24x28 Cycle Shop

[andyvh1959]

Building my 3rd shop garage. Previous home, when I was single, I built a 28.5 x 48 garage where the back half was a 28.5 x 26 shop area with south facing 4 x 8 thermo pane windows and an overhead door. Then I got stupid and married the wrong person, sold the house and moved to Green Bay into a home with two teens, more vehicles, more stuff, and only a 22 x 24 attached garage.

Divorced back in 08, now remarried to the RIGHT gal, and I'm building my 24 x 28 cycle shop. Heated floor, 9'-4" side walls, vaulted ceiling, big screen TV (this is Packerland y'know), real shop stereo (tunes), fridge (BEER!), proper bike lift and snowmobile lift/storage platform. Gonna be many good times in the shop!

 

[captain14]

I’ll stop by to see how you finish the shop. Plenty of great ideas here to “steal”. Did you do all the work completed so far?

 

[andyvh1959]

Stop by all the way from Maryland? Wow!

I hired out the slab, masonry block, and basic framing up to the trusses. I built the front the rear roof hips myself and all the work after that. Doing the electrical right now, insulation and interior OSB on the walls. Soon I'll be doing the shingles, soffit/fascia and siding. I just framed in four glass block windows, one each side wall and two on the south facing wall. Later I'll mount four solar panels on the rear hip to power the LED lights and multiple outlets to keep my motorcycle collection charged.

 

[Brian R]

Welcome. Beer and bikes, I'm in.

 

[andyvh1959]

Progress continues on my garage build. Bit slow since I am all the hired labor on this project. I am putting up the shingles and should have nearly all the roof shingled today. My wife asked me for an appropriate "Hudson" pose, so I stepped up to the challenge. No lack of being a ham this one.

"Hudson" is my alter-ego persona for those home projects that my wife refers to when working on home projects like plumbing, electrical, etc. He's is the guy she hires.

 

[captain14]

Does she flirt with the “hired” help?

I would be interested in see photos of the glass block windows installed in/outside of the garage.

 

[Kevkx125]

Great build, I will be watching for sure. I like bikes & sleds. Good job doing the work you are doing so far, nothing like doing it yourself!! Good luck!!

 

[RedF150]

Looking forward to seeing some of the bikes.

 

[andyvh1959]

Oh,...she does more than "flirt" with this hired help. The days of bartering services are alive and well at this address.

I learned a lot from my dad, a WW2 survivor of German occupation in Holland. He was the type to do everything for himself. He was a great "journeyman" type that while not fast, the job was always done right with great satisfaction. That attitude I learned from him affected all the projects I've done in the three homes I've owned since 1978. This is the 3rd garage I've built, and probably not the last.

I'll get more pics up when the glass block windows are installed. I was initially going to install glass block into the opening in the front gable. But I went with a slider window that i can open for ventilation, which works well with the small overhang I built over the window. My goal is to use a squirrel cage furnace blower ceiling mounted at the back of the garage to create airflow going out the front.

Once the snowmobile/snowblower lift storage platform is in place I can bring all the bikes in to "home", as four bikes will park under the lift.

 

[andyvh1959]

Getting to look better by each weekend. My plan is to use brick veneer on the front to match the brick and wood trim on the house. Along the fence side of the driveway I'll put in a retaining block wall, after the contractor mudjacks the driveway to correct the drainage/slope issue I have. The area where the garage is now was at least 8" lower so any rain water just drained into the back yard. Now I have to alter the drainage slope so the water goes to the right of the garage.

 

[captain14]

Did you have to bring dirt in to get the garage a better height to prevent flooding it out?

 

[andyvh1959]

Yeah. But the inside of the new garage is nice and dry. Last Sept I hired a guy with a skid steer, 14K trailer and laser level setup. He graded back the dirt (very sandy soil here) about 6" below the driveway, pulled out five small tree stumps, hauled out all the ****, hauled in and leveled three trailer loads of recycled ground up asphalt. So the bottom of the slab is about 8" to 12" above the original grade, and the top of the slab at least 6" higher than the original grade of the driveway. Did all that and a bit of grade change alongside the driveway for $1500.

I'll hire him again when I'm ready to do the final grade and landscaping around the garage. I'll need at least five yards of dirt fill behind the garage to prep that area for seeding.

 

[andyvh1959]

Full of myself tonight. I got the trench dug for the SE cable conduit this weekend. Also had to burrow under a concrete sidewalk behind the house to route the conduit up to the meter base on the house. That's were the power tap will be for 100 amp service to the main breaker in my new garage. Today I got four lengths of cable pulled through the conduit and into the garage.

Borrowed a friend's fish tape to pull a rope through the conduit. Then attached the rope to the group of cables, at first with all four cables lined up at the end. Not good, I could only pull the cables to the first elbow. So after a lot of tugging, pushing wire into the conduit, pulling on the rope for all I could, i was near ready to call a friend for help. But 1st I pulled the cable group back out, and arranged the cables with each one staggered back at least 6" back from the previous one, then attached the pull rope. This in effect created a more flexible arrow shape to align into the conduit, but it also bent much better into the 1st elbow. Then it was easy to feed some cable into the conduit below the meter base and pull it up out the conduit through the garage floor. In less than 15 min I pulled about 50' of four cables through the conduit. Didn't even need the cable lube I bought at Menards.

Now I can finish up the wiring in the garage and wire up the main panel. Then a friend who does electrical work can connect the SE cable at the meter base.

 

[captain14]

Thanks for the update on the garage.

How many muscles are telling you today about overworking them digging and pulling the cables in the conduit?

 

[andyvh1959]

Not bad at all, even considering I'm almost 63. Like I posted, the soil is nearly all sand 2" down, and it had rained hard recently so digging over 25' of trench 24" deep wasn't too bad. When I got almost to depth I used my trench shovel (only 4" wide) which made the last few inches easy.

The conduit coming through the slab in the garage and through the sidewalk in back of the house was only about 6" up from grade. I could easily grab the cables and pull/lift with my arms and legs. In fact, now that I need to plan more cable to go through the wall and into the panel at the back of the house I had to pull about ten feet of cable back up at the house. Just grabbed and pulled, it came right up.

Next I have to drill another hole through the garage slab so I can drive down another 5/8" ten foot ground rod. Electric Inspector said I need to add a second ground rod six feet from the current ground rod. NEC requires two ground rods. No biggie, can do.

 

[andyvh1959]

Well my garage project progresses, slowly. Other house repair issues, wife's car repair issues, really cold weather back in February, then one of my cats got quite sick. In fact the vet brought up euthanasia twice. But my little girl fought back and is doing well now. This all has got me to only have a few internal 110 wiring to complete, and then the solar system this late spring. Finally route the sub panel cables to the main panel in my attached garage and I'll get 100amp power in the shop. No more extension cords.

Then my air compressor, welder, work bench, tools carts and other stuffs finally get their proper placement. One thing, the concrete slab I think cured really hard, and shows no cracks at all of any kind since it was first poured in mid-Oct 2019. Two weeks after the Oct 2019 pour it got really cold in Green Bay, like single digits cold and early snow. I think it actually helped the slab cure hard. This summer I plan to scrub and seal the concrete. I'm good with the light brushed finish, so just a good sealer to minimize any possible stains, easy to sweep/clean.

 

[andyvh1959]

Finally, wiring in the new detached garage is complete. I made a jumper connection to my extension cord to feed 110 power into the service panel so I could check my wiring and outlets. Found I had an incomplete ground in one circuit, so I'm glad to have done that before the electrical inspector comes. I used a circuit tester in each outlet to confirm correct connections. I even got some of the solar equipment installed.

Now I opened up the main breaker panel in my original attached garage to plan how to route and install the service cables from the new garage to the main breaker panel. Surprise! My 1973 house has 200 amp service to the main panel. So I'll just use a 100 amp duplex breaker to tap off the service cables to the 100 amp sub panel.

As of yesterday, May 28th, electrical inspection completed and approved.