rbahr

Pretty sure I saw this in an early post, and apologies if you have already done this, but garagejournal.com has a large group of people with a lot of experience. They will also gladly comment on your design...

Ray

certz

Is "column" a euphanism for stripper pole?

sbelles

I actually asked for beams so there were no columns. I need to talk to him about that. If I have to have some they are columns not poles but chrome just looks nice.

Van

Scott, I know you have the floor plan already drawn, but I'd suggest you try to make some space for more things that a "race shop" needs - like a floor-standing air compressor, a tire machine and balancer, a drill press and possibly other machine tools. When I built my garage, at 32'x40', it seemed huge and could hold 6 cars. Now that I have an alignment computer, tire machines, mill, lathe, waste oil tanks, band saw, sander, welders, plasma cutter, sand blaster, parts washer, press, etc, it's down to a 3-4 car garage.

Gary R.

Steel or laminate beam to eliminate columns, give yourself 4-6' in all directions around the car/lift.. I will have a as-new two-phase IR (220V) compressor FS soon, with all the piping to get you started, and a nice hose reel... and vent the compressor outside to reduce noise (though mine is pretty quiet). Have a like new Miller 180 (220V) MIG FS soon also..

sbelles

I'm thinking the compressor will go down under in the storage room that's not drawn yet to further buffer the noise. I'll have them run hard lines to a distribution point in the center bay. I hadn't thought about where a tire machine is going to go though. That takes up quite a bit of floor space. I also want more space that can be closed off to hide clutter. Probably needs to be another six feet deep. That's easier then going wider though.

I probably won't start construction until at least the fall so I've still got quite a bit of time to tweak things.

GPA951s

Consider Putting Your compressor outside. I used the extra concrete from when the floor was done for a 3x3 pad on the outside of the building. Then I Set posts and enclosed it.put a door on it and done. I have a 7.5hp upright and can BARELY hear it run and its protected from the elements. All the tin I used was leftover from the build as well. My Shop is 48x 36 with another 48x10 carport, and I am stacking cars already.

dogger15

Am I to understand that your place is off the grid? How much power have you allocated to running your shop? And is the generator going to be left on when you aren't there to power the security and fire detection/suppression system you'll want to protect everything in your absence?

sbelles

No, we have power but storms take down lines quite frequently so we put in the gen when we built the house. Until I can retire in six years or so the place is three hours away so I didn't want to risk pipes freezing in the winter. Since the shop will have a bathroom, I need to make sure it's on the Gen too though the heat will be propane. I will have to see how fast I'm going to go through propane though. I just added a Modine Hot Dawg to the attached garage. Running the shop on the same 1,000 gallon tank it might drain it pretty quickly when I am there the whole time.

dogger15

Good deal and good thinking on the standby generator for the reasons you pointed out.

I'm going through a similar situation as you with enlarging my existing shop to accommodate cars and a bigger trailer. Lessons learned would fill a book, but I'll throw a few of the highlights out FWIW.

A well equipped shop is a power eater. My new shop has it's own 200 amp service complete with separate meter.

The air compressor is the "heart" of your shop so don't skimp on that purchase. I went with an Atlas Copco GX series rotary. Rotaries make significantly less noise (around 65 db) when filling so no special provisions need to be made in regard to their placement.

As a previous poster pointed out, lighting is important. I settled on a ceiling covered with high intensity flourescent lights. The inside of my shop is sunny day bright with those lights on.

I recommend in floor radiant heat because pilot lights and race gas fumes don't mix. If you store your race gas on site, spring for a UL approved storage cabinet.

Along the same lines, a monitored Halon style fire suppression system with heat and smoke detectors will give you some piece of mind and lower insurance bills.

Good luck with the project, sounds like it will be one sweet shop when done.

Gary R.

Don't forget AC, it makes it a LOT more pleasant to work when it's 70F inside and 95F outside!

Van

Fixed it for ya!

sbelles

One at a time should suffice. I'm thinking that in front of the mech room I can put a door on tracks to close off an area with welder(s) drill presses, maybe tire changer Engine stand etc. I'd really like it to stay clean and neat. I'm not sure why he shortened bays one and two, that's not what we talked about. There should be plenty of room there if it's pushed out all the way. The storage area in the loft is largely for body panels and spare parts that are currently hanging all over my garage here. An electric winch is planned to get heavier things up there.

Winter is going to be the most challenging when one bay is filled with a trailer and one with a boat, jet ski etc. I could go quite a bit deeper but I'm hoping that 6 -10' will do it to keep it in scale with the house. I originally hoped for the third bay to be a pull through for trailers but the grade is going to make that a challenge.

GT3DE

Enclose the space under the upper level deck. Use that for storage to the water side activities. Save lots of money not building space under the garage.
And make it much bigger!

Yellow996

Scott, if you do opt for the stripper poles, I have lots of one dollar bills just sitting around ready to be deployed.