Drive in Attic! Custom design, pain in the ****

xyster101 · Mar 25, 2018

I built my shop 4 years ago, but photobucket killed my thread and I reference it often. Here is a quicker version of my build. The original without pictures (lame)
https://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=212873

I live on a hill with very little flat ground. Step 1 was to plan where to put it and get some plans. The town required stamped plans from an architect. So I drew up plans in Sketch up and had a guy stamp them. The design calls for a 24x48 shop, recessed into the hill 9 feet deep. I drew up 10" CMU blocks but ultimately used 12". Due to the stepped walls, it would require custom stick building. I wanted to be able to drive into the attic to store mower, ATV, and other things.

xyster101 · Mar 25, 2018

Here is the ranch house we bought on 6 acers set 550' back from the road.

Right off the end of the driveway was a sort of clear area you could park a car on grass. This was a hill.

Hired a company to come and drop 11 trees for $900. I cut them off and hauled them off to the town for free.

Then FIL and BIL work together as contractors and they brought over tractors and we dug and moved dirt.

Dug out the footers. This was my first time ever making a building.

Special helper. Always need some helpers when working.

Forms for the concrete pour.

xyster101 · Mar 25, 2018

Concrete came in 2 trucks. First one arrived and we had not dug the front.
So he was able to drive to the back and fill that. Then while we waited for #2 we dug the front and when he arrived filled that.

12" CMU blocks delivered for the back wall.

I'm 6'4" and scrawny, so picking up 60lb blocks was a lot of work.

Dad came to help some and mixed up the mortar. Took a few batches until he got the constancy right.

Blocks all done with 12" in the rear and 8" in the front. Also put waterproof mastic (not sure, some concrete material) and then tar over that. There is drain tile all the way around too.

A big concern is holding back 9 feet of dirt. The wall had rebar placed in it and then we had to fill it with concrete. A pump truck was $650 with a 4 hour min. So instead we built a wall around a metal hopper and lifted it with the tractor. Worked out great and took about 1:15 to pour 4 yards. So we had to pay for 45 min of truck time, cheaper then a pumper.

Of course we had to name the thing. Truck driver said he never saw an operation like this!

xyster101 · Mar 25, 2018

Framing time. Due to the stepped nature of the wall, this took longer then it should have.

Just standard 2x6 framing. 2 LVLs were used over the garage door opening that is 18' wide. I think only one was needed according to code.

Here is a shot up the driveway. You can see the house on the right and behind it the shop. It does not stick out and is set into the trees.

Here are the I joists going up 1 foot on center. I want to be able to put an ATV or riding mover up there, so the I joist engineer set me up with 14" tall beams and 1 foot OC. It is spec'd to 10 psf dead load and 40 psf live load.

xyster101 · Mar 25, 2018

Attic time. Put down 3/4 tongue and groove material. This adds more strength to the attic floor.

Wife helping out shooting nails into the rafters. I did not want all the supports of trusses, I wanted the attic all open for storage.

I understand trusses save costs, but I will have 1,200 sqft of storage on top of my 1,200 sqft shop. Anyone ever say that have too much storage?

I added a "knee wall" which was approved by the architect to be strong enough. I made extra sure by extending the 2x6 knee wall down 14" and attached it to the top and bottom of the I joist. So it is not a wall sitting on the floor, but goes through the floor and attaches to the bottom and top of the I joist.

Put a window in. This side faces south east so it will allow light in so I can see up in the attic.

This is the back of the building. Here is will I will add a ramp so I can drive into the attic. SWEET!

xyster101 · Mar 25, 2018

I deceided to do radiant heat in the floor. So I put down 2" foam on top of the gravel base I had and 1" around the perimeter. Then put the wire mesh on that.

I bought oxygen barrier PEX off amazon for cheap. I think 1,000 feet was like $400. I zip tied this to the wire mesh in 4 loops that are 250 feet each.

Poured the front part of the floor first. FIL using the trowel machine to smooth the surface.

While that cured we painted the soffet material. I choose this composite material due to carpenter bees in my current house. Pain to keep out of the wood siding. Sprayed it in the attic of the shop and it worked great.

LXCam · Mar 25, 2018

Wow, that's a hell of a building! I'm a bit confused though, no rebar in the footings and all you did was drop in what appears to be #4 maybe #5 verts in the columns? Wasn't a structural engineer required for the foundation? Please excuse my overly cautious approach but I've constructed my fair share of retention systems and out here there's normally more rebar then there is mud

.

xyster101 · Mar 25, 2018

Once the front cured enough we put OSB over it and then rented this concrete buggy. Concrete truck would fill it and I drove it forward and dumped. As we pushed it around we pulled the mesh and PEX up off the bottom. You can also buy and put spacers under the mesh to keep it off the foam, but we were not that precise.

Dumping fun.

Smoothing everything out. I am not a concrete guy so my FIL and BIL did that part. I washed to tools with my dad.

xyster101 · Mar 25, 2018

The shop sat with house wrap from October until April. I had 1,000 board feet of rough pine delivered from a local saw mill. My father came up and we spent two days putting the siding on. It worked out well, where there is no seam in the board horizontally.

Break time.

I bought a Harbor Freight nail gun for this. For $70 it was great, but it also weighed 11 lbs empty!

Once all the boards were up, I painted the building. Then I installed the battens and painted the building again. If I had put the boards and battens up at once, then painted, as the boards shrank, then unpainted areas would show. The wood needed two coats anyway.

That is a good looking worker there.

xyster101 · Mar 25, 2018

Finally I had a chance to build the ramp that would allow driving into the attic.

ATV heading up the ramp. I built it from 20' long 2x12. I put window wrap on top of the joists so they will last longer and made the deck from 2x6.

I sprayed 10 gallons of flat white barn paint over the whole thing to brighten the space up. I also installed electric outlets and 4 lights. Here is stuff collecting already.

Time to get organized and build a shelf for this scrap wood.

Here is the riding lawn mower. It is a Ferris 61" cut from 1993. My wife's dad bought it when she was 14 and she grew up mowing. So she loves to mow the property. Fine with me!

captain14 · Mar 25, 2018

I remember when you started the build and original thread.

Just a thought but add a link to that thread so everyone can read about all your building.

xyster101 · Mar 25, 2018

This is a year later. Time to insulate. In my great wisdom I went cheap and great. I found used sheets of foam on craigslist cheap. This whole load was $250. When a commercial building gets a new roof, the foam that is laid down is replaced. For the most part the sheets are whole and have been under rubber and are still in good shape.

View attachment 749866

Problem is, each one has to be cut and fit in between studs. So the money I saved on material I lost in the time it took to cut each one. For the most part they were the same size. Each piece made a massive mess as the black outside if fiberglass and I cut it with a table saw. I had to wear goggles, long sleeves, and a respirator while working with the stuff.
View attachment 749867

I ended up getting three loads full for $600. I ended up getting rid of one load because I did not need that much!
View attachment 749868

This foam is normally 70 cents a sqft per inch with an R-8 value per inch. So the walls have about R-24 (as it degrades over time and this stuff is probably 20 years old). the ceiling I did three layers for 9 inches of foam and around R-56. Might be over kill for a ceiling, but I had it.

View attachment 749870

Then I put 1/2" OSB over the foam with screws. It all had to be cut to fit around the stepped wall. I put 1" foam on the face of the block wall and screwed OSB to that.
View attachment 749871

xyster101 · Mar 25, 2018

LXCam said:
Wow, that's a hell of a building! I'm a bit confused though, no rebar in the footings and all you did was drop in what appears to be #4 maybe #5 verts in the columns? Wasn't a structural engineer required for the foundation? Please excuse my overly cautious approach but I've constructed my fair share of retention systems and out here there's normally more rebar then there is mud .

There is rebar in the footings. I did not show a picture of that, sorry. Here is a picture of that. I assume you are talking about the rear wall with #4 or #5. It was 4 years ago so I don't remember the size, but we did put rebar in the CMU wall. Specs called for it every 4ft, but we did it every 2 ft and filled the whole wall.
In hind sight I wish we had back filled with gravel instead of dirt. The past 4 years I have not had any water leak into the shop. I can't see the wall as I covered it to know if there is cracking.

LXCam · Mar 25, 2018

Cool. Honestly the reason I thought you didn't have any in the footer was when you discussed the rush getting ready to dump mud. It normally takes a fair amount of time to do the bar.

Here's s typical reinforcement design for a 12ft tall retaining wall. But this is also in extremely expansive soil. Those are #7's in the vertical columns (each one) for the first 8' of rise plus two horizontal for each course (12" block)

Anyhow your shop turned out absolutely kickass! Btw, I couple posts up your pictures don't show just in case you can see it. It's the one that discusses the insulation you cut up.

metalhead140 · Mar 25, 2018

Cool build! Way to make the fall of the land work to your advantage...

Drive in Attic! Custom design, pain in the ****

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