SE Wisconsin Workshop/Office/Mancave

windward · May 27, 2014

I started this build at the end of last September. It has taken a long time to get to where I am, but considering my wife and I are doing a lot of the work and the fact we had a brutal winter, I am happy with the progress.

Size: 24' x 44' with a 6' x 16' bump out for bathroom and utility room
Construction: ICFs, 6" core frost wall, 4" core for walls
9' walls
4/12 roof, attic trusses
3' over hangs on the eves and 2.5' overhangs on the rake.
In floor radiant heat
LP Smartside 4x9 sheets.
16' x 7'9" garage door to the West
8 x 7 garage door to the East
Cedar Shakes

My goal was to make this look similar to the house, which is a 50's ranch with large overhangs, cedar shakes and tongue & groove siding. We wanted it to look as though it was meant to be on the property and to nestle into the surroundings, as well as a 1100 sq ft building can on a 1 acre lot. We are on Lake Michigan and I will have a view of the lake from the shop.

Probably the first question people will have is why ICFs? A buddy of mine is in the industry and was willing to give me the ICFs, if I paid the shipping on them (not cheap, but reasonable). He also wanted to use my garage as a test run at panelizing the ICFs, instead of building them in place. (I will cover this more in a later post). Wisconsin winters can be rough and since I plan to heat the space, I don't think I will regret all the insulation.

I hired an excavator (who has since become a friend) to prep the site. I also used him to trench in the utilities later on.

Because I was bringing water and gas to the building I was worried about a slab heaving, so I decided to go with a frost wall. Where I am building is a bit lower than the road, so we went down about 3ft, then built the ICF frost wall up to 50"(10" footing, 40" frost wall). Once I backfill and pour the floor, I will be level with the gravel road, and not likely to have a water issue.

I had the ICFs shipped up from Dallas. The driver wasn't too excited about backing down a 1/2 mile single lane dirt road, but at least it is straight as an arrow. On the way out he clipped two of my neighbor's mailboxes with the back of the trailer, which I ended up replacing.

I hired a mason to help me do the footings. He agreed to do time and materials, so that I could offset the costs with anything I could do. This also gave me access to his tools. He let me grab his saw and rebar bender to do that work when he was not around. I thought this worked out great. I ended up with a very square and level platform to start from.

Next I started laying out my ICFs. They stack like legos and I used a spray foam adhesive to attach them to each other.

That is my start....I will try to post more tomorrow.

tc-cad · May 27, 2014

In my mind that is the best way to build garage or house, using ICF's. Why is new technology always more expensive?

39 Chev · May 27, 2014

One thing I noticed...

I think the door entering the bathroom should swing against the other wall...still swing inward, but with the hinges on the right side while standing in the shop facing the door. The way it swings now, it would be hard to slide by it to get to the toilet/shower.

Showboy · May 27, 2014

It looks as if this is going to be one very good garage. Thumbs up.

39 Chev said:
One thing I noticed...

I think the door entering the bathroom should swing against the other wall...still swing inward, but with the hinges on the right side while standing in the shop facing the door. The way it swings now, it would be hard to slide by it to get to the toilet/shower.

Alternatively, could that door and the utility room door be pocket doors? Just thinking.

windward · May 27, 2014

39 Chev said:
One thing I noticed...

I think the door entering the bathroom should swing against the other wall...still swing inward, but with the hinges on the right side while standing in the shop facing the door. The way it swings now, it would be hard to slide by it to get to the toilet/shower.

Yes, i agree. I have made a few modification to the plan along the way, that i have not bothered to redraw in the design program. I also had to pull the wall with the bathroom.utility room doors out 9". Partly because I went with abigger shower than originally planned, but also because I had to frame the back wall to make room for plumbing, vent and water lines.

windward · May 27, 2014

Showboy said:
It looks as if this is going to be one very good garage. Thumbs up.

Alternatively, could that door and the utility room door be pocket doors? Just thinking.

I considered a pocket door, but ended up with a vent pipe for the trench drain in that wall.

windward · May 28, 2014

Once the walls were in place, I braced them from the outside with 2x4 kickers, and I put in some sleeves for power and communication cable (CAT5, Co-AX).

I have run a lot of chainsaws over the years but never a metal cutoff saw. Words of warning.....sawdust will not catch your pants on fire, sparks will!

Next I had to get ready for the pour. I have limited room on one side due to the lot line, and limited room on the other side because of my septic mound. The only way I could come up with doing it was to build a bridge over the trench so we could get my mason's skid steer into the middle and pour from there. I helped one of my local farmers take down his machine shed to make room for a larger one. I was able to use the 6x6 posts to make the temp bridge. Worked like a charm.

The mud made it quite slick for my mason running the skid steer, but he handled it beautifully. When we got to the point where we could reach it with the truck, we pulled the bridge and put in the remaining ICFs.

I was very happy with how straight, plumb and square the frost walls turned out.

windward · May 28, 2014

Some more pictures of it after back filling with #1 stone:

Carl_WI · May 29, 2014

It's really a milestone in the project when you backfill the foundation. Where are you located in SE WI? I am just North of Sheboygan near Haven. How deep did you bury your water line? I put mine in at 7' and did not have an issue this last winter. I am still shivering!

Carl_WI

windward · May 29, 2014

Carl_WI said:
It's really a milestone in the project when you backfill the foundation. Where are you located in SE WI? I am just North of Sheboygan near Haven. How deep did you bury your water line? I put mine in at 7' and did not have an issue this last winter. I am still shivering!

Carl_WI

I am in Belgium, about 25 min South of Sheboygan.

We went down about 4'6". My excavator, who has been digging here for 60 years, said that frost doesn't go that deep here because we are on the lake. The lake never got much below 32 deg, which helps to temper things a bit. During the worst of the winter it was probably 10 degrees warmer here vs 5 miles inland. That is great in the winter but it stinks right now. With the lake at 39-40 deg, I am still running my heat and it is almost June. Free AC all summer long.

windward · May 29, 2014

My shipment of ICFs was missing a pallet of corner pieces, so I made the 6 hour roundtrip to the manufacturer to pick up what I needed. I also had to pick up the concrete additive that allows me to get away with 4" walls.

So the reason my buddy gave me the ICFs is two fold. They were left over from a large commercial job and he was paying to store them in a warehouse, so he wanted them out of there. Second, he wanted to try out "panelizing" the forms so that they could be put together in a warehouse, then shipped to the site and stood up. The original intention was to have me build the panels ahead of time and his crew would come in, stand them up, strap, and brace, pour all in a day. So I laid out on graph paper how the panels and corners would look.

I set up the table saw in to cut the ICFs to the size I wanted. Having the shop vac with a drywall bag connected to the saw helped cut down on the amount of "snow" I created.

I built the walls in two "lifts". The lower one would be 4 sections (64") high, and the upper would be 3 sections (48") tall. The largest length of section was 10'. I first cut and dry stacked everything, before coming back and using the foam adhesive to put them together.

Here are the panels stacked and ready to go. Now I just had to wait on the crew. I did not get a picture of the corners built and stacked.

windward · May 29, 2014

Here is where my timeline started to fall apart. I knew things were going to be tight to get a roof over the building before winter hit. The plan was that the walls would go up and get poured in a day. My buddy's crew got delayed on a job in KY, so I went ahead and built out the window bucks from treaded 2x10s, so they would be ready to go.

Then the crew lead had a family issue one weekend and couldn't make it, and finally he got called back down to that job in KY. This was the beginning of November and I decided to go ahead and set it up myself. This required me driving 5 hours round trip to get a set of braces from another job site. I was still hopeful the crew would show up to help with the pour.

It went together pretty well. The bracing is well thought out. You screw the aluminum channel to the wall and pin in the brace and platform rails. The brace acts as a big turnbuckle allowing you to dial it into plumb.

Because we built it in panels, I had to strap the heck out of the thing since the blocks were no longer overlapped. If I was doing it again, I would have just built it in place, which would have minimized the strapping and probably cut down on my stress during the pour.

ConCretin · May 29, 2014

Great looking build and a beautiful view to boot. Looking forward to pics of the placement. Make sure you get someone to take the pics - you are going to be too busy.

windward said:
I also had to pick up the concrete additive that allows me to get away with 4" walls.

Kind of curuous about this. What is the admixture and what does it do?

Thanks

windward · May 29, 2014

LLWillysfan said:
Great looking build and a beautiful view to boot. Looking forward to pics of the placement. Make sure you get someone to take the pics - you are going to be too busy.

Kind of curuous about this. What is the admixture and what does it do?

Thanks

Here is a link to the mix I used:

http://www.cemexusa.com/ProductsServices/Fortium.aspx

windward · May 30, 2014

I spent some time updating my design so that you could all see the changes....pretty minor mods.

The 3D view is pretty good, except that I am using the same siding in the gables as I am on the walls.

We are also going to go with a full glass garage door. Originally I was going to go with a door like the one in the picture. Then someone suggested french doors. My problem with that was I could not find any to take advantage of the 8' width. I could have used side lites to fill the space, but would have lost some capability if I really wanted to use this as a garage entrance (tractor, jet ski, etc). I also thought it would be weird to have french doors and an standard man door right around the corner from each other.

I think the glass garage door will dress it up, and give the view to the lake that we want. Although I am slow chipping away at the efficiency of my ICFs by going with all that glass. Isn't life just a series of trade offs?

Can anyone explain to me how I can insert my pictures so they show up already expanded? I think this is a much easier way to view a thread.

madoc1 · May 30, 2014

interesting. I am going to keep a watch on this.

Idle Serge · May 30, 2014

Nice wrK!

windward · Jun 2, 2014

Sorry for for the lapse over the weekend. I tend to be outside working on the shop most weekends and never feel like touching the computer after hours. Heck, my wife and I were so exhausted this weekend we went to bed at 7:30PM last night.

Anyways, where was I? Yes, the walls.....

I continued to strap the heck out of everything to prevent having a blowout during the pour. I also had to cut out, install, and strap all of the window and door "bucks". Bucks are just a wood (treated) frame to nail to.

The thing about using ICFs, especially without an architect, is you need to think things through. Traditional framing is a bit more forgiving if you decide...."I wish I had a window over here."

In my office area I made buck for a wall mounted AC Unit incase I ever want to put one in. I will side/drywall over it, but could cut it out down the road.

On the small garage door I was able to carry the ICF wall over the top for my header. On the 16' door, I had to go with a wood header to handle the span.

Typically these walls are poured with a pump truck. I started calling around to get prices and it was going to cost me about $1000, plus I loose a yard of concrete to prime the pump.

We have a company here that does a lot of poured foundation walls and they use a conveyor truck. I talked to them and they said they had done some 6" ICF walls with the conveyor. I had them come out to look things over and they said they could reach everywhere they needed. We would choke the chute down to 4" to get things into the wall. Cost of conveyor truck, $461.

Anyways, I was pretty nervous going into the pour, but things went remarkably well. After I got the mud in, I used the turnbuckles to make any final adjustments to plumb the wall Finally we set some jbolts to attach a top plate.

I thought I had some photos of the pour, but cannot find them. If I come across them I will post later on.

windward · Jun 2, 2014

I found a few more pictures on my phone.

windward · Jun 4, 2014

One of my neighbors is a contractor and owns a Skytrack. I hired him to help me set the trusses, which was money well spent. We nailed them to the top plate, then I came back the next day and installed hurricane straps.

You may notice that I have 3ft overhangs at the eves. This was done to match the house. For the rake I built ladders that would over hang 2.5' at the peak, and tapered back to about 2' at the eve. I probably could have skipped this complexity, but it will be a nice detail, but it took some time to do. It will also create more work when I go to do the soffit.

Anyways, I built them on the ground, then lifted them into place for nailing/strapping.

You can see in one of the photos, dated 11/25, we got a dusting of snow. I was hoping we would not get snow till late Dec. I really want to get the decking on before the snow hits. To be continued....

ConCretin · Jun 4, 2014

windward said:
Here is a link to the mix I used:

http://www.cemexusa.com/ProductsServices/Fortium.aspx

Thanks for the link though I've got admit, I still don't know what the stuff is. Near as I can tell, it's a fiber of some sort that purports to eliminate the need for rebar.

In any case, I'm glad your placement went well. I'm sure you'll appreciate the advantages of your ICF walls for years to come.

windward · Jun 9, 2014

My excavator came and helped me trench in the gas/water/electric. We put the water at the bottom of the trench, backfilled 2 ft, then laid the electric and gas line(with a tracer wire). At least now I can work inside on the electrical work over the winter.

I am pulling 60 amps off of the 100 amps in the house. I would have upgraded the service to the house and pulled out a 100 amp, but it was problematic ($$) to get a larger wire from the meter to the service panel in the basement. The electrician did not think he could pull a new larger wire through the conduit that runs under my garage slab to the meter. Being a one man shop I think I should be fine, but just in case I buried large enough feeder cable that can handle 100amp if I do decide I need to upgrade.

I had a few friends help me with the sheathing. This was Dec 8th, and it was really starting to get cold. I was worried about getting snow/rain on the OSB. The snow that fell that day was light and dry(since it was so cold). We got about 1/2", but I was able to blow it off with a leaf blower the next day. Next I put down "Perm-a-felt", which is a synthetic underlayment rated to withstand the elements for 6 mo.

In mid-Nov, I ordered the cedar shakes direct from a saw mill in British Columbia. That saved me about 25-30% over what I could find locally. I ordered 18 square, or 90 bundles, of 24" heavies (3/4" or more). They came shipped on pallets 8' tall and are 2000-3000 lbs each. I had them shipped to a local warehouse (the owner is my neighbor's brother) with a loading dock, and they unloaded them with the fork truck and stored them until I needed them. It only cost me a couple cases of beer.

windward · Jun 9, 2014

LLWillysfan said:
Thanks for the link though I've got admit, I still don't know what the stuff is. Near as I can tell, it's a fiber of some sort that purports to eliminate the need for rebar.

The additive in the tubs is actually some mineral combination that is added to a defined concrete mix. The mix they add it to does have fibers though. The distributor of the stuff called down to the redi-mix place to give them the concrete specs. On the day of the pour, the redi-mix people sent out a guy to take samples for testing.

windward · Jun 16, 2014

Originally, I wanted to get the siding on before winter really hit, but ICFs present some problems with doing winter work. The ICF forms have 1.5" plastic strips every 8" OC, to nail or screw to. Using screws in cold weather did not seem to be a problem, but since I was using panel siding (not lap) I wanted to nail the siding on. Hitting the cold and brittle strips with a nail gun caused the strips to crack. I guess it will have to look like a big igloo cooler for the remainder of the winter.

I moved inside to do some electrical work. To run my wiring I attached a c-clamp to the bar of an electric chainsaw. The clamp acts as a depth stop to keep the chain from hitting the concrete wall. I cut a 2.25" chase to everywhere I wanted to run an outlet. The outlet boxes are screwed to the plastic strips, just like you would with a stud wall. I wanted to do dual outlets at each location, but could not find a duplex box with a standard nailing flange, that was less than the 2.5" depth I had to work with. I separated the outlets onto alternating circuits by using 12/3 with a shared neutral to a double pole breaker.

I also installed 10 LED recessed lights for the office and entry area. I found the bulbs with an integrated trim kit on clearance for $20 each at Menards. I love that they are instant-on and dimable (I don't have them on a dimmer, but it is nice to have the option). Also installed three standard bulb fixtures in the attic and one in bathroom and another in the office.

I am planning to put a barn light on each gable and I have the two lights on each side of the man door. I hooked these to a three way switch in the house.

I also ran co-ax and two ethernet cables to the office, just in case. A good friend had given me the cable, so it only made sense. Once you cover up the forms there is not an easy way to fish a new line anywhere, so you really want to think ahead and future proof as much as possible.

I still need to decide what kind of lighting I want to use for the main shop area. Probably 4' T8s.

I had never done much electrical other than changing a switch or outlet, but it proved to be pretty easy. If I got confused, I just pulled out the Black and Decker Home Improvement book my Dad gave me when I moved out 20 years ago.

windward · Jun 27, 2014

I think we are now caught up till March.

Me and a plumber buddy set all the drains. This is one are where it was nice to have a plumber who does this stuff day in and day out. It was also nice that his truck was loaded like a mini hardware store. I did not have to stop and make 6 trips to the hardware store.

We tied into the drain pipe we installed when we trenched into the utilities. It goes out to the septic tank, about 40 feet away.
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I had my garage door guy out and he needs something to mount the rails to, other than foam. I struggled with trying to figure out how to cut a 1.5" recess into the ICF. The foam was the easy part, it was the plastic webbing that was worrying me. I started off by using the electric chain saw to cut some relief groves so that I could break the chucks of foam out. Then I used the claw of a hammmer to break the cold/brittle webs out. It worked, but not well. Finally I grabbed my router with a 1/2 straight bit, and the router table mounting plate still attached. That worked great, just be sure to use eye protection. I used a full face mask too.
View attachment 351351
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My neighbor brought my two pallets of cedar shakes down to the house in the hopes that the weather will start to break and I can get them installed. As a test run I built and shaked a cover for our wood pile. The utility company came by last fall to clear trees from the lines. These two were mostly dead so I asked them to cut them off high so that I could pull them out in the future. We decided to turn them into the supports for a wood pile.

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windward · Jul 7, 2014

The files did not want to attach, so I am trying this again.

windward · Jul 7, 2014

windward · Jul 7, 2014

windward · Jul 7, 2014

I had a difficult time figuring out what to use as a ground break between the grade and the siding. There is a product that you mix up and trowel on. That is nice because you can dye it different colors, but you need 48 hours of temps above the 40F, which I did not have. I ended up using the fiberglass ground breaker. It installs easy enough, but I am not in love with it. Within a week of install, I can see small waves in the material. It probably won't be so noticeable after I back fill. I also did not like that it only came in one color. It would be nice if there were more choices.

In the fall I ordered a bunch of materials, expecting to get farther that I did. The lumber yard had my LP Smart Siding (4x9 sheets) all wrapped up and on a pallet. Since they were already wrapped up and out of the way, I left them in the yard over the winter. I did not think about the stuff taking a set. It was a bit of a bear for myself, my wife and my buddy to install that stuff. The job would have been half as hard if the pieces had been flat.

At least now it doesn't look like a big Styrofoam cooler.

During the siding install, I realized we were going to run short by a couple sheets. To make matters worse I had loaned by trailer to a friend. I jump on the phone and find out he is not home, but the trailer is sitting at his house, but my hitch/ball are in his truck, with him. So I borrow a hitch from a neighbor, drive to get my trailer, then drive the other direction to the local big box store, all while my help is sitting around waiting for me to get back.

I grab 4 sheets, throw em on the trailer and am off and running. I suspect most of you know what happens next. I am on the interstate, just over the speed limit, when I hear "whoof". I look in the rear view mirror, and it looks like a scene from the movie "Twister". Two sheets are twisting in the wind 20 feet in the air, with cars in the background negotiating which way they are going to go. Luckily, no cars were hit and no one was injured. I backed up a half mile and picked up the damaged sheets. It's back to the store to buy two more and the manager ask's what I am doing back. I explain that I did not strap the sheets and he ask's if I want to return them. I told him it was my mistake and I would take this one on the nose as a learning lesson. He said "I am pretty sure I hit those with a fork truck the other day, go ahead and grab two new ones."

I am incredibly lucky that no one was hurt or killed. Please, strap everything, it is cheap insurance!!!

windward · Jul 21, 2014

My excavator backfilled a bit too much so my neighbor helpped me pull some rock out before we ran over it with the tamper.

Because this will be mainly used as a woodshop I installed a 6" dust collection system using SDR35 pipe. I also put conduit and a floor box for power to where the table saw will be. It is really hard to plan where everything will be, having not worked in this shop, but I think I can make do with the way I have it laid out.

Next we put down 6mm plastic for a vapor barrier, taped the seams, then put the 2" EPS down. I was able to get the 25 PSI EPS from a local manufacturer for a bit less than $21 sheet.

We laid the pex and attached it to the foam with pex staples. Then we laid rebar every 4' on a grid.

windward · Jul 21, 2014

I decided to go with a trench drain, which is nice, but they don't make it easy to lay out for the pour. I ended up digging a bit of a trench so I could get concrete under the drain, driving in rebar for supports, drilling some small holes in the frame of the drain, and zip tie'ing them in place.

The pour went well. It was a cool day and we had plenty of time.

windward · Aug 7, 2014

A coat of paint really helped the place along. That is the same color as the house.

We chose to do a cedar roof because the cedar roof on the house is only a couple years old, and it will be nice to have them age together. If the house had been ready for replacement, I may have considered doing something differently. I ordered my shakes directly from the mill (Best Quality Cedar Products) in British Columbia, which saved quite a bit.

Doing the cedar roof is probably what gave me the most worry of the entire project. Finally the day came to go ahead and tackle it. It was not bad, but was a ton of work for the two of us. My mason loaned me the scafolding, which was a huge help. We would lift bundles on to the scafold, then up onto the roof. We installed about 86 bundles of shakes. We used cedar breather to create an air gap under the shakes and interlaced the rows with 30# felt. Everything was attached with stainless nails or staples (we had a mix of both).

We knocked out one side in just over a day. Other side was flying along till we hit the valleys. That slowed us up considerably. Overall it took about 4-5 full days for the two of us to finish it. My wife was scared of the nail gun at first, but after working with it she said she felt quite "empowered" and that "boys have all the fun toys". LOL

Nexussian · Aug 2, 2015

Any updates showing the doors and windows installed?

Looks good so far.

windward · Aug 3, 2015

Nexussian - Sorry I did not finish out this thread. I was having so many problems posting that I became frustrated and forgot about it.

Here are some final pictures. I am really happy with how it all turned out. Like any garage, "twice as big, would be just about right."

Happy to answer any questions you may have.

Nexussian · Aug 4, 2015

Thank you.

I'm curious as my father is looking to build a garage at his winter place in Phoenix (trying just as hard to keep the heat out as you want it to stay in

).

windward · Aug 4, 2015

Nexussian said:
Thank you.

I'm curious as my father is looking to build a garage at his winter place in Phoenix (trying just as hard to keep the heat out as you want it to stay in ).

I am pretty happy with the efficiency. It is hard for me to know exactly what I am paying because I don't have the garage on a separate meter. From what I can tell it cost me about $40-45/mo to heat it(in-floor radiant with modulating condensing boiler) in the worst part of winter. For 1000 sq ft, that is pretty good!

1/2 Cup · Aug 4, 2015

Fantastic result windward many thanks for the update.

madoc1 · Aug 5, 2015

it turned out very, very nice? :thumbup:

jim

Nexussian · Aug 19, 2015

windward said:
I am pretty happy with the efficiency. It is hard for me to know exactly what I am paying because I don't have the garage on a separate meter. From what I can tell it cost me about $40-45/mo to heat it(in-floor radiant with modulating condensing boiler) in the worst part of winter. For 1000 sq ft, that is pretty good!

Thank you.

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