New Shop

[Zachary Caldwell]

In the process of getting a brand new shop!! Very excited! The shop will be a 30x50 Insulated Pole Barn. I have a couple of questions...

1. What are things aside from tools that you have added to your shop to make it more functional? (shelving, clamp racks etc.?)

2. I know wiring is dependent on tools you have but how many 220v circuits? (Currently have 3 different tools that run 220v)

3. What are you using for lighting.

Thanks for your time.

[John Ziebron]

Congratulations Zack. When I bought my current residence the 30x40 pole barn didn't even have electricity to it. I'll tell you some things I did that might help you.

If you are going to have electric supply lines installed (if not already in place) consider adding a second run of conduit that would include things like ethernet wiring, a coax cable and some additional plain wires (I use a couple to turn on the heater from my house). I also built a wall with a door that made the actual shop area 30x32. The front of my barn, where the shop is, has a 16x11 garage typw door while the rear of the barn has 2 sliding doors typically found on these type barns The 8 feet in the rear is not insulated but allows space for my zero turn and other gardening stuff. More importantly, my 3 HP cyclone dust collector is in this space to minimize the noise when it's running.

I have 100 amp service which gives me six 220v circuits and mostly 110v 20 amp circuits. To plan your circuits you have to figure out how you intend to work. For instance, the 220v DC will have to be on a separate breaker because it will be on with most power tools you use. I sometimes have the jointer and table saw or planer running at the same time so all 3 of these 220v machines are on separate breakers. But some others can be on a shared 220v breaker like my belt sander, drum sander and shaper. I wanted my wiring to be hidden in the walls and above the ceiling, at least initially, and to do that one must take the time to plan the location of your current machines and maybe plan for any future ones. If you have a cement floor like most barns and don't plan a raised floor you will want ceiling drops to machines that will not be against a wall.

I have all LED lighting, mostly 4 ft fixtures (about 30) which run off 15 amp breakers. I split the lighting of 2 breakers with 2 wall switches; sometimes I just go in to grab something and don't need full lighting. As time goes on and you will likely need to add or change some wiring. My wiring is behind the walls but the metal boxes are on the surface. If I need to add an outlet I just use metal conduit from an existing box to go to a new box.

I likely have more insulation than you need in Tennessee but I'm sure you have that figured out. Since you are insulating and you probably get more hot summer days than here in Michigan you might consider adding air conditioning or one of these split units that guys are using now. So you may want to add that into your electrical planning. Good luck.

[Jim Becker]

Zachary, congrats on the new shop! I have a very long thread here on my own recent shop build using a post frame building, albeit a little smaller than yours at 24x36x10.

Things that make the environment a pleasure to work in...good insulation (closed cell spray foam in my case), a MiniSplit for heat and AC, great LED lighting, wall surfaces painted a bright color (light grey for me...I couldn't deal with stark white), a great sound system, etc. Before you make major decisions on racking and storage, figure out your workflow so you can place your machines. With the space you have, keep open areas for assembly, bulk storage/finished big projects, finishing, etc. Open space can be your friend. And even though you have a large space, don't be afraid to have a "tool coral" for things you use infrequently. If you can do it (I wasn't able to) having your material storage close to where you bring it into the building is a lot more convenient than having to bring it through a door and then transport it "far away" to racking, etc.

"How many 240v circuits" is a difficult question to answer other than in general because everyone's needs are different based on their current and planned tool setups. Assuming you are a solitary woodworker, you need dedicated 240v circuits of appropriate amperage for tools like dust collection, big compressor and specialty tools with unique needs...in particular for anything that needs to operate when other things are operating. A minisplit would count for that, too. For general tools use and a single woodworker, you only really need one additional 240v circuit to cover things like saws, sanders, etc., since you can only use one at a time. So a single, general machine circuit is just fine. Mine is 30 amp because that's the max required for any of my big tools and I'm standard on 30 amp twist locks for receptacles.

I used 8' LED strip lighting the same or similar to what Matt Cremona uses in his shops: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

[Tom M King]

It won't get any cheaper in the future to add more circuits.

[Scott T Smith]

Very good advice above.

One thing that I did when I built my shop was to run 3" conduits under the slab - running from 6" rectangular raceways located under the load centers, under the slab and then up into each wall. The conduit terminates into a junction box around 36" above the slab, and then horizontal conduits run through the wall from the junction box. This setup allows me to easily install any future circuits w/o needing to tear up the walls.

Every 6' - 12' or so there is a quad fixture with two 120V receptacles in it. Each receptacle is fed by a different 20A breaker - installed adjacent to one another in the load center. Any 240 needs that are less than 4 hp can be solved by simply replacing the two 120V duplex receptacles with a single 20A 240, and then swapping the breakers in the load center for a 240 breaker. The dual circuits allow me to not trip breakers when I'm running multiple 120V tools off of any quad, and the infrastructure also allows me to pull 3 phase wiring as needed.

In the ceiling I have a run of 6" rectangular conduit raceway with drops coming off of it as needed.

Here is a pic of the electrical panels taken during installation. 6" rectangular conduit raceway can be observed at the top of the photo and also running below the panels. The two near panels are 240V single phase, the third from the left is 240 3 phase, and the right most panel is a 480V 3 phase panel.

Electrical_panels2.jpg

My ceiling height is 15'6", which allows me room for lighting and dust collection and handling 12' long material under it as needed. The power and dust collection drops have not been a problem with respect to material handling.

I highly recommend insulating it very well and adding climate control for comfort and dehumidification.

Nowadays there are lots of great LED lighting options, and as I recall some excellent discussions in the SMC archives re best light color and brightness.

[Zachary Caldwell]

Thanks for all the info. going to have to really think about how i want thing laid out.

[David M Peters]

Lots of good advice here! My inputs are pretty much the same:

• Lighting - T5, 4', 5K LEDs from Amazon. Be aware that the cheap ones will emit plenty of EMI (electro magnetic interference) which might affect sensitive electronics. Nothing I've had a issue with beyond my stud detector's electrical detector but might be relevant to you. Otherwise they're great lights for the money.
• Electrical - run an expandable raceway around the perimeter of the ceiling. My setup has 3/4" surface-mount EMT with 4" square boxes every 10 feet.
• 240V circuits - I have 4:
  
  • 20A HVAC
  • 30A Dust collector
  • 30A for table saw
  • 20A for other tools only requiring 20A service

Good luck and have fun with your (huge) project!

[Jack Frederick]

Whatever underground you are running for electrical, gas, water, soil pipe, etc add additional capped off risers and sleeves. The “Ishould have thought of that” situation can be mitigated by adding some extra piping. For at least a part of you project I would suggest a raised foundation with a crawl space. Dust collection, wiring can then be modified/added pretty simply. In my 30x34x10 I did not know what the lay-out was going to be. I alternated 120v receptacles at 18 & 54” every six feet. If I ended up with a bench or something against the wall I was able to access an outlet easily. I did plywood interior walls. When I added solar to my shop it took me 10 min to expose the wall section, 10 to remove and 10 to replace the plywood. The panel area was totally exposed making it really easy for the electrician. My lighting was 16 4’ Costco leds in banks of 4. 8 yrs and no problems. On the road side my windows were 2x6’ set at 6 & 7’ giving no road eyes. In my new little shop I added two 240v ceiling drops. I eliminated a trip hazard and when not in use I have a couple hooks I can hang them in. 50 amp circuit for a welding machine and car charger.
Orient the building for solar. When I did it I zeroed my electric bill for the whole property. It is easy to install yourself during construction and have the electrician terminate the panels. Free heating and cooling is pretty nice, well once you amortize the system cost.

[Jim Becker]

Jack, since he's going post frame (like I did) crawl space isn't really financially practical since there's no foundation at all. It's going to be a slab unless he's willing to put out a "yuge" amount of money which would negate the big financial advantage of post frame construction. I put my over head duct on top of the trusses so the only thing that hangs is the actual drops. It's truly easy to modify, even though it's 10' up in the air. Same for electrical drops "in the middle". J-boxes up above the trusses and that makes installing and/or moving a drop very easy.

[Jack Frederick]

Wish we had a like button. I was “in my own head” related to my old shop. These types of questions do get me spending other peoples money vicariously.

[John Pendery]

I spaced circuits evenly around the shop because I knew it would evolve over time and I wanted flexibility. The obvious downside is cost, but less expensive and invasive on the front end that to add it after the walls are covered.

For lighting I went with the RAB led’s that click together end to end. Big time savings as you don’t have to wire individual lights together. Two rows down the middle of each “half” and I’m very happy with my lighting. I put them on a dimmer switch which doesn’t get used a ton, but it’s nice if I’m working late so I don’t divert air traffic.

1655CCED-DB37-41BE-AB7C-1E213BD5AAA6.jpgDEB31095-EBA9-47EE-9C0C-9D2CB6FFF83A.jpg

[Jim Becker]

My accomodation for flexibility over time for big machine outlets (as well as practical installation with stiff #10 wire) is very large j-boxes that are accessible up-top so I can easily bring an outlet "somewhere else" if I need to rearrange. I'm doubtful I'll have to do that the way things are in my new shop building, but the provision is there.

[Joel Gelman]

When I built my shop, insulation was important along with soundproofing so no noise to bother anyone any time of day-evening. Never too many outlets. The bigger the sub-panel the better. Ideal is 200 amps. A lot of options open up with a phase converter with appropriate outlets-disconnects (Phase perfect better than rotary). With that space, vintage machines such as big bandsaw at less $ than the never smaller machines become possible. LED lighting.

I think AC is great unless you live in a cool environment year round.

No matter how big the shop, key is to be efficient with layout and trying to store things on walls and under machines so you have less floor space used for that. More room between machines and rolling carts etc.

Nice to have the dust collector in a lean to shed. Saves shop space, less noice, easy to empty dust bins.

Just my 0.02 as things are so dependent on things like what you make, priorities for machinery, budget etc.