The making of a woodshop with pictures

[Mike Wilkins]

Looking good!!!
Delays seem to be the order of the day when it comes to some contractors.
I have a neighbor waiting for a long time to finish a simple structure. All he seems to get is one excuse after another.
As for suggestions: are those attic trusses? If so, great. If not, not a problem. Just lay some inexpensive ply on the floor and use this for storage. Put in a pull-down attic stair and instant storage space appears. Lots of nice space in there, but it won't take long to feel cramped when the toys arrive.

[Ben Cadotte]

I have seen this alot with contractors (used to work as carpenter). Uncle owns an iron working company. Basically since your job is smaller in nature. I would bet they are doing yours as they have time. They will work their "normal" jobs until they are at a stop. Then come work on yours. Trades are like that. Plumbers and electricians wait on the carpenters. Then they get in and the carpenters have to wait on them. So the best thing to do is just go to another job, so nobody is standing around. There are lazy people out that that do just work for beer money. But I think in most cases, especially on a small job. You are just the fill in work to help keep them busy. So unfortunately the bigger, longer, higher paying job gets the "A" schedule, and you get the "B" or even "C" schedule.

[Dave Lessley]

Wednesday was a good day. The concrete guy showed up to assess and excavate the pad for the bathroom. He says he will pour today. I dumped a bunch of gravel in the hole for him last night. While I was there at lunch time to talk with the concrete/plumber guy the electrician showed up to give us a bid to re hook up the service panel. He thinks he should be able to get to it Friday. He will hook up one outlet and a light bulb at which point I can have the power company turn the power back on. No more long extension cords to the house. All the windows are in and they have siding going up on the East side or Front of the shop. For the first time we have a picture of the elusive North and West sides of the building.

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The excavator is a Kubota KX41. . . . . Location of the bathroom
and a whole lotta fun

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Siding going up East end . . . . . . . . . North side and West end

[Dave Lessley]

Mike,

"They" referred to it as a storage truss. It does not have pony walls. There is a triangular space 10' across the base and about 5.5' from the base to the peak. I'll take a picture. The plan is to put a pull down stair and to keep it simple I'll deck 8' of the 10' to keep it with full sheets of ply. the 1' difference to the corners of the triangle on each side will be mostly not useable anyway. Where to fit the stairs in between lights and who knows where dust collection is the issue.

[Rich Konopka]

wow, I am jealous. Nice job !!

[Dave Lessley]

With much patience we finished up the concrete for the bathroom at 11:00 pm. While the concrete is drying more siding will go up and hurricane straps on the framing. We are waiting for the inspection on the electrical panel after which I can call the power company and heat up the panel. The builder may show up Saturday to frame the bathroom. We are still waiting for the roofer to show up.

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I think the plan is to not start the siding on this side until the bathroom is framed in so they can start on the left side and work across. Besides a small peek at the pad and unused bags of concrete the big change in this view is most of the pile of the wall sections closest to the camera have been processed from the tear down. For tearing them apart I gave the sheet metal to the neighbors for a critter barn they are building.

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I knew when I went in the house last night that the cat was going to check out the concrete and.... I was right.

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Finished up the siding on this end

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This one should be buttoned up by the end of today

[Dave Lessley]

Nothing has happened since we poured the concrete Thursday night. The builder was supposed to come Saturday to frame the bathroom but decided the concrete needed more time to dry.

The inspector came to check the service panel and there are a couple of things we need to fix. We need an outdoor light by the man door and the electrician did not bond (ground) the panel box itself. I also need to pound down one of my ground rods. It's sticking up to high.

My builder informed me today he is starting another job this week and would be splitting his time. I politely reminded him my completion date and his remaining funds were still very much linked together.

I picked up an on demand hot water heater for the bathroom Saturday. As much as I was going to be using hot water out there, mostly just to wash my hands I couldn't see any sense in keeping a hot water tank going. Not even one of the two or three gallon jobs. I purchased one that heats the water as you use draw water through it. It's made by Bosch so I'm hoping it will do what it says. I also sat down and drew up the electrical plan for the outlets and lighting.

[Jerry Olexa]

Looking good!! Nice project...outside contractors never work on your timing/schedule

[Dave Lessley]

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A good start on framing the bathroom.

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A shot of the re-set electrical panel. It's a little lower than I would like. The top of the box is 55 inches from the floor. The problem being the old box was already set a little low for my tall frame and was mounted on the flat side of a 2x8 with only a 26 gauge wall. By the time we went through 1" of siding, a 2x6 wall and flushed it out for sheet rock the box had to be lowered due to the length of the existing cable.

In order to pass inspection to get the electricity turned on you need a switched light and an outlet. You also need an outdoor light by the man door which was not included in the bid for the panel. I worked on drilling the holes for the cable last night and set the switch box. I'm kind of waiting for the siding to catch up to the man door so I only have to drill the hole for the box once and can mount the light permanently.

[John Keeton]

Dave, when you get your electrical layout done, go back and double the number of plugs!! They are like clamps - just can't have too many, and now is the cheapest, easiest time to do it. What height are putting them?

Edited - just noticed if the top of your box is at 55", then the plugs are at about 42" centered?

[Rob Russell]

Before you plan on putting much load on those attic trusses, I'd check with the manufacturer to see if they rate those bottom chords of the truss for any load. The design of the trusses is essentially to keep the roof up and walls from spreading, so that bottom chord is essentially in tension. That's a lot different than putting a load on top of it.

[Dave Lessley]

Edited - just noticed if the top of your box is at 55", then the plugs are at about 42" centered?

John The plug, light and switch you see now were temporarily placed by the electrician to satisfy the inspector. To get power back to my panel the inspector wants to see a plug, and a switched light inside the building and an outdoor light switched or auto sensor type by the man door. Once I pass inspection I will tear out the temporary stuff and put in my own and then have another inspection.

The current plan is to have 4 outlet circuits each 20 amps. With two circuits running left and right of the panel with the outlets from each circuit alternating down each wall until they meet on the back wall providing me with an outlet every six feet. If I remember correctly that gives me 4-5 outlets per circuit. The wiring will come in from the top of the wall so as not to have any wiring crossing the wall at any point (so I don't have to worry about hanging things on the wall. The bathroom outlet will be on it's own circuit with a GFCI outlet.

By code each circuit must lead off with a GFCI outlet feeding the rest down stream. I have considered using a GFCI breaker in the box for each circuit but I have heard that the GFI portion of the breaker can wear out before the actual breaker. At $60.00 a piece I think replacing a failed GFCI outlet would be cheaper.

In addition to the regular outlets I have planned a 110v 30 amp circuit to the bathroom for the on demand water heater, 220v 30 amp circuit for the compressor, 220v for the dust collector ( I forget the amps on that one right now) and also a circuit for the Heater(s).

There will be a few odd ball circuits like for a garage door opener etc. The height of the outlets will be 53" to the top of the box allowing for 48" material to be stacked against the wall.

Sorry to run on. What do you think?

[Dave Lessley]

Before you plan on putting much load on those attic trusses, I'd check with the manufacturer to see if they rate those bottom chords of the truss for any load.

Rob,
The trusses were engineered to accomodate lite storage. As I will only have pull down stair access I will not be huffing anything large or heavy up there. The main intent was for small lite things. For example with the advent of digital cameras I was afraid that 35mm film canisters would become harder to find. Several years ago I filled up two 32 gal garbage cans with film cans acquired from a photo processing plant. They don't weigh much but I don't want them taking up shop space. I also have a bunch of rope that was being cast off by an electrical contractor. Snow tires come to mind. Storage for spare fluorescent light bulbs. That kind of stuff.

[Dave Lessley]

Builder did not show up. Spoke with him this morning and he has strep throat.

I didn't get alot done as I went to a service project for a member of my church. He came up with a free hot tub and needed it moved from off his trailer over the top of a 5 foot cyclone fence and on to his deck in the backyard. There were about 10 of us and it went a whole lot smoother than what I thought. It sure clarifies the old saying many hands make light work.

I did finish drilling a bunch of holes for cables across the top plate above the breaker box, cut the whole and set the electrical box for the light above the man door and ran the cable from the panel to the switch and from the switch to the light box. Tonight I will tack it down and make up the connections.

[John Keeton]

Nearly every tool in my shop runs on 220v. There are many times that I have one or more on at the same time, so I actually have separate circuits each of them. The wire cost for "home runs" is a little more, and the cost of the breakers a little more, but I didn't want to have to worry about it. The rest of the plan sounds good.