Building inside a building?

[StinkBug]

I'm in the process of erecting my new shop and I'm trying to figure out the best way to do the inside. It's a 40x40 steel building, with 16' eaves and full interior sheeting. Along one of the side walls I want to build a mezzanine, a room for my plasma table, and an office on top of that room. Basically the Mezzanine would be 10'x20' along the front half of that wall, and the rooms would be 10x20 down the rest. Underneath the mezzanine I'm gonna put all my work benches, drill press, lathe, TIG welder, etc so it needs to be pretty open without too many posts, and I'd like it open to the rest of the shop floor. The plasma room also needs to at least have a 6' door opening for bringing in material, and also to get the table in and out if needed.

I'm not real savvy with wood, much more of a metal guy so I like the idea of building the structure outta steel. Also I know if I were to build the rooms out of wood i'd basically have to frame all 4 walls, which would make my outside walls like 1'6" thick when you include the steel building. I'd much prefer to do something that's mostly open on the sides and can use the existing metal panels. I'm also trying to get this done as quickly and easily as possible, since I need to move out of my old shop. Anyone know of something pre-fab that would work? I've seen the Pallet rack supported mezzanines, but I'm not sure how open they are underneath. I'd love it if I could get a 40x10 prefab steel mezzanine and just build a room on top, and enclose half of the bottom. I just have no idea where to find such a thing.

 

[1320stang]

I'm pretty savvy, but I need a plan of the layout I think.

We also need to know what your putting on the mezzanine as far as weight goes.

 

[CedarSpeed]

google mezzanine, some prefabs on there. i built one this summer for storage 10x16. 4" steel postwith a 6x6x1/4 plate welded to the bottom these were used on an old overhead conveyor from work, I lagged them to the concrete and used 4X4 wood framing for the top with plywood floor worked for my needs. This all cost me nothing as i already had the material, but an office on top i would do a steel frame work for the floor or 2x8 to 2x10 on 16" centers. I still need to put up steel corrugated underneath as i have my grinders and welders under there and don't want to catch **** on fire. good luck

 

[StinkBug]

Ok here are a couple pics that might help illustrate. The red lines show where I'd like the mezzanine, the yellow where I want the 2 enclosed rooms, stacked above each other. Both rectangles measure roughly 10x20'. The building is 40x40, so this will basically take up 1/4 of the building all the way down one wall.

 

[independentrider]

you might wanna have a engineer look at it for structural safety

 

[Ray-CA]

Why would you need to build a fourth wall? Couldn't you use the existing wall of the main building? You could also use metal studs instead of standard 2x4's which would lessen the fire hazard of using wood.

Ray

 

[lens55]

check out www.wildeck.com for some great ideas

 

[StinkBug]

Why would you need to build a fourth wall? Couldn't you use the existing wall of the main building? You could also use metal studs instead of standard 2x4's which would lessen the fire hazard of using wood.

Ray

I'd prefer to only build 2 walls if possible and just use both exterior walls. Not sure how to build a structure to support the second floor though.

 

[Stuart in MN]

This may be a silly question, but have you talked to the company that you bought the building from? They may already have a mezzanine option, if so it would be a lot easier to simply buy it from them instead of reinventing the wheel.

 

[1320stang]

I agree, talk to the company you bought the building from.

If that's not an option, I'd use the existing exterior walls and install six 4" pipe columns with 8x8 plate bases at the six corners and at the top of the columns I'd fabricate some pockets to support four 20' long glue-lam wood beams. I'd then run 10' long TGI's (engineered joists that have a waferboard web with 2x's top and bottom) the other direction. If you tell a lumberyard what your putting up there, they can figure out your weight per square foot load to size the members, which you'll want done before you get the lengths of you pipe columns. Then you have no columns under your mezzanine, the center two columns and the ones on the end of the yellow square get buried in their walls, the ones on the end of the red square stay exposed, but they're right next to the building structure.

You don't say where you want a stair, I'd put it inside the red square running towards the wall next to the yellow square, and I'd make it 48" wide if you can afford the width, or if you're putting a winch to get stuff upstairs, 36" would be fine.

On the bottom of the TGI's and wrapping the glue-lams, I'd use 2 layers of 5/8" fire rock then probably attach some corregated galv. barn metal to it to make it look cool and further fend off sparks.

The plasma table room I'd frame with steel studs and maybe just sheath both sides with the same metal as on the outside of your shop, even take it all the way up to the roof where the office is.