Workshop questions

[Phil Waterman]

Hi Paul

You have asked for comments on a very good topic. The information members are bring forward is good stuff.

I built my 2nd and last CMP workshop in 2004 my first comment never enough space, never enough organized storage space. My shop is 24x36 feet with 12 ft ceilings and has a loft with 900 sq.ft. of shelf space.

I insulated my shop walls and ceiling with 2" blue insulating board, pretty efficient but one problem the blue board shrinks 1-2" in length leaving gaps after about 10 years don't know if this is normal or result of being exposed to paint thinners.
Blue Board .jpg
The ceiling boards were cut to fit between the joist, and I then blew in stria-foam packing peanuts. Result there is very little loss of heat through the ceiling.

I have two suggestions, programmable thermostat so you tell the heat to come on 2 hours before you go out to work. Second combination ceiling fan air filtration units.

It has been mentioned that adding ceiling fans will help get the heat down of the ceiling. Instead of buying ceiling fans I took an old room fan made a frame to hold air-filters. Result I have a unit that blows the hot air off the ceiling down to the floor and takes the dust out of the air at the same time.

Recently I made a second unit with a new fan and new filter rack design that holds two layers filters around the sides and one layer on the top. On the first unit I moved the 3 speed switch from the fan to the wall so the speed can be changed to fit the need. The effectiveness of the units of course depends on the filters you choose to use. But they are fairly effective because when you are sanding the surface of the outside filters changes pretty quickly depending on color of what you are sanding.
Air Filter .jpg Air Filter 1.jpg
The newest unit is directly over my primary work area so it is blowing filtered air down on me. The other unit is at the far end of the shop and was intended primarily to get the hot air off the ceiling and back down to people level.

Did some air flow studies on the units because of the large filter surface area the speed is low, (good for filtering) yet moving a lot of air yields a lot of cubic feet of air going through filters. Time for one unit to filter the cubic volume of my shop is about 14 minutes, so with two units that time is cut in half.

One thing I have learned that when it is time to change the filters you want to slide them out carefully and directly into a plastic trash bag. These filters can get pretty dirty and dropping one on the floor makes a mess.

Cheers Phil

Keep us posted

[chris vickery]

For your consideration Phil might I offer this opinion...
I think it is more likely that your wood joists have shrunk over the years as the timber dries out and not the styrofoam itself. Food for thought.
BTW, your air exchanger invention is interesting. One thing I considered but did not do was to install an exhaust fan in a sidewall. I guess I am too picky so my shop does not see sanding dust or paint too much as I do most outdoors. If I were to build another shop or add an addition I think I would have a separate section walled off for “dirty work”.
Paul you alluded to perhaps sectioning off your shop, maybe you will take this as a consideration...

[Robin Craig]

Just a couple of quick comments more.

I will never pour concrete now without taing the time to put radiant heating pipes in the floor and the insulation associated with it ever again. That is one you can not recover from. In floor heat is magic in my book.

The other comment is of a more fluid nature.

If you live with the confines of a large city and don't have a septic system this wont be of much interest to you.

Our workshop at work has it's own septic system and drainage, the pipework is a bit more complex and longer than we would like. We experience some problems a while ago and as a result determined that too much solid waste in the grey water was coming from the big wash up sink in the shop. There are a number of us who use it and we are all saints all the time.

So we put some efforts into finding a way to capture that material.

The answer is this clever device. Made by Liquid Assets in the US of A and called the Gleco Trap it replaces the traditional P trap under a sink with a removable reservoir and a drain valve.

The valve on the side allows you to drain the column of water above the reservoir before you remove the jug. We bought it mail order from in Canada and it was from memory about $120 inc postage of there abouts.

We have found that silicone grease is good at making it seal properly after a clean out which we do monthly. Our problems have stopped an no one has to own up.