the concrete "studs" for wire and pipe, and there is a wood "nailer" on the face of the concrete stud to attach your sheet rock. It doesn't leak. To install it, you dig a trench, fill the trench with pea gravel, and have the crane drop the sections on the pea gravel. The floor slab is then poured (in my case over a vapor barrier and two inches of styrofoam). The cost was the same as a standard block basement. If I were building a separate shop, I would use these as the walls (they have a broom finish on the outside, not supremely ugly), put roof trusses on top and call it a shop. This would be much stronger than most build in place methods.

One manufacturer:

Kevin Gallimore