Ultimate Workshop?

That's what I've been seriously thinking of doing if I go the radiant route. Most of what I would bolt down would be within about 2 feet of the interior wall for floor stands for tools and such. The compressors will be in an anterior room this time around.

RJ

Burying the tubing 3" to 4" down should clear most bolts. If they won't there's the expensive way - turn the system on and use some sort of thermal imaging device to map out the pipes...

Or the cheap way - spray a little water on the floor, turn the system up high, get down on your knees (I know, easy for some people...) ;-) and mark where the floor dries out first with a pencil. The marks will be right over the pipes.

-->--

I believe someone else here also used a third way: Don't drill where the cat likes to nap. :^) --Glenn Lyford

Cool, RJ!

While you're hanging out, check this link.

It's a leave-in-place foam/cement block that is almost unique ( a couple of copycat blocks have appeared recently). Unlike any other foam block, this one has a 4 hour fire rating and has a very high R value, something like an R30. It can be assembled with hand tools, with the only thing out of the ordinary needed is a lifting device to place them when they get high. Two guys with muscle can do it, but I built a boom for our small Kubota tractor and place them that way, using a boat winch along with the tractor hydraulics. Susan is all the help I've needed so far, and we've completed a shop that is 32' X 80' with a 12' ceiling , and are now building a house that is two stories with a full basement. I highly recommend the material. Finishing the exterior and interior can be accomplished by all the conventional methods at your option. If you're interested in the material, I'll gladly provide more information on the do's and don't do's. Contact me on the side if you're interested.

The shop has a complete bathroom with a tiled shower (no tub), built in vacuum cleaner, hydronic heating in the 6" thick slab, built in air lines and almost all of the power built in the walls. Only the odd 3 phase item with large wire is run on the surface in conduit. . The shop is completely finished, right down to quarry tile coving to make cleaning up easy. Walls are primed and painted with two coats in a light green color, very pleasing to the eye, preventing eye fatigue. Sand blast cabinet is vented through the wall for outside discharge using a squirrel cage blower so there's no noisy vacuum cleaner system to listen to when using the cabinet. A louvered discharge fan was installed for removing smoke from welding. Compressor and built in vacuum cleaner system are inside a separate room that is isolated by an 8" concrete block wall so you don't hear either of them running. Lots of 8' fluorescent light fixtures, 49 total, are hung in the shop, some down at 9', others at ceiling height, depending on where and why. I installed a length of 6" well casing for use as a small crane in what will become my foundry area. The pipe was installed

4' below floor depth, when footings were poured, so it is well anchored at the base and should not present any problems being used without any top support for the loads intended.

Harold

Ah! Ok. never mind

Gunner

"This device is provided without warranty of any kind as to reliability, accuracy, existence or otherwise or fitness for any particular purpose and Bioalchemic Products specifically does not warrant, guarantee, imply or make any representations as to its merchantability for any particular purpose and furthermore shall have no liability for or responsibility to you or any other person, entity or deity with respect to any loss or damage whatsoever caused by this device or object or by any attempts to destroy it by hammering it against a wall or dropping it into a deep well or any other means whatsoever and moreover asserts that you indicate your acceptance of this agreement or any other agreement that may he substituted at any time by coming within five miles of the product or observing it through large telescopes or by any other means because you are such an easily cowed moron who will happily accept arrogant and unilateral conditions on a piece of highly priced garbage that you would not dream of accepting on a bag of dog biscuits and is used solely at your own risk.'

I picked a few out of what I have on my PC with me. I have a bunch more at home. This covers the basic structure.

Pic 13 shows the beginning of the wall before the bracing is installed.

This shows the wall a little higher and the bracing installed for the first stage.

A look down the wall from the top before it is filled with cement. The PVC that can be seen near the bottom of the wall is for running wiring, water, etc. The rebar can be seen at this point too. There is also vertical bars dropped in every 2 feet to form a 2x2 grid of rebar. Getting ready to do the first pour. That cement pump is an amazing machine. The operator has a remote control that can do just about everything except drive the machine down the road. Complete walls ready for the final(2nd) pour. All of the doors are framed properly. The walls are braced and straight. Any more questions, drop me a line.

JW

On 28 Jan 2004 06:14:19 -0800, snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com (Jeridiah) brought forth from the murky depths:

The building looked small next to the concrete pump truck in one pic, but now that it's up, I see just how huge it really is.

Is it just the angle of the pictures, or is that sitting in a hole? The drainage angles are scary in the photos. =:0

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Interesting stuff. The one I posted about creates a five layer structure: Exterior finsh(I used stucco), foam, reinforced concrete, foam, interior finish. The foam layers are about 2.5" thick. One significant factor here is that the concrete is insulated form the outside temperature and has a HUGE thermal mass. In consequence it takes a long time for the shopt temperature to change. I light the heater pilot in the fall and shut it down in the spring. The other day a switch on the thermostat failed so the heater didn't come on anytime between about 4pm one day until about 10am the next. Shop temperature dropped from 70F to 55F in that time. Overnight low was about -5C (23F).

Ted

Jeridiah, thanks man, that was pretty interesting.

RJ

Might be the angle, because it is pretty close to flat. I think there was something like 2 foot of drop across the entire site when I started. For reference, it is 40 ft deep x 48 ft wide x 16 ft height.

I ran 4" perf pipe all the way around the footing and off to a nearby tileline to keep any water that would collect headed away from the buidling.

One thing I highly recommend. Install a "deadman" in the floor if you are pouring a slab. They are great for straightening chassis, trailer tongues, etc. Install a 1/2" - 3/4" u-bolt or loop in a metal recessed box with lid, so floor is flat. Just drill a finger hole. Make sure box is large enough for chain, hands, etc. Got this idea and a lot of great others from a booklet of old shop articles out of Progressive Farmer mag. called All-Time Great Farm Shops. see

Did that. Put in 3 actually. Two in a straght line(obviously) across from each other and parallel to the middle door, and one off by itself in the middle of the floor. Haven't used them yet, but can see where they would be very useful.

Highly recommend putting in a loft. It will save you a lot of floor space and gain a lot of storage space. I have a full depth loft that is 16' wide. With the 16' sidewall I have about 8' clearance under and 6'10" over. This was the reason I went for the 16' sidewall. It added very little to the overall cost of the building and yielded me w/ ~30% more effective floor space. I have 2 rows of 4' wide industrial racks with 2 shelves. More shelf space than a sane person should need....

JW

|> One thing I highly recommend. Install a "deadman" in the floor if you are |> pouring a slab. They are great for straightening chassis, trailer tongues, |> etc. Install a 1/2" - 3/4" u-bolt or loop in a metal recessed box with lid, | |Did that. Put in 3 actually. Two in a straght line(obviously) across |from each other and parallel to the middle door, and one off by itself |in the middle of the floor. Haven't used them yet, but can see where |they would be very useful. | |Highly recommend putting in a loft. It will save you a lot of floor |space and gain a lot of storage space. I have a full depth loft that |is 16' wide. With the 16' sidewall I have about 8' clearance under |and 6'10" over. This was the reason I went for the 16' sidewall. It |added very little to the overall cost of the building and yielded me |w/ ~30% more effective floor space. I have 2 rows of 4' wide |industrial racks with 2 shelves. More shelf space than a sane person |should need....

Use open grid flooring for the loft so it won't accumulate dirt. Rex in Fort Worth

I built an ICF house 5 years ago and love it. I used REWARD system which has R-38 in the walls. Had a Mennonite group build it for me. They ?framed? it and closed it in and then turned it over to me. I have done almost everything else myself - plumbing, wiring flooring.... Oh, forgot - moved the machinery in !

The house is out in the country (central Ohio) and I have a natural gasline running across the property so I heat with gas. The house itself is about 4000 sq ft plus a full basement with drive out doors -

2 4x8 walk doors. I can drive my PU into the basement and close the doors. This is where I have my maching shop - Bridgie, lathe, woodworking equipment, etc. I used to have my shop in the garage at the old house and in winter I could not work out there due to the cold. Plus you have the condensation problem. The only problem I have when I cut heavy and generate smoke is the smell it generates. So I put a hose next to the cutter and run it to an exhaust extractor to suck the smoke and smell outside.

I have 9 foot ceilings all 3 floors and used very large oversize Eagle Windows (highly recommended - 5/8 inch between the glass and cost 20% less than Anderson and their 1/2 inch gap). I also installed R-38 insulation in the ceiling of the second floor.

The attached garage is 36x48 with an 18x8 and an 18x10 overhead door. The ceiling is 11 feet and I insulated the ceiling with R30. The garage is ICF also and I don?t heat it.

The first year I was in the house we had a very cold snap during the winter and I heard people I work with complaining about their nightmarish heating bills at their homes for that month - $800 to $1000 ! I was in fear for my life, as I had not gotten my bill yet. When it came I didn?t want to open the envelope. It was $352 for the month. I was pleased, considering I had the T-Stat set at about 70. Since then I have never had a bill that high. Oh, yeah, that included my gas hot water, which is a recirculating system that costs me on the average $35 per month and I?m the only one here, no women taking long baths.

The garage, as I mentioned, is not heated and does get chilly in the winter but by March the temperature in the garage has only gone down to about 40 degrees. I have to admit that I don?t use the garage for cars yet and the overhead doors are rarely open. If I need to work on a car in it, I have a propane torpedo heater I use for spot heat. I have some 2 inch styrofoam that I will insulate the doors with to help the winter chilling problem.

I had the builder install four 2 inch sleeves from the basement to the garage so I could run electricals, water, air, plumbing for a urinal....

I also had the excavator dig a 3 foot square hole, 9 feet deep in one of the bays and dropped a 3 foot diameter plastic field tile into it and backfilled with gravel around it. Then I poured the floor and as they were finishing the crete, I put a 2x4 in it at grade level to provide for a trough after it set up. I pulled it out and was able to lay a pipe in it to the air compressor. I dropped my gas station lift into the hole and plumbed it and poured grout into the trough. The tile stuck up over the floor and I cut it flush with a carpenters saw before I installed the lift. I hung the lift in the hole with a cherry picker engine hoist to the right height and filled the hole with dry sand.

Anyway, the ICF structure is THE WAY TO GO ! If I build another house (or shop) I will definitely use it again.

Like the 600 amp 480 volt system I just installed in my new shop ( I did re-rate the switchboard down from 800 amp it was hard enough bending the dual run 350 kcmil wire as it was! ) Now I have to run the tons of conduit all over the place. I did get a 225 amp bus duct system to run down the back wall of the shop. In the long run it should make my job faster and changes will be painless.

William

Wow! Now this is some serious power!

Rex B scribed in :

oh riiiight, then all the shit can fall on the machines below?

swarf, steam and wind

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