Two story Shop on steep grade - Help me Design/Build it!!!

[dragoneggs]

Looks like an exciting plan, Mate. I know that you've been 'considering' the placement of this shop for quite a while. (My newest mantra is: 'I'm not procrastinating, I'm thinking.'

Maybe it's an Aussie perspective but, I'm uncomfortable with close placement of trees around structures. Mostly it's to do with bushfire danger, no trees within 20 metres is a general rule of thumb, but the other side of trees is that they can come crashing down (wind/sodden ground/age).

Oh, how are you going to handle material disposal? (off-cuts, sawdust, metal shavings, etc...)

I hear ya on the trees. My wife thinks I should not leave any nearby. I am leaving four and taking down a dozen. Three of them are located along the property line and provide some buffer screen between the shop and neighbor house. I am already feeling guilty about building this huge 'wall' so close to my neighbor whose house is about 20ft off the line. My biggest concern is the debris and moss buildup on the roof and gutters making for a maintenance nightmare. Might go with metal roof with a steeper pitch.

 

[dragoneggs]

It's got to have an escalator! AND a freight elevator.

I built my drive shed into a hill and got a really bad low estimate of cost from my dirt contractor. Cost me a fortune, and hundreds of dump truck loads of material I had to find a place for. BUT, I am glad it worked out this way. LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION! Now it's where I wanted it and I wouldn't have done it if I knew what it was going to cost. A possible 20 G building ended up costing four times that with all the "little" extras! Oh, Polycarbonate doors are GREAT!

Ha ha IT! I have thought an elevator would be nice. I also thought about a trap door in the floor that could allow lowering stuff via gantry. But I'm afraid due to cost, one set of stairs will be all I incorporate between floors.

As far as dirt... no problem. I will need it to build the lower driveway access. Regardless, I can lose it easily on my property if I have excess.

 

[dragoneggs]

I really like this plan. The location makes the most sense and the two levels work well together. I think that you have come up with a very strong solution to where to build it and how to build it!!!

Thanks Eddie... hoping you will be chiming in here.

 

[dragoneggs]

It seems odd that the higher ceiling and doors is down stairs and further from the driveway. You don’t show existing driveways so I’m assuming a bit. With that, typically bigger doors would have easier access and the bigger space- so the higher ceiling and door would be upstairs and the lower ceiling and door downstairs.

I see very little advantage to making the downstairs smaller. The planning, engineering, design, permits, excavation and concrete will be nearly the same- so take advantage of that and double your downstairs.

Windows look good on plans but really make work spaces smaller. I’ve had much better luck with an extra row or two of glass in the sectional doors (if needed) and few or no windows on the walls. Shops don’t tend to play nice with glass. Skylights are an option if you are into that type of thing.

My guess on cost- with engineering, permits etc (all in cost). $200k with you doing some of the work.

The 12ft bottom floor height is in part because of the existing grade and wanting a gantry of some sort.

Not sure what you mean about 'making the downstairs smaller. They are both 25ft x 40ft. Here is lower floor plan view...

View attachment 621333

Yikes on price! I was hoping to get er mostly done at about $100K! I am trying to design it such that if someone wants to convert some day to some living space, it could be done without major changes other than the addition of plumbing/septic.

 

[AllByteNoBark]

In our last house we had a very sloped lot. A lot more than your drawings indicate that you have even. We had 10' ceilings in the basement and the deck off the basement was 10' or more off the ground at the back side. The house set on bedrock which we did not know was going to be the case when we started. We had planned on digging footers for the 3 car garage portion but due to the soil type ended up having to dig full walls as the soil (mainly rocks) kept caving in. My dirt person/excavator and I were looking at the big hole under the garage and he commented "That is going to take a lot of fill." I saw $$$ and started researching. We ended up with full basement under the 3 car garage which was right at 1,000 sq ft. Did not cost much more than it would have to have hauled the fill. It made for a nice shop area. We used these to support the garage floor:
Unique Suspended Concrete Flooring Systems | SpeedFloor USA

They were fast to install and worked great for the 7 years we lived there. The basement walls were all ICF and then we spray foamed the ceiling/bottom of garage floor. No heat or AC and the room was always comfortable. We did run a dehumidifier in summer to keep humidity correct.

 

[dragoneggs]

Slope is much more than shown on my attempt to add the terrain to my plan. It is dropping about 12ft in about 25ft in the middle of the plot.

Thanks for sharing the SpeedFloor link. Will check that out. Any idea on sq ft installed cost?

 

[BukitCase]

"how do I design the wood floor to be at grade?"

My bad; my first impression was that the lower floor was smaller than the upper, which would've meant that the lower floor did NOT extend fully under the upper - now that I got my "cranius rectumus" under control, I see that isn't so.

Let me revise my answer to say this - looking at your West view, you will need a "basement wall" under the South end of the wood shop (and a DRAIN across that entire end, slightly lower than the slab) so hydraulic pressure doesn't eventually impact your lower floor's usable space - if the outside slab is tied into that "basement" wall, then the ENTIRE upper floor can be framed the same way - one option would be to cast a ledge into the upper part of the "basement" wall for either wood or steel I beams to rest on - steel if you need to conserve depth on the upper floor frame and STILL support heavier weights near the big door.

That's why, knowing myself, I recommended an EXTENDED GABLE roof to cover the slab on that South side. That would let you load/unload on solid concrete and OUT of the rain. As an added bonus, the extended roof would also keep the shop a bit cooler on the 9 days a year it ain't RAINING

It sounds like you're wanting a SERIOUS wood shop, so make sure your upper floor can handle it - examples: My PM66 saw weighs around 500#, resting mainly on 4 casters (point loading) - my 6" powermatic jointer weighs about the same, built-in mobile base on THREE casters - 15" planer about 400# on 4 points, 12" Grizzly helical head jointer, just under 1000 lbs on 4 points; by now you probably get my "point" :laughing:

Sooo, I would run floor joists the SHORT way, probably on 16" centers - use 1-1/4" T&G ply over, then whatever SMOOTH floor covering that'll withstand heavy casters rolling around AND sweep up easily - the heavy ply will spread out all those POINT LOADS. You'll still need to calculate dead load based on the ENTIRE weight of ALL MATERIALS used (frame, ply, covering, etc - easiest way is to take a 10'x10' section, count the weight of all joists in that area, add weight of 100 SF of ply, same with floor covering, then divide THAT total by 100 and add AT LEAST 10#, and that's your minimum dead load PSF. If THAT # can't be supported in span calculator with those joists, increase joist size (or re-figure with 12" centers instead of 16, etc...)

Live load includes you and friends, machinery, wood racks, etc - I'm not always sure how to approach that, other than "overbuild and pray" but I'm pretty sure that you will need to involve an architect in this project anyway; if so, make a list of ALL POSSIBLE stuff you want on that second floor, you're gonna PAY 'EM ANYWAY, one way or another

'Bout all I got for now, gonna spend today recovering from about 80 trips up and down 3 ladders adding flashing on my shop roof that the roofers apparently didn't think necessary (hopefully it'll stop the need for a tarp INSIDE my studio to keep $25k of music/sound equipment DRY ... Steve

 

[AllByteNoBark]

Yes, that is steep. We dropped right at 25' over 50' so the same sounds like. I do not remember the cost for that, just that I was pleasantly surprised that is was not more. The main cost difference was just the speedfloor support beams as they just poured 4 inches of concrete with lots of rebar in it. The setup was a little more but not bad. They used particle board to hold the concrete in place until cured and then popped it off after a week or 10 days. First time I pulled my truck in I was nervous but it worked as advertised. It was nice to have the clear span with no supports in the room below.

 

[BukitCase]

Oh, when laying out a woodshop floor plan - find out the EXACT table height on ALL (semi) stationary power tools, then do your floor plan such that ALL tools have a USABLE in AND outfeed of at least 10' - example: my bandsaw's table is tall, so it shares "air space" with one of the jointers AND one of the planers - one dust collector drop and 3 separate blast gates, with tools in a triangular pattern - planer outfeed actually passes OVER one end of jointer, bandsaw in/out is above ALL the others.

IME, a shop only SEEMS big enough til you start to USE it... Steve

 

[dragoneggs]

Next question... I do not want any interior posts. Can I make it work with a 25ft span?