Workshop floor - Wood or concrete

I have never built a dedicated workshop building, but in housing various smallish machines in workshop rooms in various houses, with both wood and concrete floors, I would say that wooden floors are a pain in the neck. I have no idea why people like them so much in houses! They vibrate annoyingly with machines which run very smoothly on a concrete floor, and they transfer impacts (say hammering) from the bench extremely effectively to make a resounding din.

Also some machinery just isn't stable mounted on such a floor e.g. a floor mount pillar drill really seems to need a hole in the wooden floor through to a concrete pad underneath, but that might make convincing buyers of the house that this is really the spare bedroom a bit tricky!

That said I have a wooden floor just now and manage fine; but there are obvious weight limits to be considered when adding equipment.

Alan

I have had excellent service out of a concrete floor, with 18mm OSB / Sterling board plugged and screwed down on a 12" matrix, then painted with Wickes garage floor paint. I've just moved out of one workshop that was contructed thus some 15 years ago, and despite having numerous large machine tools dragged across it it had stood up very well. My workshop at my new place will have a similar construction. Bare concrete is very hard on tools and feet. Always dusty, and anything dropped chips.

AWEM

May I suggest taped DPM followed by 4" polystyrene foam, followed by taped DPM, followed by 4"-8" of concrete depending on slab size. It worked for me and you end up with a warm concrete floor.

Mark Rand RTFM

I can attest to the sense of Andrews floor covering method. Although it looks weird the first time you come across it :-)

Mark Rand RTFM

"Mark Rand" schreef in bericht news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com...

Sounds good, but what is DPM? Dirk

Damp-proof membrane.

Regards, Tony

Damp Proof Membrane.

Plastic sheet to the unwashed............

.

I have a 16' x 12' concrete garage type shed, with a damp proofed and insulated concrete (DPM and polystyrene) floor, 6" thick with two layers of weldmesh. I leave a fan heater on frost protection 24/365 and the temperature is stable, never less than 8'C. It will come up quickly to a more comfortable 15'C as required with 1500W of heating. The walls are insulated with Rockwool cavity batts, fitted with a DMP then lined with OSB, the OSB false ceiling is simularly insulated from the inside, but freely ventilated above the insulation. The whole thing is painted out in white gloss above waist level, with a terracotta emulsion below. A decorative border hides the wavy junction. The floor was screeded with the toughest compound I could find and finished in grey epoxy paint. No, it wasn't cheap, but I don't suffer from rusting, it deadens any noise you make and the wife who pays the electricity bill hasn't killed me yet! Yes, the floor chips when you drop something heavy. I reckon a good concrete floor is ok, and agree with the earlier comments about pads for machines if you want a wooden one. We adopted this approach 30 yrs ago in dad's shed, with a tee shaped pad for our two lathes.

Steve (Sheffield)

OSB, sanded and sealed, looks quite nice, to my eye.

I have seen some floorings on offer, that were quite a bit less appealing to myself, as well as to the eyes of my wife.

Cheers Trevor Jones

What machinery? Concrete floors are hard on feet and tools.

I have a concrete floor in my garage/workshop. Laid 3/4" expanded polystyrene sheet on it then T&G chopborad flloring floating on that. Supports my Myford lathe and VMC mill just fine, is easy on feet and dropped tools just bounce harmlessly.

I sell the stuff in the family business. Customers were a bit chary of it at first, until I replaced the floor in the customers' side of the shop, and replaced the end wall of a nearby timer storage shed. Now I can show the customer either, and tell him that the floor has been down for 20 years and the (untreated) shed wall has stood the weather for 25.

Only problem is that the stuff now costs as near as dammit the same as Elliottis ply.

Regards,

David P.

In article , Andrew Mawson writes

OSB?

(Well, since no-one else asked....)

David

painted

workshop

construction.

Although it looks

I clad a partition on one of my Launderettes with 18mm OSB to stop the toe rags breaking though, which it did very effectively. Later when the 'back office' was a total fire loss, the OSB partition stood up to the fire extrememly well and preserved the shop contents. There were

28mm copper pipe running horizontally on the fire side that melted and sagged, but the partition was intact. Also, unlike (spit) chipboard, it is pretty well waterproof.

AWEM

Oriented strand board.

Largish chips of wood, bound together with adhesive, in crossed oriented layers.

Somewhere near plywood in strength, but should be much cheaper, though it often is not, as it can be made from otherwise unuseable timber.

Also known, where I grew up as "siding" or sometimes "roofing"

:-)

Cheers Trevor Jones

Actually the mill is pretty picky about moisture content and species. Outside of the bark they use the whole log.

Wes

painted

Oriented Strand Board

AWEM

Yup. I grew up in an area that was largely a logging town, and the local mill produces a LOT of OSB.

Any tree that cannot be cut for lumber, or spun on the veneer lathe for plywood, got shipped to be chipped for OSB.

At one point, not too long ago, the cost per sheet, at retail, was about $3, while plywood was about $15.

Plywood went way up, (Like $35-$45) and OSB reached just a few dollars less. It brought on a resurgence in demand for plywood, as it narrowed considerably, the gap in the cost to sheath a house in ply vs. OSB. Numbers I was hearing from folks were in the range of $1K more to use real pluwood.

Things have settled a bit, and I see OSB going on new construction again.

Saw a pretty good overview on OSB production on one of the DIY home reno shows a while back. Pretty neat.

God only knows what the long term effects of all that glue are gonna be, though.

Cheers Trevor Jones

Sounds grand!

Steve

Just an addition to all the other answers: Wood filled stone floor (at least here it is called so). Cast your concrete slab and over it pour a layer of wood filled stone floor (20mm thick). That one is filled with up to 60% saw dust (cheap like dirt). Withstands a enough of abuse and is really gentle to your feet, nice warm feeling. There seem to be two recipes. One with caustic magnesia and magnesia-chloride, the other one with cement.

Nick