Shop design

[Kirk Miller]

Greetings everyone,
I am in the process of buying a new home. I am looking for one with a detached shop. If I can't find one I am curious how the folks that have built a shop decided on how big to make it. I need mine to have two areas, the dusty part, then a dedicated space for Rodbuilding. I will be primarily concerned to have space to do wood turning. It will require room for a nice bandsaw, a Jet 1642 wood lathe, bench a grinder and wet grinder, a Drill press, and a Belt/Disc sander. Shelf space for storing turning wood, and for drying roghouts. I will eventually need room for a nice table saw.
How does one go about deciding how much room will be required?

[Chris Padilla]

I'd use scaled drawings of the size of your equipment along with reasonable working space around said tool. Arrange them in some kind of work flow for you and you should start to see that your shop can't possibly be big enough!

[Clarence Miller]

Hi,

In my experience no matter how large my shop is I am always wishing I had doubled it. I just moved my shop out of a 10 x12 space in my basement to a 22x22 main shop and a 12x16 "finish room". Wish I had a 40 x 40 now. But then I would need a 80 x 40. ect.

[Willard Foster]

You need at least 20 feet in one direction so you can rip an eight foot board. Eight feet plus a couple extra on each side of the blade. My shop is 20' x 20'. I'm grateful for what I have, but bigger is better.

My advice is, live in the garage and use the house for your shop.

Bill

[Chuck Isaacson]

My advice would be, figure out the minimum amount of space that you are going to need....... then double it.

[Martin Shupe]

I agree, bigger is better.

I am in the planning stages for my dream shop.

It was supposed to be 20 x 40, but it looks like the interior dimensions will be more like 19 by 37, by the time I get done. I would love to make it wider, say, a true 30 by 40.

I am also planning a 12 by 12 finishing room. I know, people have said I should not make a separate room, but I have dust and pollen problems here at different times of the year, so I want a dedicated room.

There are many questions yet to be answered about my plans.

It seems like there are many, many decisions to be made.

[Steve Kohn]

I went from a 24X24 2 car garage to a 30X30 shop with room to pull a car in. You know what, it isn't big enough after only 5 years.

Go as big as you can. I guarantee you will fill it up.

[Jeff Mackay]

I started with a basement shop that was about 14 x 20. Moved into a bigger and much older house, and put the shop in three rooms: a 15 x 22 machine room, a 12 x 15 bench room, and a storage room for lumber.

In the latest iteration, I initially wanted to find a house with an outbuilding that I could use as a shop. I figured the ultimate size would be about 30x50, but with as few posts as possible to get in the way. My wife wanted a neighborhood, and a finished basement. In this area, if she got what she wanted, I couldn't have a workshop. So we built a house with the shop under the garage. The shop size was limited to the size of the garage, about 24 x 36, plus another 11x15 room for lumber storage. Not optimal, but I'll make it work.

Jeff

[Tom Clark FL]

To put it as simple as possible, make your shop as big as you can afford to heat (or air-condition). If it gets any bigger than that it will get too expensive to be comfortable with your budget. Any smaller is too small.

This winter was far colder than usual, and running heat became a bit expensive. The answer was to limit shop hours somewhat. Not fun at all.

No matter what your main hobby is right now, it will probably change a bit in a few years, so you need to leave room to grow.

My shop is 40x60, and it is not crowded. It is nice to have enough space to do anything you want, but the electric bills take some of the fun out of it.