Advice for new build

[13mo]

Hello all,

My wife and I are going to be building a house and putting up an outbuilding on an ~80 acre piece of ground here in the next year or so. We are mostly done with the design phase of the house and should be getting the finalized plans from the architect shortly. The house is a traditional two story house with an attached 3 car garage, a walk out basement which will be be mostly unfinished for use as an exercise area and a wood shop, and I will have a detached metal outbuilding. I have not started anything regarding the outbuilding. I would like some feedback on a few of the details before anything moves from the paper phase to actual construction.

1. The attached garage will be a 32' wide x 28' deep three-car garage with 16x8' and 9x8' overhead doors. Ceiling will likely be at 12 feet. We will just use this to store vehicles, currently a standard-length 1/2 ton pickup and an Explorer. I picked this size as this is essentially the same size as a garage at a previous house that we liked, and four feet deeper than our present garage, which is too shallow but otherwise fine. My question with this is regarding lighting, so I will put this in the lighting forum. I just mentioned this here to say our daily drivers won't be in the outbuilding.

2. The basement will be divided into two rooms. There will be a semi-finished area on the walk-out side with a double entry door to a concrete pad and wall of windows. This will be drywalled and have a suspended ceiling, and we will use it as an exercise room. The other room will be 850 square feet and will contain the mechanicals and my wood shop. The house will be mostly propane except for an electric dryer and almost certainly would get a 320/400 amp 120/240 split phase service with two 200 amp panels. I have a couple of detail questions here as well but will also ask them in the electrical forum. I won't have any of my wood equipment in the outbuilding.

3. The main question I am asking here is some feedback on putting up the outbuilding. It will be used to store a tractor and a few implements for taking care of the property, and likely will also hold a flatbed and dump trailer as well as the zero turn mower and other lawn/garden miscellany that won't go in the attached garage. I also intend to restore an old vehicle or two there as well.

The tractor I will get first would be a smaller open station utility tractor, such as a Deere 4 series, one of the various LS XR variants (e.g. NH Boomer, CIH Farmall), a Kubota MX or grand L, etc. of 50-60 hp or so. It will pull an 8-10 foot pull behind bush hog and a 10-14' disc for field maintenance and I will also have a few miscellaneous implements such as a box blade and a tiller. All of that will get stored in the outbuilding. I may very well end up with a larger tractor and some hay implements in the future but that may be a while off if it ever happens, and that may be on a separate building on another piece of ground.

My experience with outbuildings is:
- A couple 19th century dirt floored barns. Not what I am looking for.
- A 20x20x10 concrete floored metal building at a previous house that the PO put up and I used as a woodshop. I prefer a basement shop as they are far tighter and the HVAC is already there.
- A 30x40x12 concrete floored metal building at my parent's property they have set up as a three car detached garage with overhead doors. This works well for that purpose and essentially I want to build a much larger version of that.
- Multiple 30x40 to 40x64 metal buildings with dirt/gravel floors end wall and side wall sliding doors for equipment storage and livestock. These are fine for a hay barn and livestock but not what I am looking for. The doors give a 24' opening on the widest one and we've never had trouble sticking any equipment in there, and my Dad's hay equipment is as big as anything I'd ever think I'd have.

I am thinking the following for the building:

- About 40' x 60' with a concrete slab floor. Sidewall height to be determined by door height, probably 14'?
- Construction could be either steel, pole barn, or stick built. I've had pole barns and stick built, and been in steel buildings, I don't really have a preference.
- Overhead doors on one sidewall. I think 12' tall should work as apart from a combine, my family has never had anything taller than that, and I don't see myself getting a combine, my ground is at most hay land and not really suited for row crops.
- I am not sure about the width of the doors. Anything I can see getting in the near future won't be more than 12-14' wide, and vehicles and trailers won't be wider than 10'. I see three options. One, a 16x12 and three 10x10 or 10x12s to make it a four-bay garage. Two, three 16x12s so I can stick implements in any bay and park trailers and vehicles in front of them. And four, two 24x12s to make essentially two "two car" bays.
- I may get a lift at some point for the restoration work.
- This will not be cooled, but may be heated. If so, it will be done with propane.
- I anticipate running a 100 or 125 amp line either from a multi-lugged meter base (as in one of my former houses) or as a subpanel from the house (as in another.) I can't see needing more than 125 amps. Loads would be lighting, an air compressor, pedestal grinder, a welder, and possibly a few miscellaneous metalworking tools if I need to get them (such as a small mill, etc.)
- Switch in the house controlling outside lights on the outbuilding so I can see to go out there when it's dark. I'd rather not do a yard light, had one at a previous place and I like it dark at night.
- Lighting will be appropriate for doing work, so about the same 100 fc as my woodshop.
- This is on rural land so there are no real restrictions.
- Budget is enough to do this correctly but I don't need to

Any input anybody has on the outbuilding design would be much appreciated.

 

[jetnow1]

Are you planning to heat/cool any part of this? I am working on a 1950 chevy pu and could not work out in my garage without heat in winter, a/c in summer. I was much more flexible about these things when I was younger though.

 

[matt_i]

Sounds like you gained a lot of experience working thru various other shops and buildings.

One idea is to build most of the building as "dry storage" and then setup one bay (size TBD) where you have your shop/machines/repair area setup and set that up for HVAC. Bring projects in and out.

You could always expand that to another bay as funds and/or the need arises.

Always good to plan for the possibility of a lean-to/roofed storage as part of the building. Handy when you just need to pull in out of the rain.

 

[13mo]

Are you planning to heat/cool any part of this? I am working on a 1950 chevy pu and could not work out in my garage without heat in winter, a/c in summer. I was much more flexible about these things when I was younger though.

I don't anticipate cooling this building with anything more than fans. I *probably* won't heat it, but if I did, it would be with one of the hang-on-the-wall propane-fired heaters. The 20x20 woodshop at a past house was not cooled but it was heated with a 5 kW electric hang-on-the-wall heater that I turned on when I walked in and it would heat the building from below freezing to shirtsleeve temperature in about 20 minutes. It got hot in the summer but a fan and an open overhead door was typically enough to make it tolerable as the inside of the building was out of the sun.

Sounds like you gained a lot of experience working thru various other shops and buildings.

One idea is to build most of the building as "dry storage" and then setup one bay (size TBD) where you have your shop/machines/repair area setup and set that up for HVAC. Bring projects in and out.

You could always expand that to another bay as funds and/or the need arises.

That's not a bad idea to separate the machine shed/storage part from the mechanic shop/garage part. That would make the electrical simpler too as I don't really need much for lighting or electrical in the machine shed portion but I would like reasonable lighting and receptacles in the garage portion.

If I did that, I would certainly need more than a single ~12-14' wide bay with a 10' door at the end. I'd probably want at least twice that in width. I'll do some drawings to see how much room I'd need, maybe I'd need more than a 40' x 60'.

Always good to plan for the possibility of a lean-to/roofed storage as part of the building. Handy when you just need to pull in out of the rain.

I will need to have a place to put some firewood to keep it dry and a lean-to could help. Would it make more sense to do a lean-to along the "back" of the building or simply do as my parents did and put up a cheap carport to just keep the rain off of things?

 

[13mo]

All right, I did some thinking and drawing and have decided on the following:

1. Size will be 40x60 or the closest similar size based on building materials (e.g. 42x64). Sidewalls will be 14'.

2. There will be three 16x11 conventional overhead garage doors on one sidewall.

3. I may decide to turn the bay at the left side which includes the entry door into a shop. The rest will be storage.

4. I will have a vapor barrier under the concrete slab and will have the underneath of the roof with a moisture barrier or insulation to minimize condensation. I may decide to heat the "shop bay" at some point in the future, but the rest will be uninsulated.

5. There will be no windows and no doors other than on the one sidewall.

6. I will put up a small carport for keeping the cord or so of firewood we'd burn dry as this would be less expensive than a lean-to.

I have a few specific questions:

1. Would a pole building or a steel building be preferable for this? I've never had a steel building. The discussion here is pretty inconclusive other than stick built is the priciest option by quite a bit and really only called for if one is required to build a detached garage instead of a shed, and I am not.

2. I put the entry door next to the overhead doors as that is how all of the buildings that have not used sliding barn doors have been set up. I figure that would be simpler from an access and lighting perspective as everything is all on one side of the building. Anybody have any reason not to do this?

3. Any recommendations on lighting? The sidewall height will be about 14' so this appears to be in the gray area between using high bay lighting and "normal" lighting such as the "fluorescent replacement" tubular LEDs. I do want this to be able to be lit up well (~100 fc) for both the "shop" area as well as the "storage" area, as I am sure I will be working on the ag equipment where it is parked, even if it's just oil changes, greasing, etc. It is nice to see well to do that.

 

[matt_i]

My thought is that a red-iron building may appear super cheap compared to others like its a screaming deal, but there's the engineered design & construction of the concrete foundation that catches it up pretty fast...its not just a flat slab. Big monoliths under each column. It can be insulated fairly easily as its built. Harder to wire though as you can't run romex any more. Have to get out the conduit bender and put in EMT. Which is not bad, with some planning, once the wireways are in place, pulling more wires goes fairly fast as long as the extra size is there within the wireway. My thought, if that is your choice is to go for a more custom design that has something like a 3:12 pitch roof and overhangs all around.

The Electrical forum has some good lighting designers.

Depending on the number of fixtures, I wired my lights in an "every other" checkerboard. So if you're just out there to pull a widget off the shelf a low level of lighting can be selected, but if its major precision operation then I fire up all of them.

Just a comment about the door height. You're probably planning to stay long-term but it might be good to consider a door for an RV in case you ever had to sell, that alone could find the right buyer. I think it requires a 12' door typically and should be possible with a 14' wall height.

If you do post frame, make sure you have trusses 24" on center in the area you'd like to close off and heat/cool someday. Having 8ft spaced trusses with 0 BCDL (bottom chord dead load) is not a good place to be at that stage.

 

[ericm]

I will need to have a place to put some firewood to keep it dry and a lean-to could help. Would it make more sense to do a lean-to along the "back" of the building or simply do as my parents did and put up a cheap carport to just keep the rain off of things?

It may be different there, but around here with our fire danger it's best to keep the firewood away from buildings.

A lean-to can be a cheap way to get tractor implements under cover. I've discovered that it's easy to run out of room for them as they seem to multiply.

 

[CraigStu]

I haven't looked at the new LED lights but it used to be quite common to hang 4-8ft fluorescents from light weight chain to get them down to a more useful height. That would also make it easy to vary the lighting install for the different needs in different parts of your building. It also allows you to re-position them if you find a specific need that your original plan doesn't quite work for. Just grab another length of the chain, connect it to the light and pull it whichever direction you need it. If you have 14ft ceiling and hang the lights down at 9-10 feet, you can easily move the light 3-4 ft.

 

[rayra]

seconding keeping combustibles away from the occupied structure. We've had three large brushfires rain ash on our house in recent years. Keeping ignitable stuff away from the house is important.

 

[13mo]

seconding keeping combustibles away from the occupied structure. We've had three large brushfires rain ash on our house in recent years. Keeping ignitable stuff away from the house is important.

The firewood will be kept under a carport not contiguous with the outbuilding. Ditto with the diesel barrel, that will not be right next to the building either.

Brush fires around my area are not common and limited due to vegetation, topography, and the abundance of creeks and springs. Generally if there is one, it's some idiot setting their ditch or backyard on fire by using a five gallon can of gas to start a leaf or brush pile on fire and it goes "****."

 

[sberry]

I am busy now but the size makes it interesting and you are right to shoot for sq ft. I might lean too everything I wanted to get in dry storage, then insulate to make it semi conditioned space, aint nothing beats above freezing. Keep water live, you can boost it but some sense of design can make a bit of it easy to low level heat. Thebigger th better to a point, wide is good and can put all the working doors in a gable end. The only reason 30x40 is good is that it sounds good, 40x50 or better is a LOT better. It takes about 40x40 to really work on 2 cars. Not that it cant be done less but it gives some elbow room without always walking in to the walls. Lets a guy park equipment along them, shelves, tool boxes benches. Its some of the most valuable space in the place.

 

[Ben W]

I'd go wood pole-barn. Since you're not insulating your walls, the wood deadens the sound vs. metal getting echo'y. Gives you more options to wire, hang things, etc. Generally more usable for the DIYer down the road.

I'd put the posts up on a poured wall. More money, but it doesn't sound like you're running out of it.

If you make the first bay a shop, does the mandoor go to that shop or to the storage side?

I'd want windows even if they're up high. Natural light and an option for a breeze - cooling it down, fumes, etc.

It appears your roof pitch is running towards your doors. With NY snow and a metal roof you'd get a big pile every time it slides. Rain splashing down, etc.

Interesting how people from different parts of the country think about things. In NY, you don't worry about wild fires. You put the firewood as close as possible to the door so you don't freeze going after it. It rains every other day here.

 

[13mo]

I'd go wood pole-barn. Since you're not insulating your walls, the wood deadens the sound vs. metal getting echo'y. Gives you more options to wire, hang things, etc. Generally more usable for the DIYer down the road.

I'd put the posts up on a poured wall. More money, but it doesn't sound like you're running out of it.

Is there a specific reason you'd recommend anchoring the posts to foundation walls vs. simply sinking the posts? This building will be built at the top of a knoll in a cleared field in southwest Missouri. If it's helpful, the soil is about a foot of loam, about 6-8 feet of gravelly clay, and then limestone/dolomite bedrock. (We had a soil analysis done at the intended build site.) Drainage at the build site is good due to being at the top of the knoll. The frost line is shallow at 12-13".

The budget is not set in stone but it makes no sense to be overly extravagant. What I am aiming for is a larger and better-lit version of the 30x40x12 pole building shop/garage my parents have. It is pretty much just your standard pole barn with garage doors and a man door on one sidewall, a poured slab floor, and nothing on any of the other walls. It is not heated or air-conditioned but there are 8' insulation batts the previous owner installed. A fan makes it comfortable enough in the summer and a jacket makes it comfortable enough in the winter. That's what I am looking for. The most I'd do is put in a space heater like I did in the little 20x20 stick built shop that came with a previous house I owned, I only did that as I did woodworking out there and glue won't set below 40-50 degrees. 15 minutes of runtime and it was more than warm enough.

If you make the first bay a shop, does the mandoor go to that shop or to the storage side?

Shop side. If I ever did go through with putting up a partition, there would be a man door from the shop partition to the storage partition, or I'd just open up a garage door.

It appears your roof pitch is running towards your doors. With NY snow and a metal roof you'd get a big pile every time it slides. Rain splashing down, etc.

Interesting how people from different parts of the country think about things. In NY, you don't worry about wild fires. You put the firewood as close as possible to the door so you don't freeze going after it. It rains every other day here.

There is very little snow here. We get a few inches per month in Dec, Jan, and Feb and what we get melts in a few days. The average high at the coldest time of the year is in the low 40s. It does rain a fair bit in the fall and spring and it can get muddy.

Wood piles around here are put somewhere where it's easy to back a truck or trailer up to. Generally it's along a driveway apron.

 

[sberry]

Put 1 nice door in front of a 40 or better wide by 60 long and a walk door in the back off center to be able to put a fan in a screen door type attachment.

 

[sberry]

So,, in this case parking is on the right. Use a simple roll up curtain and end wall so a guy could paint, roll it up and use it as parking with a floor drain. End for end could park 2 cars, move or remove the one by the door in to shop bay. The parking spot is the drive way.

 

[sberry]

I painted like a madman for a couple 3 or 4 years. I did 1 this winter. 2 really, a small one but it takes me about 10 minutes to set up to spray if I want and now its out of the way and space used for cold weather parking the other 99.9% of the time.

 

[13mo]

I painted like a madman for a couple 3 or 4 years. I did 1 this winter. 2 really, a small one but it takes me about 10 minutes to set up to spray if I want and now its out of the way and space used for cold weather parking the other 99.9% of the time.

Do you have a thread about your paint booth setup or garage build?

Also, what Deere do you have there getting painted?

 

[sberry]

That was a tractor. I should draw up a floor plan and some variants for different size buildings. A disk, a brush hog needs storage, most of the maintenance is short term. I cover some gangs with sheet metal, make some covers for outside equipment. Stored stuff is hard to work around. Making a storage really let my shop flush out as it was really intended.
I don't have shop build, I got some storage. More than that process is the multi features built in.

 

[sberry]

That was a 2640. Newest one I have.
Here is the front. I really use the big right front door in the winter, didn't even plow the side. I use it in good weather, it's open about 6 months and is my pull up welding spot, on apron outside and can pull it. Big right front is 16 wide, I could work my disk in but never had it inside, do it outside side door, I can fix any part in short time like a pit stop.
I live on shitvroad, 2 miles of grime, mud, clay, rocks, salt, ice and snow. I have hot hi pressure washer, I am compulsive about wash up, I can de ice and dry when it's cold out, cut it all off outside.
Paint fan fits in loading dock door, door closes from inside.

 

[sberry]

Boat winch rolls curtain up. End wall I simply pull. The draft tugs all the corners together, booth air mainly comes in above end wall and creates down draft, it's quite clean, I never did put filters on intake. 3/16 nylon rope and 6 pulleys to do the main which was a 5 inch x 40 ft irrigation pipe.
I thought I would have to replace the plastic, been there 25 years, re duct taped it back to the purlin once 10 yrs ago.

 

[Ben W]

Regarding the stem wall - my preference would be to keep all wood up out of the ground. Posts, siding, inside walls. They make some pretty solid PT posts, but the siding needs to be just about in the ground. A stem wall can keep all of that well off the ground.

If not a stem wall, then set the posts on poured concrete columns with anchor brackets. Check out RR Buildings - you can see their builds on his youtube channel. Best builder I've seen. Keeps more of the building out of the ground than buried posts.