Building a new shop

[Jordan Baker]

Hey all

I figured I should do up a thread on what I’ve been up to this past year. I’ve been pretty quiet on the forum and the vehicles have taken a bit of a back seat. For the past few years I’ve talked and talked about wanting a new shop. My old shop had a lot of character, being that it had been a century barn that had been dismantled and rebuilt around the time of the First World War. The other portion (red shed) was equally as old and had been in place since the 1920’s. Prior to that it had been a cheese factory on the other side of town. Anyway, back to today. The building had seen better days, my wife was worried it would come down on me one day in a windstorm and she also wanted some indoor parking. Although I always told her with so many holes in the walls and roof the wind just blows through. She had none of that and wanted a new shop built, even before we renovated the kitchen..have I said she is a keeper….


Many hours were spent coming up with ideas and sizes/layout and what my needs were and could be in the future. I settled on a 50’x36’ deep layout with 12’ high walls. I also wanted a second floor and a gambrel roof line to keep it in character of the old barns in our area. I took my ideas to a local engineering firm and went over what I was thinking and a few weeks later I had some stamped plans drawn up. I highly recommend using a firm like that. Namely you get stamped drawings and secondly they know and work with the municipal building department already. In January I applied for my building permit and a few weeks later it came back I needed a variance. The size of building both in foot print and height was larger then what the zoning allowed for. However since I already had a building and the new one was 200sq feet larger and 6’ taller it was an easy but slow process of going to a committee of adjustment meeting. However this added months of idle waiting to the process. By the end of May the variance was approved and then I had to wait 20days for anyone to object. Once that was over it was another 10 days until I had my permit.

During this waiting period I was busy ordering product and getting supplies staged. I also decided I was going to try and do most of the work myself with help from some of the guys I’m on the fire department with.

I hired my friend with his excavation company to do the demolition and foundation digging. With two days warning that he was coming it was a mad dash to get the shop fully emptied. He filled two huge bins with the barn and also peeled off all the metal and put it in a separate bin.

[Jordan Baker]

Within two days the old shop was gone, the site cleared up and the foundation hole was dug. The weather was great with hole nice and dry, then the rain and rain and more rain came.

With some help I was shown how to frame footings and get them squared up. A couple guys from work were able to come by and help pour the concrete. We used a local supplier who provided their 50’ conveyor truck. This was a life saver a d was able to get the concrete right to where we needed it. After 40min the footings were poured.

[Jordan Baker]

For the foundation wall I wanted to use Insulated Concrete Forms or ICF. With wanting to do as much on my own as possible here seemed the best way to go. This also provided me with a fully insulated foundation wall with over 5” of insulation. This was important as I’ll will be doing infloor heating eventually and I didn’t want heat loss through the foundation wall. The other advantage of the ICF is that I was able to build the entire foundation on my own and get all the rebar in two days worth of work. Some help was done with wood bracing ….then everything ground to a halt with a concrete shortage. 3 weeks went by before I was able to get two trucks worth to get the walls poured. Once the walls were poured and sat for a few days I was able to the big hole all back filled. Finally after two months I was mostly out of the mud.

[Jordan Baker]

And by the time this was done, my load of lumber had arrived. Who knew that pile would build a building. After about a month of working away on it I had my walls all up. Most of the walls I put up on my own including 16’ long sections that were 12’ high. I do not recommend doing this but at the same time I enjoyed the challenge. Some help was sought for getting the LVL’s in place and a final squaring up.

I also was under constant supervision from the site supervisors

[Jordan Baker]

Finally the big day came with the arrival of the trusses and the instal day for them. A boom truck was hired and I managed to get a crew of guys in from work to help with getting them all installed. 26 trusses to go up. We started at 0800 and by 1530 the last truss was up and by 1900 the last of the strapping and bracing had gone on. For the next month I worked away on getting all the plywood sheeting down on the second floor, more bracing and all the wall sheeting and tyvek on the exterior walls.

[Jordan Baker]

I did hire a company to do all the metal installation. My wife was adamant no one would be going up on the roof to install anything. The weather was also getting colder now and it was nice to watch from inside the metal going on. This past week the metal work was finished and the doors got installed. Just in time for winter weather to finally arrive. I still need to move a lot back inside for a storage tent I set up in the yard.

The shop is far from done as but I now have a sealed up shop.

Finally some reorganization and some vehicle stuff can happen again.

[Hanno Spoelstra]

Fantastic job, Jordan!

Originally Posted by Jordan Baker

She had none of that and wanted a new shop built, even before we renovated the kitchen..have I said she is a keeper….

I wonder if she thinks you are a keeper too... or that you will be relegated to the shop once it is finished?!?

[rob love]

Congratulations on being able to accomplish a permanent workshop at a relatively young age. You will get many many good years out of it.

As someone else said, watch out for the junk that inevitably fills a shop. Set a timeline...if you haven't used it in one, three or five years (pick one) then drag it out to one of the storage sheds.

[Jordan Baker]

Thanks all

its been a tremendous amount of work and time to get it to this stage. So many things to think about long before they are needed.

Chris, ill be adding a large number of outlets to the walls. My plan is to do a pair of outlets in the shop side walls every 4 feet. They will be wiring with 12/3 wire on two different circuits. Both will be on 20amp breakers. This way I should never be short of a outlet nor worry about tripping one. I will also be doing 220 plugs on every wall/corner of the shop.

Im not totally set on my workbench/tools layout but this will give me many options.

The air compressor will be inside the utility closet under the stairs and then plumbed across to the shop side.

As for shop lighting ive bought 8 of these LED lights off of ebay. They are incredibly bright and I should have no lighting issues with them. At 20,000 plus lumens from each unit, Ill be around 166,400 lumens.
https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B07...5iJyKKups&th=1

[Jordan Baker]

This is the light from one of these units. The last two pictures are of the light unit just sitting on a table and point up.

[Robin Craig]

Jordan, great to see the progress as it has gone on. If you want a quick temporary solution to seal the door thresholds for winter make up a small dummy wall panel and set it into the gravel and allow the door to close onto that. That assumes nothing needs to come in and out daily.

I agree with Rob about being brutal on timeline of items in shop.

Congratulations