Expanding the old "tiny shop"

[vtsteam]

It has become nearly impossible to get into my tiny shop and work because of unfortunate new acquisitions. My parents in law passed away a year ago and we have been cleaning out their house to put on the market. A sad and difficult task. Tag sales, online sales, large filled dumpsters, relative giving still has not done the job. In the end it just seemed wasteful to throw many things away that we just couldn't place, materials, tools, metal shelving, I think you all probably understand.

But I'm at a point now when I wondering if I'm creating the same situation for my family. I'm getting rid of things I haven't used in a long while. Still I have to work in the shop or I'll go nutz. The original idea was to keep it small, and present interior usable space is about 6' by 8'. One of the reasons for building my small but rugged bench lathe was to minimize what I needed to do even largish jobs.

But I am overwhelmed at this point. And my shop is very poor in energy efficiency, other than the fact that it is very small. So I'm thinking about enlarging it, and adding insulation and considering how I can have heat in our severe winters here. I don't really want to do this. I don't have the motivation and energy I once had for more building. But we'll see if I can do it.

First thought is, maybe build the new shop over and around the old one. There isn't room to only expand laterally by adding on because of the roof snow loads. The would dump onto any addition, and everything would have to be higher anyway to get enough headroom at the edges.

The other possibility, discounted, was to level the old shop and build anew. But where would its contents go during construction? I have no more storage space at all (part of the reason for expansion). And it's all machine shop stuff that you really don't want to expose to the environment.

It seems to me that if I build a roof over the existing one, leaving it in place, the shop can continue to be usable while building the expansion, which would be handy. There's power, and tools and a vise, etc. Eventually I could deconstruct the old roof (it's just galvanized tin), and would have an upper storage space in its place for materials.

Another reason for not leveling the old shed, is that it's built like a brick ****house. Actually, cement block with the recesses filled with concrete and 1/2" rebar run down every other one for the full height of the walls. Why, you ask? Well it was actually originally built as an outdoor wood furnace, with 11 tons of sand contained inside for heat storage. Called a HAHSA, the design originally found in Mother Earth News. It actually never worked well, and was later converted into a furnace room for an experimental wood chip Hot water furnace I built. Its final iteration was as a tiny workshop for me and my homemade lathe.

Anyway, those are the thoughts. I'm trying to get motivated. Maybe posting here will push me forward. The 90+ F temps here have not been encouraging, but yesterday I did start digging a hole where a central post to support the new peak might be, and I account that a start.

[vtsteam]

Okay so first step, digging a hole. I planned to pour a small concrete pad into the bottom, with some rebar sticking up, and when that cured a day, add sonotube and pour a concrete column up to about 4" above ground level with a J bolt at the top.

I got out the old two handled double clamshell posthole digger and well, immediate problems. a small tree, and also the rediscovery of a perimeter drain I installed about a decade ago.    Nothing is simple. I just wanted to dig a hole. Just to get into the mindset that I was building something....but now I have to dig a trench.

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[vtsteam]

Just to give a picture of how bad things have become, here is what once was my outside molding casting area. The Big Dig is on the left.

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[vtsteam]

Okay, tree and drain pipe sawed out of there. Now to try to dig that hole again.

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[vtsteam]

One of the problems I face in expanding the shop is that it's perched on a hill -- as is everything in the near proximity of my house. Another is that the shop was really an afterthought, patched together out of what once was really a wood furnace, not an actual building. It has been added onto twice for a generator space, and a molding/casting lean-to roof.

I've been moving earth in front of the shed this week, here's a pic of the state it's in presently.

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Looking from the front, on the right side is a rather low space containing the emergency Lister-clone generator for the house. The central portion is the shop. It measures 6' by 8' internally but usable space is more like 6' by 6' because of the old chimney structure at the back. On the left is a hastily added casting molding area lean-to roof, which is now filled chock-full with items that really need storage space elsewhere. An iron casting furnace covered with a tarp is out front.

I've decided to build out from the front of the building, and to replace the multi-pieced roof, as well as raise the wall height on the generator side. To do that, I needed to build up the ground level in front of the shed. The only reasonably close material for that was located in a bank in front of the shed, which is just uphill from our parking area.

 So the last week has seen me chewing into that bank with my old Ford tractor mounted backhoe, and placing the dirt in front of the shed.

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Because of the hill and the short reach, and short swing range of the backhoe, this has been a very slow process, requiring lots of shifting position. It's definitely NOT an excavator. I'd say it wasn't much faster than digging by hand and transporting by wheelbarrow. But of course definitely easier. The heat has been terrible for it - temps in the 90F range, so I've been taking frequent breaks. We are also going through a dry spell. As can be seen in the photo, the soil is very dry.

Anyway, here's where I am at this point, pretty messy, and in need of cleanup, probably with a scraper blade on my old '51 John Deere tractor. But some progress. An 8' wide level area has been added in front of the shed structures, and though it needs a little more material, and cleanup that represents an additional 112 square feet. If I rebuild and enclose the former casting area as part of the shop, I will have gone from 36 square feet of shop to about 215. That would definitely make a difference!

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[Brass_Machine]

Shop builds can be fun and exciting.

I understand the motivation bit. I am working on building an office in my shop.... feels like it is taking forever. I tell myself to keep moving forward, even if it is just a little at a time. Some progress is better than no progress.

Good luck!

[vtsteam]

Well I scraped and shoveled the area quite a bit smoother. But I'm having a third re-think! I have a much larger shed about 300 feet from the house, uninsulated and unheated, and a partial dirt floor in one section. I use it only for storage now.

But I'm thinking now that if I finish out the floor, add a ceiling, install insulation inner paneling and lighting, and some form of heat, it would be a proper and much larger workshop than adding piecemeal to the little shed up by the house.  It's on relatively level ground , so a lot easier to bring materials to and work on. It's exterior is also already built, and it doesn't need any addition, just finishing out. So  easier work than trying to make a silk purse out of the tiny shop/sow's ear. The only drawback is the distance from the house in winter and at night. It's also down a steep hill that the house is on. Heh, walking the drive at night I sometimes imagine bears are watching (it's through the woods).

But if it's a nice clean well lighted place, I think I won't mind the hike. Hell, If I get too lazy I can always drive there!

[John Rudd]

 

But if it's a nice clean well lighted place, I think I won't mind the hike. Hell, If I get too lazy I can always drive there!

You could always add a water supply, toilet facilities and really make it home from home…

[vtsteam]

 

But if it's a nice clean well lighted place, I think I won't mind the hike. Hell, If I get too lazy I can always drive there!

You could always add a water supply, toilet facilities and really make it home from home…

Hmmmmmmmm........ 

(no edit above --- sorry about the accidental click of "modify" instead of "quote"  )

[vtsteam]

Much to do this late summer, but finally getting back to the planned workshop improvements. A friend with a pit operation dropped off half a truckload of sand and half a load of gravel, so I don't have much excuse any more for avoiding starting on the concrete work. Other than the fact that we are in drought right now and water will have to come from a nearby stream. But that's the plan now.

Tomorrow, I'll start making up a form to pour in. I'm thinking of doing this somewhat leisurely, in sections, and using up maybe a bag of cement per day. That's about 13 square feet of concrete, mixed, for a 4" thick slab. I don't know, we'll see how ambitious I get.....

[vtsteam]

I will have done my last concrete pour today. It took 5 total and about 3 tons mixed and poured altogether. 7 bags of Portland cement @ 94 lbs/bag, and almost half of the gravel pile, and about a third of the sand pile. I'm really looking forward to the end of this.


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[Country Bubba]

Looking good, but better you than me, I ain't in shape to be doing that stuff anymore
Just waiting to see how it all comes together.

Country

[vtsteam]

Oh, man if it isn't one thing it's another. Two big delays on finishing out my shop. Our under-house cistern is 25 years old -- originally built on a concrete slab with filled and reinforced cement block sides -- total footprint 8 feet by 4 feet, and about 2 feet high, roughly 250 gallons.

This is fed by a spring about 300 feet from the house, and that flows in (and out the overflow) of the cistern pipework continuously unless interrupted by drought. In summer, the overflow goes to a 3000 gallon backup cistern below the garden (build thread elsewhere on the forum) for drought times.

Anyway, the under-house cistern is showing its age, and an outer corner flaked off last month -- it still held water, but concrete block isn't the best material for the purpose. Because the cistern is located in a crawlspace (it was built before that section of house) it would be very arduous to remove, and hard to rebuild, so I decided to abandon it and add a new one outside of the house. This time a commercial HDPE version, which would, we hoped, arrive before snow!

Luckily it did, and I used the old Ford tractor backhoe to dig a hole for it. I covered it according to the mfr's instructions, installed a submersible pump in it, and re-piped to the spring and house. Okay that job done.....

Well, no can't work on my own shop, because my wife wanted a space of her own for storage and potting, etc. and so had purchased a pre-fabbed kit shed (on sale) which arrived just as I finished the cistern. We had planned to just store that under tarps for the winter, and build in spring, but the thought of mouse damage under the tarps decided the issue against.

So out with the tractor again, leveling ground behind the house, putting down 4" of coarse gravel, and leveling that by hand. Then laying the support beams and nailing in joists, flooring, and building the whole shed proceeded to a rather nice looking conclusion. In fact a lot nicer than any of my own sheds. Hers is 10 feet by 14 feet and has windows. I have to say I'm  a little jealous. But she is allowing me to store some of my "junk" in it this winter only so I can't complain!

But for my own shed.......well I did finish the concrete floor, but haven't put up the framework yet to support insulation, nor the false ceiling timbers for the same. We just got snow, and it's getting cold and unpleasant to work, but I am going to go back at it. I really want to continue work on my hot air engines this winter, and I absolutely must get this done first!