Existing building-Remodel for shop

[Jim O'Dell]

Hi all!!
Well, after watching the recent builds and remodels of Jim Ketron, Chris Padilla, Frank Pellew, and Jim Becker, I'm going to ask for some ideas. The building in question is an existing detached shop. The previous owner was a welder and that's where he "worked" after he retired. It is a 20' wide, by 24' deep building. On the south side (20') there is a 10' wide roll up garage door. The east side is part of the back yard, and has an attached patio, 12' X 14' of which is covered. and a walk through door. I plan to enclose the covered part during the remodel. The best part of the building is that it has it's own electrical service from the pole. I'll need to replace the small service panel, and rewire the entire shop, but I don't mind that part.
This was a cheaply built building of 2X4 construction. The ceiling joists are also 2X4 on 24" centers, and although I haven't opened up a wall yet, my bet is the walls are also on 24" centers. I think the rafters are 2 X 6, but it's too dark to be able to tell at this time of night with no power to the building yet. The exterior is in bad shape with paint peeling off, and most of the sheathing is 1/4" ply material that is warped and disintegrating in spots. All of the north side, and the parts above the door height on the other 3 sides are nice thick wood siding planks. I have some work to do on a short portion of the southeast corner to get the ground down from the top of the foundation. The rest of the foundation has 2 to 3" sticking up from ground level.
The most major problem that I don't have an answer for (besides a total tear down and rebuild) is the ceiling height. This shop must have been built for munchkins as the inside headroom is only 7' 7". While I could make this work by losing the roll up door, and flush mounting all lights, including florescents, I'm hoping someone has a good and structurally safe idea for raising the ceiling height. Can I change the structure of the roof in a way that I can get rid of the existing ceiling joists, or at least move them up off of the walls and on to the rafters? Even if I needed to go back and add/move the wall 2X4's to get them to 16 inch centers, or even just add to get them at 12" centers, I think that would be doable and just toenail them in. Will the only way to lose the rafters be to open up the gable end on the short sides and somehow "slip" in a ridge beam to accomplish this? I know I'd have to build in the support under this to hold it up and am guessing I'd have to have someone come in to hoist the beam up as it's bound to weigh a ton (or more?) The other problem is it has a very shallow pitched roof. I'd say no stepper that 4-12. While I know I'll never be able to achieve 10' clearance, I'd like to at least get to 9' 6" in the center part of the shop if possible. If not, I'll live with it.
The other question is on the exterior. I plan to take down all of the ply sheathing and replace with Hardi board planks (not the 4 X 8 sheets). But where the nice wood is, can I just install the Hardi boards on top of them? Would it be ok to wrap over them with the Tyvek rap before the hardi boards go on? Since I will not be heating or cooling this shop, I'd like to seal it off some, especially for the winter months. I will be puting a window type A/C-Heater in the covered porch addition, as this will double as an isolation room for sick (infectious) rescue dogs we might bring in. Other wise it will be my finishing room ;-)
Thank you for reading this far. This is going to be a long term project that I hope to start this winter. I do plan to pull some of the sheathing off this next weekend while the wife is delivering 3 rescue dogs to new forever homes. I need to make sure that the wood underneath is not too damaged. If it is, maybe I'll get that 10' ceiling after all!! Jim.

[Joe Scarfo]

I don't know the construction parameters for where you are, but the roof can be raised.... If it was my shop, I know how I would go about it, but it would take a few friends, about a days efforts, and a raised roof.

I've seen "pre constructed" wall sections raised.

Why not

1. disconnect the current roof from the building
2. using hydraulic jacks and cribbing, raise the roof 2 feet or so (to the height you want.
3. place "pre constructed wall sections, between the existing wall studs and the roof.
4. lower the roof onto the newly raised wall.

Sounds simple enough to me, but I don't do this kind of stuff for a living. All the neighbors call me when something needs to be "McGyvered" together.

I would also consider nailing 2 x 2's to those 2 x 4's on the southern and western exposure sides and put in insulation.. that'll help control the temperature.

Good luck w/ the new shop. I sure wish I had a stand a lone shop in the back yard.

Joe in Tampa....

[Jerry Olexa]

Jim sounds like a great opportunity for a standalone shop. If you could post some pics int and ext and then we could better reco to you on possible approaches particularly the interior ceiling. If you don't completely rebuild your roof and replace sheathing, you could "sister in" 2x6s or 2x8s and then put in "higher " cross or tie beams to give you the height you wanted. Also sounds like you need overall strenghtening of the structure. 2X4s on 24 c in roof for that size bldg is not really adequate. Let us know.

[Jim Ketron]

Jim, Give us some pics to go on.
There should be plenty of helpfull Ideas on how best to get the roof hight you need It can be done many diff ways. sounds like you have a very promising Building to work with!
Jim Ketron

[Jim O'Dell]

Thanks guys. You know, right when I hit the send button I thought I should have waited and taken pictures to post with the request. I'll do pictures tonight when I get home, some in the attic, outside views, and I'll take one of the inside, but I'll warn you. It is still full of the former owner's crud, as well as a bunch of mine that has just been thrown out there while we settle in. Thanks again and I'll post later. Jim.

[Jim O'Dell]

OK, here are the pictures. I'll post the outside views in this post, and the inside the attic views in a following post.
pic 1 is the east side of the shop showing the covered patio
pic 2 is the north side of the shop
pic 3 shows the north inside wall from the garage door on the south side
pic 4 shows the east inside wall from the garage door. I told you it was full!!

[Jim O'Dell]

Here are the other shots.

pic 1-4 are shots up in the attic. It was so dark I couldn't see anything until the flash went off. And this was at 1:30 PM !!. I guess it shows that the roof is sealed off well ;-0.
pic 5 The first one should have been with the first group, as it is of the hallway that is across the entire length of the North wall.
Thanks for looking and giving some help as to which way to go. I thought about taking the roof off, extending the walls up, the rebuilding the roof, but the shingles are only about 2 years old, and are really in pretty good shape. I'd feel bad just ripping them off and throwing them away. Thanks again! Jim.

edit. Sorry, I forgot about the piece of siding in picture 4. Some has been cut off of the bottom edge, but it shows the detail that is moulded into the top edge of the piece. This is what is on the north outside face, all space above the top of the door height on the other 3 sides, and is on the interior wall of the hallway facing into the remainder of the shop. Jim.

[Chris Padilla]

Jim,

Can your budget handle a total tear-down and do-it-right? When it came down to it, that was my only option to really do what I needed. Low and behold I found some termite damage and while it wasn't remotely serious, I'm still glad I went to the trouble of tearing every single bit of drywall out of there so I could SEE...really SEE.

I did the same to our 1/2-bath and found mice had been Motel 6'ing it in the walls.

[Jim O'Dell]

Well, I will be gutting the interior, and most of the 3 sides of the exterior. I will be starting on the south east corner of the east wall (picture post 1, picture #1) this weekend. Just preliminary stuff, to see what the studs look like. This is the spot where there is some water damage to the 1/4" sheathing that has to go. If the structure is too bad, I will probably bite the bullet and just tear the whole building down, and start over with a clean slab...that is if SWMBO can be swayed that direction. We'll see. I would really like to do this, but if the building can be used as is, with some modifications, I would have a hard time justifying it to my wife. Jim.

[Glen Smith]

Are you affected by permits and building codes where you are? At what point in a "remodel" will permits be required? I remember hearing a story (don't know if it is true) about a guy who had a quonset hut that he wanted to replace with a stick frame building. But the codes had changed and he wouldn't be able to put a NEW stick frame in the same place. So he built part of the new stick frame inside the q-hut, tore down the q-hut around it, and then added on to get what he wanted. All done over time so as to make each part a "modification of the existing building".

If you want to keep the roof with its 2 year od shingles, could you jack it up as suggested previously, then put studs in between the 24 inch centers of the existing ones? Alternativly, you could build all new walls (on the ground) of the height that you want, then in one very hectic day with lots of help, jack up the roof, knock out the old walls, raise the new walls into place and jack the roof down onto them. Just be VERY sure of the temporary structure that holds the roof up while replacing the walls.

Glen

[Jim O'Dell]

Glen, thanks for the note. We live just outside of Fort Worth. We're in no mans land as far as cities go, although Ft. Worth is making noises about annexing this area. So I would have to check with the county about permits. If I'm able to just redo the sheathing, and enclose the covered porch, I doubt that I'll bother. If I end up raising the roof, or more indepth, then I'll check with the county on permits. Jim.

[Rob Russell]

Jim,

I'd knock it down and build fresh. Knocking down isn't that expensive. From your description and a quick look at the pics, you'll want things like a window or two for some natural light and walls you can trust that you can hang stuff on. While a demo/build new might seem like overkill, it means that you can build the structure properly from the beginning. You might also consider filling in the corner of the patio closest to your house with additional concrete and building over that. The extra floor space would allow you to keep the dedicated rescue dog room and still have a finishing room. I know if this were at our house and my wife might, on occasion, be bringing in rescue dogs - I'd never see a day of the space as a finish rooom. You could use the jog that would leave in the building (in back) as covered/outside lumber storage (buying green and air dry under cover).

The demo/build approach will cost more but, in the long run, you'd get a building that really meets your needs and is built to your specs, rather than trying to patch up a problem.

Rob

[Jim O'Dell]

bump bump!!

[Tim Morton]

I'm guessing that tearing it down and rebuilding is not an option as you haven't commented on the other suggestions to do that. I would call a builder and have him come out and look it over to see about "raising it up and setting it on a 2ft block foundation.

[Chris Padilla]

Hey Tim,

Now raising the whole thing 2 feet doesn't sound too bad an idea. That is what, 3 or 4 rows of cinder block?

Still, this building sounds pretty cheaply slapped together...maybe it'll fall down you just push hard enough on one end?? It might not survive a raising....

I'd say if you want to work with what you have, to get a professional's opinion of the structure so in can be properly reinforced if needed for what you plan to use it as. This should probably be done after you gut it but I can tell you that tearing sheetrock off is a lot of messy, laborious work. A properly-placed bulldozer would make short work of that structure!