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Thread: Yet another shop build.... McFarlane

  1. #31
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    Apr 2010
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    Quote Originally Posted by Jim Andrew View Post
    ...But the thing is, you could have run the DC piping yourself. No licensing of piping for a DC.
    I thought about that, but only briefly.

    The plumbers used a riding trench digger to put in the trench. I specified 45 degree bends so the trench goes fairly deep.

    We are building in a forest and had to cut down two 100' tall pine trees plus maybe 15 other shorter trees within the area of the slab. Some of the horizontal roots in the trench were 5" in diameter. Plus the soil is a very dense, plastic clay. Digging that trench by hand would have taken me several days and probably laid me up with back pain before I could have finished the job.
    Mark McFarlane

  2. #32
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    Met with the plumber and GC this afternoon. Plumber is coming back in a few days to cut the slab and redo the DC run. Framing crew arrives Thursday, should have the walls up and the walls and roof sheathed by next Monday afternoon... Not a bad schedule - ~3 weeks from clearing the land to having the structure in place.
    Mark McFarlane

  3. #33
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    Quote Originally Posted by mark mcfarlane View Post
    I am kicking myself for not measuring the plumbing before the pour. The plumbers made 2 other mistakes that were caught and rectified before the steel went in, they were measuring from the wrong reference, which would have put several walls about a foot off.
    Pics are great! Great, too, that it sounds like the GC and plumber are going to rectify their mistake. Hopefully your concrete guy is as good as mine and makes a seamless repair. I remember the day my slab was poured as being a "OK, now we're movin' forward" kind of day. Leading up to that I also had plumber troubles. There were 4 penetrations in the slab, every one was off. The plumber I used gave the same excuse as yours...wrong reference point. Fired!

    Good luck! It'll be exciting to see pics of the walls going up!

  4. #34
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    While I know I am jumping ahead a little all this talk of concrete has me curious, how to you plan to finish the shop floors?
    Of all the laws Brandolini's may be the most universally true.

    Deep thought for the day:

    Your bandsaw weighs more when you leave the spring compressed instead of relieving the tension.

  5. #35
    Mark,
    Glad to hear the mistake is to be corrected. From your other threads, I suspect you might have invested more hours planning this than than you'll have in construction labor. So, I'll bet its a relief not to have to redesign your entire layout.

    I GC'd my own house, and 'my' plumber was a prince. He had just hung out his own shingle after years working for another company. After rain and mud slowed their start, he and his 'crew' (aka helper) busted their hump to get the rough work completed on a Friday evening, so concrete could start as planned on Monday AM. He called to inform me they were done and reluctantly asked if it was too late to cut a check for the agreed 1/3 of quote (1/3 each at completion of rough/top-out/final trim). I had been traveling, but when I got home I drove out to the construction site and wrote him a check. He seemed overly grateful.

    I found out later that it was the only way he could pay his helper for the last 2 week's work. My brother is in the construction business and I learned from him that more typical is sub's get paid Friday for work completed up to COB on Thursdays. Some builders even have a 'previous Friday' work cutoff.

    There was not a single mistake or issue with the plumbing. He even came back out and repaired a Pex leak from the idiot drywall'er who used at least one 2-1/2" screw in a wet-wall to go around the nail plate the plumber installed.

    Other subs were not as joyful to work with. The foreman of the cornice crew threatened to kill the framer during a fight. (They were fighting over who got to cut up my 2x10 collar ties so they could use them as staging - while I bought more ties.) The roofers left raw chicken tossed up under the trim molding rack in the garage (lovely after 3 days in the Texas sun). Cheeseburgers in my attic (I was lucky. My brother has found 'processed food' in a couple of attics.)

    I'll spare you the rest, but perhaps it will explain my pessimism and cautioning about the building process. I can laugh about it now, but at the time I was about to start digging graves in my back yard to-be. ...Some people are worth fighting for. Others? Not so much.

    Best wishes and keep your eyes open.
    Last edited by Malcolm McLeod; 03-28-2017 at 10:38 AM.

  6. #36
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    Quote Originally Posted by Van Huskey View Post
    While I know I am jumping ahead a little all this talk of concrete has me curious, how to you plan to finish the shop floors?
    Right now I'm looking at engineered oak flooring. I recently had my existing garage (not the new shop) epoxied with a very high flake/solids mix and it looks beautiful, but the cost was about $2.66 sq/foot. I can get interlocking 2mm engineered oak from Lumber Liquidators for $2.50 + installation. I can probably install it myself for about $1.50 sq/foot for underlayment and adhesive.

    Not matter what I put down, cushioned mats are in the plan. I'm using the SAM's Club interlocking mats now and they work pretty well, which kind of raises the question - why do anything to the floor other than cover it in interlocking rubber tiles...
    Mark McFarlane

  7. #37
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    Quote Originally Posted by Malcolm McLeod View Post
    Mark,
    Glad to hear the mistake is to be corrected. From your other threads, I suspect you might have invested more hours planning this than than you'll have in construction labor. So, I'll bet its a relief not to have to redesign your entire layout.
    ...
    I think you are right, I spent about a year working on half-a-dozen 3 models, several hundred hours of work.

    I think most of my subs are getting paid onsite when they complete a stage. At least I know a few of them have been 'cause I've seen the GC write the checks. I am prepaying for the 'next work stage' as the job progresses. Slab and framing are already paid for by me.

    I'm doing my own site cleaning every day. Today I spent a couple hours with a shovel and wagon leveling around the slab and the framing kit staging area and dumpster so no one trips or twists an ankle. I'm kind of a safety nut so I'll find any leftover food the day it happens.

    The build includes a recording studio, which is in essence like a semi-large 1 bedroom apartment. It is taking me much longer than I expected to source the doors, locks, tile, flooring, plumbing fixtures,... I'm splurging on the doors, locks, fixtures, etc. Shaker and Craftsman doors, solid brass lock sets,... Turns out I need 7 exterior doors and 4 interior doors, although 3 of exterior doors are actually interior: machine room and two passage doors between the shop and garage and shop and recording studio that will each have thresholds and weather stripping. The shop and studio will have independent HVAC systems.

    My plan is to build a 48" vanity out of solid oak with my TS55 and Domino, but I haven't been able to find the time because the build is going so fast. I have a lot of strange cabling to do in the studio before the drywall goes in, + compressed air lines which I forgot about,...
    Mark McFarlane

  8. #38
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    Quote Originally Posted by mark mcfarlane View Post
    Right now I'm looking at engineered oak flooring. I recently had my existing garage (not the new shop) epoxied with a very high flake/solids mix and it looks beautiful, but the cost was about $2.66 sq/foot. I can get interlocking 2mm engineered oak from Lumber Liquidators for $2.50 + installation. I can probably install it myself for about $1.50 sq/foot for underlayment and adhesive.

    Not matter what I put down, cushioned mats are in the plan. I'm using the SAM's Club interlocking mats now and they work pretty well, which kind of raises the question - why do anything to the floor other than cover it in interlocking rubber tiles...

    Check Builddirect.com for the engineered wood, the prices are similar to LL but have BD send samples and if you take them and compare I have found in every instance the quality was much better than LL when the price was similar. I bought over 2K sq ft of bamboo from them about 9 years ago and as extremely pleased with the quality. They also sell underlayment and all the other supplies needed to either glue or float.

    The only issue with a full rubber tile floor is if it is hard enough to roll machines it doesn't do much for your body and vice versa. My last shop had a full flake floor, it was gorgeous BUT I could never find small parts I dropped. I think this time around I will skip the flake.
    Of all the laws Brandolini's may be the most universally true.

    Deep thought for the day:

    Your bandsaw weighs more when you leave the spring compressed instead of relieving the tension.

  9. 1+ for Builddirect. I recently bought 1,000 feet of laminate for my shop from BD for $1.59/foot. Add sound choice underlayment for 59¢ and I'm in business. If you go the laminate route, I found that a textured surface is a good idea to avoid an overly slick surface. It really is essential to get the samples to see and feel in person. Finally, watch the volume price breaks. I really only needed 900 feet, but the price break at 1000 feet meant I could get an extra 100 feet for 13 bucks.

  10. #40
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    Mark, all of my anti-fatigue matts are from ULine, both in my shop and in my kitchen galley. (brick floor in there!)
    --

    The most expensive tool is the one you buy "cheaply" and often...

  11. #41
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    Quote Originally Posted by Van Huskey View Post
    Check Builddirect.com for the engineered wood, the prices are similar to LL but have BD send samples and if you take them and compare I have found in every instance the quality was much better than LL when the price was similar. I bought over 2K sq ft of bamboo from them about 9 years ago and as extremely pleased with the quality. They also sell underlayment and all the other supplies needed to either glue or float.

    The only issue with a full rubber tile floor is if it is hard enough to roll machines it doesn't do much for your body and vice versa. My last shop had a full flake floor, it was gorgeous BUT I could never find small parts I dropped. I think this time around I will skip the flake.
    Thanks Van. I think I have enough space to avoid moving machines around, but I will have a few rolling carts to deal with. I built one with 4" wheels and it seems to roll OK on the rubber floor tiles.

    I know what you are saying about the epoxy flakes and dropped parts. I have the same problem in my garage. I also have some Iranian and Afghani carpets in my house and they have the same problem. I have gotten used to putting my head down the floor and looking along the floor line to find small things.

    Thanks for the pointer to Builddirect.com.
    Mark McFarlane

  12. #42
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    Quote Originally Posted by Jim Becker View Post
    Mark, all of my anti-fatigue matts are from ULine, both in my shop and in my kitchen galley. (brick floor in there!)
    Thanks Jim, did you get the 3/8 or 5/8 versions? Anti-Fatgue or 'cadillac' surface, or something else?
    Mark McFarlane

  13. #43
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    I believe I purchase the 3/8" Anti-Fatigue versions. What's nice about ULine is that they have very broad sizing options. Most of what I've purchased has been 4' wide. For a new shop like yours, it may be more economical to buy a "roll" and cut to length. The material is easy to customize, too. At my Stubby lathe, for example, I used a 5' x 6' mat and cut out for the legs so that I have material on the floor that completely covers then entire area where I might stand, both in front and at the tailstock end. Before I cut down the right side table on my slider to get a little more room between it and my J/P, the floor was completely covered between the tools. As you can see from this photo, I need to make an adjustment to fill a 16" gap and will do so at whatever point I replace the mat in the kitchen. (They only last a few years because of the uneven brick underneath) The mat in there will go to the shop and get cut up to fill in where I need more mat. You can also see in this photo that I cut around the J/P so the mat also covers the infeed side.

    --

    The most expensive tool is the one you buy "cheaply" and often...

  14. #44
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    After the framing crew was onsite for 3 hours, most of the walls are up. The schedule is to have the structure water tight by next Wednesday or Thursday.

    IMG_2325.jpg
    Mark McFarlane

  15. #45
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    Sweet! How exciting to watch the progress! Ahh, one day perhaps...one day....
    Wood: a fickle medium....

    Did you know SMC is user supported? Please help.

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