Above 1200 Sq/FT Jeff's Mountain Side Shop (Portland)

sponaugle · Dec 23, 2018

jeepxj said:
garage door opener outlets and gate outlets on generator?
outside lighting?

Yea, the lower garage door is currently on the shop power, but I will move that to be on the generator power. Good idea.

I didn't think about the outdoor lighting but I'll make a note to put that on the same generator panel as the indoor lighting.

The gate is an interesting thing.. since it is a bit over 1000 feet from the house ( and the transformer is right at the house ), I may end up having a second meter for the gate right at the gate. (the power comes from the gate, underground, and there is already a vault there). If that happens I could not have gen power there, and I would have a local battery backup for the gate. Modern battery backups for gates work pretty well and can run the gate for hundreds of openings.

The other alternative is to run a 240v feed from the house, but to have reasonable voltage drop it would need to be a good size wire.

Jeff

sponaugle · Dec 23, 2018

JDMjunkies.ch said:
480V is a must if you want to install some heavy machinery like a big lathe or oldschool press-drill or something in your garage at one pointin the future...

As you said before. The price difference is not so big. Better install "too much" than "not enough" you will regret it at the end. I have installed stuff like a switcheable outdoor Power output where i can hang the christmas lights and switch them by the controller (time or daylight intensity activated), we have special outlets for the vacuum cleaner robot and one on the outside for the lawn-mower robot, etc...

Interesting. I would assume that I could get 480V, as the transform is located right next to the house ( on top of a vault ), and that transformed is being fed 7200v.

As for switchability, I am using UPB plugs and light switches, so every light switch and plug in the house is individually addressable and controllable from the home automation. That will allow not just time of day but other more complex algorithms (like if no one is home, keep the christmas lights off until a someone comes in the gate, etc).

matt_i said:
JMO but I'd price out 480v 3ph @600A but only to realize you can get a better deal buying a Phase Perfect (digital phase converter) for things that need it. Or, if you are just running things with motors, buy any other electric-motor-based phase converter.

Most everything built since the 1960s has "9 wire" 3 phase motors that are reconfigurable to 208/230/460 input voltages basically with a set of wire nuts that put the motor windings in series or parallel, adjusting the control voltage tap and also changing any overload heaters. Not saying there aren't 480v-Only motors but in my experience 5 in 100.

Interesting... getting 3 phase would be prohibitively expensive as there is not 3 phase on the pole at the street ( just two phases that are split off from 3 phases about a mile down the road ). To get three phase I would have to have that extra phase brought all the way from that split, and then have new underground wire from that street point all the way to the house, which is probably close to half a mile. I suspect a phase converter would be significantly cheaper.

Great input guys!

Jeff

sponaugle · Dec 23, 2018

Duker said:
Wow,.... great build! Looking forward to seeing the progress. As for the trees, you can find guys with a woodmizer or Timberking portable bandsaw and they can knock out that cutting for you. They might swap labor for keeping some of the wood if you have some nice hardwood trees. If you get it cut, have them do 4/4/ 8/4/ 16/4 cuts and from that you can build about anything you might want in the future.

Awesome.. and I would get some firewood to boot!

Jeff

bckcx2 · Dec 23, 2018

sponaugle said:
Just thinking about that topic makes me either cry, or get angry. The real killer is the property tax, as it will probably be 50k/yr.

Why would anybody allow their government to charge those kind of fee's and taxes to build on your property? Unbelievable!

jeepxj · Dec 23, 2018

sponaugle said:
Yea, the lower garage door is currently on the shop power, but I will move that to be on the generator power. Good idea.

I didn't think about the outdoor lighting but I'll make a note to put that on the same generator panel as the indoor lighting.

The gate is an interesting thing.. since it is a bit over 1000 feet from the house ( and the transformer is right at the house ), I may end up having a second meter for the gate right at the gate. (the power comes from the gate, underground, and there is already a vault there). If that happens I could not have gen power there, and I would have a local battery backup for the gate. Modern battery backups for gates work pretty well and can run the gate for hundreds of openings.

The other alternative is to run a 240v feed from the house, but to have reasonable voltage drop it would need to be a good size wire.

Jeff

you can put a small 480 1p transformer in place for that long circuit. boost it up for 1k foot run, step it back down for the gate.
ex: https://www.ebay.com/itm/ACME-750-KVA-240-480x120-240-Volt-Transformer-T1047-NEW-/282073835766

I have a mighty gate at my house. uses 2 - 12v batteries and technically works with the power out for quite a few gate open/close cycles. But mine is wired to generator cause why not.

jeepxj · Dec 23, 2018

Put a fiber pull in to the gate as well. for video camera.

sponaugle · Dec 23, 2018

jeepxj said:
Put a fiber pull in to the gate as well. for video camera.

Yea, there is already a set of buried conduit all the way to the gate from the house, and one is reserved for fiber.

rixtrix1 · Dec 24, 2018

sponaugle said:
If you look closely, the google earth picture on the first page shows the address.

Here is the view from 400 ft. directly over the house, looking towards Portland. You can see the St. Johns bridge, and across the water to the right you can see the University of Portland.

I will most certainly read LLWilly's thread. There is such a wealth of information in these threads.

Jeff

A nice view, will you see any of it from your home? The pic of the UoP brings back some fond memories as I got to spend a week there with my Gering (NE)High School Band as we were in town to lead the 1968 Rose Festival Parade! My girlfriend and I spent several evenings on the bank overlooking the river watching the shipyards and boats on the river.
Townspeople were extremely helpful and friendly as we uses our participant badges to travel all over the city using public transit to see the sights. The sun was shining when our train arrived. Then it turned cloudy and rainy all week until just before we boarded the train to return home. A great time!

Duker · Dec 24, 2018

Jeff, in reading through your land management issues in permitting it sounds as if you might be able to claim a full or partial timber exemption (15 acres in my county) which would help in your property taxes. Your state might also have one for creating a sanctuary habitat. We have a timber exemption and also meet the requirements for a sanctuary habitat should the Timber exemption go away. The exemptions in Texas must be applied for by April and many states follow the same dates so It might be worth looking into if you have not already explored it.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

jblnut · Dec 25, 2018

sponaugle said:
I have been working a bit on the low voltage network plan, but it is not fully flushed out yet. I need to work out some more details, but it is a good start given how early I am in construction.

Given the low cost of CAT6A wiring, there is no reason not to do it now. Most of the drops in the house will terminate in the dedicated cooled server room on the lower floor ..... I expect to have a couple of hundred drops in total including for things like cameras, sensors, and the like. I expect there is be somewhere around 10km of wire to pull give or take a few km.

Jeff

It may not be possible at this stage in the game but why not homerun a conduit to each location ?? At least the wall/ceiling locations. You can pull whatever you want through them now and redo it all very easily in the future. In planning for our eventual build I am going to be running a conduit to each data location. Who know's how long it'll be until Cat6a is outdated or maybe I just want to add a few more lines to a particular spot :dunno:

paredown · Dec 26, 2018

LLWillysfan said:
Very impressive build! I'm diggin the old school Jahn's system formwork. That system requires honest to God form carpenters (wish I could find a few of those myself) and results in some beautiful concrete. Can't wait to see the rest of the job. Thanks for posting.

Yes!

Everything I can see looks like that was a crack crew all around. Formwork looks great, grading looks perfect, concrete looks perfect. And a tidy job site! Full marks for your crew! :thumbup:

sponaugle · Dec 26, 2018

Duker said:
Jeff, in reading through your land management issues in permitting it sounds as if you might be able to claim a full or partial timber exemption (15 acres in my county) which would help in your property taxes. Your state might also have one for creating a sanctuary habitat. We have a timber exemption and also meet the requirements for a sanctuary habitat should the Timber exemption go away. The exemptions in Texas must be applied for by April and many states follow the same dates so It might be worth looking into if you have not already explored it.

Unfortunately the timber exemption doesn't apply for conservation and environmental overlays, in part because they could never be used as timber that could be cut down. I don't recall seeing any sanctuary exemptions, but I will certainly take a look. I suspect it is already consider a sanctuary since it is part of a city park. The property taxes here are determined mostly off the estimated real value of land and the buildings, so the size of the lot seems to be less of an issue. I paid $1.2 million for the lot, and another lot that was about half the size was sold for almost $1 million, so there isn't a clear scaling factor.

Jeff

paredown · Dec 26, 2018

sponaugle said:
I would love to hear some feedback on my overall electrical plan, and in particular anything I am overlooking in the garage/shop area. Fundamentally I am ok with overbuilding a little bit, as electrical is in wall, and the cost difference is very small compared with the overall cost. Of course there is no reason to waste on things that will never has use as well.

A couple things of note:

(1) I don't actually need a primary 600 amp service based on my current load calculations, but I am making a 600 amp primary service possible (the underground cable and conduits are 600 amp capable). We could use a standard 320 meter and almost certainly be fine, especially give the additional dedicated 200 amp meter for EV. A total of 800amps is probably overkill.

(2) On the EV charging, those plugs are on a dedicated separate 200 amp meter as that allows that meter to be on a special rate plan that does time of use charges. If you charge your EV between 10pm and 6am, the cost per kw is 4.2 c/kwh, which is about 1/3 the normal price. The only restrictions of a 2 meter/meter rate setup is the EV meter can only be used for EV charging.

(3) Heat is natural gas, but there are 2 furnaces, 2 ACs, plus a dedicated AC for the server room, and gas heat for the lower shop level. Aside from EVs, the biggest power draw would be the induction top, the infrared heaters, and the server room.

(4) I have not done the plug layout on the shop, but that will come next. Since there is a panel in the garage, it will be easy to do many home runs so plugs don't share breakers very much. One thing I learned is that you never know how power usage will cluster, so I prefer in a case like that for the plugs to not share breakers where possible, or at least keep it to a minimum.

I would love to hear any comments, criticisms, missed opportunities and the like!

Not an electrician, but a couple of thoughts.

I don't see provision for the extra circuits for kitchen outlets, GFI (bathrooms) or arcfault (for bedrooms). Check your local code--often kitchens require separate circuits for microwave, refrig, and at least two GFI for counter tops--best practice is to cross wire so at least one outlet from each circuit is on each counter.

GFI circuits to bathroom outlets--not sure if those need to be dedicated.

Arcfault breakers may be required for sleeping areas--it is for us in the new code.

Just ask the concrete guys who the crack electricians are--usually the 'A' team guys know each other...

sponaugle · Dec 26, 2018

paredown said:
Not an electrician, but a couple of thoughts.
I don't see provision for the extra circuits for kitchen outlets, GFI (bathrooms) or arcfault (for bedrooms). Check your local code--often kitchens require separate circuits for microwave, refrig, and at least two GFI for counter tops--best practice is to cross wire so at least one outlet from each circuit is on each counter.
GFI circuits to bathroom outlets--not sure if those need to be dedicated.
Arcfault breakers may be required for sleeping areas--it is for us in the new code.

Great input, thanks!

The microwave, fridge, and freezers are all called out separately as well as being on the generator panel, but I have not noted type yet.

I didn't yet call out the individual breakers for the kitchen and bathrooms receptacles, which will need some dedicated circuits as well as GFI. Our code does require arc-faults, so many of those plug breakers will need to be that type. My goal with this diagram was the overall panel layout, just to see how things would fit. I suspect there will be a number of updates that are code related once we get the general panel layout figured out. I will do a receptacle count next, and go from there to get the branch circuits figured out. I am a fan of lots of circuits, as the cost is low compared to the cost to add later!

Jeff

sponaugle · Dec 26, 2018

Update 12 - A bit more steel, and prep for pour

4 of the horizontal beams have been installed and leveled. These beams will support the joists for the upper floors, so they are critical to get installed for framing to start. The bigger rear beams for the back deck are being galvanized, and should be ready for install in a few weeks.

The beams being delivered:

The beams installed:

We hope to have a pause in the weather the next few days long enough for us to pour the lower floors. The concrete guys have setup the screed rails, which is not something I have personally seen before. I believe it makes it easier and faster for them to keep the top final surface level.

They have also installed these small steel dowel bars that go across the area they will cut after the pour. As I understand it they grease one side of the bars, and after the cut this allows the slab to move a little bit and prevent cracking elsewhere. I don’t recall seeing this in my current garage floor, although this is a larger floor with far more rebar.

Hopefully tomorrow we will pour two of the garage floors and the storage room, mechanical room, server room, and vault. This will leave one remaining garage floor for Friday.

Jeff

V70R · Dec 27, 2018

Awesome pictures and documentation. Been a nice read while on winter break!*

*Non-traditional senior at UofP

Tyler

1/2 Cup · Dec 27, 2018

sponaugle just awesome. :bowdown:

Subscribed.. :thumbup:

Brand X · Dec 27, 2018

bckcx2 said:
Why would anybody allow their government to charge those kind of fee's and taxes to build on your property? Unbelievable!

Because you have zero choice if you want to build there. There are places on the Columbia river that are over $100,000.00 a year in property taxes.. Mostly on the Washington side though.. I am guessing once the Tax man goes through, and gives the final bill on this build..$100,000.00 will be closer. Even if it does not hit $100,000.00 it will after a few years. Portland people love voting in every single bond measure you could think of. Welcome to Paradise...I lived in Oregon for 62 years, and 52 in the metro area..Really sad what the whole tri-county area has become. Tom McCall would roll over in his grave if he saw this place now... Giant strip mall from one end to the other..You could see the stars at night at one time in Portland. My family came to Oregon about 1845, so I got a general idea of what Oregon was like, and is now..

In fact clean water, clean air, zero light pollution, Low noise pollution, Great views, low traffic, Way less people, low taxes, low crime, and local government that really is old school Oregon thinking are still possible to find in Oregon. Just not going to happen in the Metro area.. This is part of my window view, and no drone needed.

Way I look at it...if you want to play you pay.. Somebody has to do it..Just not me.

sponaugle · Dec 27, 2018

Update 13 - First floor pour

Today we completed part 1 of the floor pour. We poured the lower shop, vault, storage, mechanical, and computer rooms, as well as the upper garage. All floors were targeted at 6 inches thick, 4500psi concrete, although the shop floor ended up being a bit over 7 inches thick.

A couple of aerial shots of the pour in progress:

The pump truck - This makes the fifth pour day with a pump truck.

I had not seen this machine before, but it looked fun!

The floor while it was still very wet.

The guys getting the first pass on the storage room.

The mechanical room first pass.

The lower garage is being setup with a system call Combiform, made in Sweden. It uses these steel riser inserts that have a Teflon rail on the top. They are installed, then leveled with a laser to get the perfect slope. This worked really well when there is a complex slope with multiple destinations (more than one drain).

Of course to pour the vault, the concrete has to go in through the door.

With the pour complete, there was still a long day of surface finishing ahead of the guys

A few higher up views.

Tomorrow is another pour of the lower garage, then everything will be quiet for week or so before we start framing.

JDMjunkies.ch · Dec 28, 2018

looks lovely.

Boosted1 · Dec 28, 2018

Nice!

Ronin22 · Dec 28, 2018

Jesus! What a great update! Those aerial shots are just amazing.
Congrats!

jalbrecht55 · Dec 28, 2018

Really neat and thank you for sharing so much detail. Good stuff!

I’m curious if you are doing anything extra to help keep fumes and such in the workspaces and out of the house? I have a few rooms above my garage and can’t do anything in the garage without the smells drifting into the house. Be it park my old Jeep in the garage (house smells like gas for a solid day), quick spray paint something, or a few seconds of welding—it just goes right up and into the house.

My previous house was single story (setup like your daily driver garage) and this was much better, but fumes still managed to get in the house.

polexican23 · Dec 28, 2018

a little late to the party and for the pour. But infloor lighting under the lift. water spigots in and outside the lower garage.

jeepxj · Dec 28, 2018

polexican23 said:
a little late to the party and for the pour. But infloor lighting under the lift. water spigots in and outside the lower garage.

Hot and cold spigots are amazing.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B008N3O5P2/?tag=atomicindus08-20

jeepxj · Dec 28, 2018

I'm kinda surprised no in floor heat with a geothermal exchanger. You're set-up perfectly to utilize something like that.

JDMjunkies.ch · Dec 29, 2018

jeepxj said:
I'm kinda surprised no in floor heat with a geothermal exchanger. You're set-up perfectly to utilize something like that.

Not sure how it's done over there, but here in europe you make a second layer on top of the concrete (underlay floor) where the floor heating goes into. You don't put it into the concrete directly.

jeepxj · Dec 29, 2018

JDMjunkies.ch said:
Not sure how it's done over there, but here in europe you make a second layer on top of the concrete (underlay floor) where the floor heating goes into. You don't put it into the concrete directly.

maybe he's gone super fancy. around here you put down a foam board about 2"/5cm thick as a thermal break. lay your rebar in along with floor heat tubing then pour.

sponaugle · Dec 29, 2018

jalbrecht55 said:
I’m curious if you are doing anything extra to help keep fumes and such in the workspaces and out of the house? I have a few rooms above my garage and can’t do anything in the garage without the smells drifting into the house. Be it park my old Jeep in the garage (house smells like gas for a solid day), quick spray paint something, or a few seconds of welding—it just goes right up and into the house.

Yes, this was a concern of mine as well. The downstairs is sealed off from the rest of the house (dedicated HVAC), and during construction I am doing to extra steps to seal the floors and wall seams. The door to the staircase upstairs is a drop-seal as well. In the shop I am doing a high speed ventilation that can push outside air in and inside air out across the shop. Given the climate here (not super cold or super hot ), I suspect I can run the ventilation almost any time I am in the shop.

If anyone has any other tips about sealing, let me know!

Jeff

sponaugle · Dec 29, 2018

polexican23 said:
a little late to the party and for the pour. But infloor lighting under the lift. water spigots in and outside the lower garage.

Yes, I thought a big about that, and for the lighting I am going to do LED lighting strips on the floor under the lift, but not embedded into the floor. I am putting some power above where the lifts are for both the lifts as well as the LEDs, which will run down the side of the lifts.

For water spigots, all of the external ones (4x) are both hot and cold, and the one outside the lower shop (that is covered) will have a water filter on it for washing cars. If it works out I'll also put an Infratech infrared heater under the deck so that lower area can be used to wash cars in the winter.

Jeff

sponaugle · Dec 29, 2018

jeepxj said:
I'm kinda surprised no in floor heat with a geothermal exchanger. You're set-up perfectly to utilize something like that.

I did consider that, especially the geothermal. Due to the piers that were already in the ground, and the restriction on ground disturbance because of the environmental overlay I decided against the geothermal. This is a good climate for geothermal, but this would have added probably a year to our build timeframe just because the change would be outside the scope of the previous land use agreement.

As for the infloor heating, since I'm not sure how exactly I will be doing things in the shop I really wanted flexibility in terms of drilling into the floor to bolt things down. I will be covering all of the floors in some kind of insulated tile as well. I have gas heat for the shop and lower floor, so I should be able to keep things pretty warm in those colder months!

Jeff

sponaugle · Dec 29, 2018

JDMjunkies.ch said:
Not sure how it's done over there, but here in europe you make a second layer on top of the concrete (underlay floor) where the floor heating goes into. You don't put it into the concrete directly.

Interesting. I think most of the times I have seen it done it was directly in the concrete here in the states. We debated doing in floor heating, but with 90% of the house hardwood it didn't seem necessary. There is in floor heating in the bathrooms however. I'm not really a fan of tile floors in general ( in terms of the entire house being tile). It is hard on your feet, which is part of the reason my current shop has a plastic tile floor on top of the concrete.

Jeff

Boosted1 · Dec 30, 2018

Would you happen to be GTRlife member formidable?
Just guessing not too many 1100whp GTRs running around Washington.

sponaugle · Dec 31, 2018

Boosted1 said:
Would you happen to be GTRlife member formidable?
Just guessing not too many 1100whp GTRs running around Washington.

No, but I am on GTRLife under the name 'sponaugle'. I have not posted much there since I first did my FBO build, but there are a few interesting data threads I created. (Also I'm in Oregon).

My current GTR configuration is pretty 'weak sauce' in the GTR world.

It is a fully built bottom end with CP/Carillo Rods and ER Pistons, O-Rings heads, GSC Cams, valves, etc, plus some mild porting. Turbos are an ETS built Precision 5757 twin setup with the ETS 4 inch race Intercooler. I had the engine built and installed by English Racing

I was able to get 1130whp out of the setup, and with a bit more work I suspect I could get right around 1200whp before running out of turbo.

Lots of data collection going on..

It is not a terrible looking car, assuming you like ugly!

Overall, it is a pretty quick car, especially from 100-180mph. In the spring I'll do a 1/4 drag race with it, and I suspect with good tires I should have no problem getting in the 8s, which is respectable for street car that I drive to work.

Keep in mind there are a number of much much faster GTRs in the Oregon/Washington area, including the ETS car, which is right around 3000whp and does consistent 6's. The sweet spot right now is around 1500whp.

Jeff

Boosted1 · Dec 31, 2018

Oregon, oh yeah, duh.
Very nice GTR. I'd say for any street driven / road course driven car it's anything but weak sauce. I know if drag racing, there is much more, but that's not where I would go with the car. I have about 1/2 that power in a Z32 TT. Your setup is nice. Thanks for sharing.

dittle fart around · Dec 31, 2018

Boosted1 said:
Oregon, oh yeah, duh.

Close enough dude :beer:

LXCam · Dec 31, 2018

As for fume mitigation I'd construct a negative pressure room between the shop and the rest of the house. Regardless of sealed doors and your exhaust system you may still have some transfer. Being a small area with sealed doors on either side with a dedicated exhaust and make up air, it'd be pretty easy to construct. Just a thought.

sponaugle · Dec 31, 2018

Boosted1 said:
Very nice GTR. I'd say for any street driven / road course driven car it's anything but weak sauce. I know if drag racing, there is much more, but that's not where I would go with the car. I have about 1/2 that power in a Z32 TT. Your setup is nice. Thanks for sharing.

Yes, I drive it much more on the track (road course), and it is plenty of power for that.... actually too much in many cases. It really is a fun car on the track. I'll take it to a casual hill climb this spring which should be fun.

Here is a video of me driving my turbocharged flat-6 WRX on Maryhill.

Jeff

sponaugle · Dec 31, 2018

LXCam said:
As for fume mitigation I'd construct a negative pressure room between the shop and the rest of the house. Regardless of sealed doors and your exhaust system you may still have some transfer. Being a small area with sealed doors on either side with a dedicated exhaust and make up air, it'd be pretty easy to construct. Just a thought.

Interesting.

If you look at the plan for the lower floor:

There is a door (with a drop-seal) between the garage and the stair area. I could add a second door at the bottom of the stairs that is sealed, and then try to do some kind of conditioning in that area.

Is the concept of the negative pressure room that air is pulled in from both the house and the garage area via any leaks and then vented directly outside? That would keep air from seeping upstairs via that conduit.

Jeff

nsula_country · Jan 1, 2019

sponaugle said:
Interesting.

If you look at the plan for the lower floor:

There is a door (with a drop-seal) between the garage and the stair area. I could add a second door at the bottom of the stairs that is sealed, and then try to do some kind of conditioning in that area.

Is the concept of the negative pressure room that air is pulled in from both the house and the garage area via any leaks and then vented directly outside? That would keep air from seeping upstairs via that conduit.

Jeff

I believe that is the idea... Negative pressure between the two spaces. Similar to an air lock in a submarine or space station. Though they are usually positive pressure due to environment...

Edit... New Years Eve, Jack and Diet Coke... I could be incorrect in my explanation! I'm an Electrical Engineer...

Happy New Years, sponaugle!!

CT

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