Above 1200 Sq/FT Finally building the shop!!

[JoshS]

I'm also planning on having a separate meter on my garage. I spoke to the town electrical inspector and my power company (National Grid) and specifically asked if there will be any issues with that and both told me no problem. Hopefully it works out for you and I don't run into the same issues when the time comes

 

[Juiced06GTO]

Double check what type of service they are going to provide and the type of meter socket you will need, if it is a commercial system you need a lever bypass meter, apparently these are on BO at all the supply houses and the one my buddy has doesn't meet their spec for my service. I also have the grid, and they are telling me they will not drop a second residnetial service and it will be listed as commercial. This wouldn't be an issue if I wasn't planning to add solar to the barn. You can still net meter with solar on a commercial system, but the rate they pay back is much less than on a res system and really makes it less appealing. I am now looking at adding a 320a meter main to the barn and refeeding the house from the barn, which would keep me at one meter on the property and all residential.

 

[JoshS]

Thanks I'll make sure to check on the service type/meter requirements before I get too far along that process.

 

[Juiced06GTO]

So the last week and half myself and the family have been home bound due to Covid. My two younger ones were exposed at daycare on the 10th and sent home for the week. My wife took the week off from work to stay with them because I had 5 workshops to lead for our annual corporate meeting at work. We made it to Friday thinking we were all good, then my youngest tested positive. After that the dominoes fell quickly ending with me finally testing positive this Monday. The kids seemed to fair pretty well, not really exhibiting many symptoms other then sniffles and perhaps some more testiness than usual! My wife got hit with pretty regular cold symptoms, and I took the brunt with 2 days worth of fever, body aches and massive migraines. Hopefully the worst of it has passed now, well maybe not because we are all stuck in the house with each other for another week!

Prior to that I was able to get some things wrapped on the barn. All the rough electrical is done and I am just waiting on my spray foam guy to show up. He needs the weather to be a little warmer before he can spray it so hopefully we get a little warm up soon! We got the panel all tied in and got these flush mount outdoor plugs installed too. I put one in the soffit to make it easier to power up the Christmas lights too! There is one of those on each corner of the barn too for outdoor power.

I also got a price to have someone come in and drywall and plaster the ceiling in the main garage and loft. It is a little bit more expensive than going with metal, but I think it will be a nicer look, so that will be next on the list after insulation. Just time to sit and wait on people now...

 

[67CarGuy]

Just read through the adventure - I'm looking at building something similar (well, a little bigger, but that doesn't matter for now...) in another year or so, and relatively close to you (outside 495). I'll be interested to see what happens with your electrical saga, as we'll likely have solar as well.

Does 'Grid do 400A residential service? Or do they max out at 320? I had 200A service at my last house, but no solar and no big garage, so 200 was fine.

I might ping you later on for your shiplap source, too - I'm not against a scenic drive for some affordable lumber!

 

[Juiced06GTO]

Always willing to help out a local guy, cold beers always in the fridge too! So in the electrical world a residential 400A service is actually metered as a 320A meter socket. A 320A socket would allow you to run two 200A residential panels, as they consider it a non-continuous load. I am still waiting on the supply house to come up with either socket for me because at this point I just want to get power to it so I can use the place. If they get the bypass meter I'll put it in and just have them list it as a commercial service, if they get the 320A in, I'll dig a trench to the house, refeed it underground and be done with it all!

On a more positive note, they start spray foaming the interior on Monday!! We may actually see some more progress soon!

 

[67CarGuy]

Always willing to help out a local guy, cold beers always in the fridge too! So in the electrical world a residential 400A service is actually metered as a 320A meter socket. A 320A socket would allow you to run two 200A residential panels, as they consider it a non-continuous load. I am still waiting on the supply house to come up with either socket for me because at this point I just want to get power to it so I can use the place. If they get the bypass meter I'll put it in and just have them list it as a commercial service, if they get the 320A in, I'll dig a trench to the house, refeed it underground and be done with it all!

On a more positive note, they start spray foaming the interior on Monday!! We may actually see some more progress soon!

Ah, now I get it - thanks for the explanation! I appreciate the offer - I'll send you a PM

 

[Juiced06GTO]

We have insulation!! They aren't done yet, still need to trim things back and blow in behind the finished wall. It is already noticeably warmer in there than outside, can't wait to start finishing this thing off!!

 

[Juiced06GTO]

A few of the finished product. Ended up with about 7" in the walls since they just filled the bays Roof was sprayed thick enough to get to R40. They blew in fiberglass behind the section that was already finished, no holes in my ship lap needed!

 

[67CarGuy]

Looks great!

 

[Juiced06GTO]

Well, hanging strapping 12' up by yourself is not a fun project! Managed to get a few lengths put up last weekend. I also temp fed the panel in the barn so I could liven up some circuits and test out my rough wiring. I also threw up a recessed can to see what kind of light they gave out. The answer is not much!

I am doing a mix of the recessed and adding 6 to 8 LED low bays. I reached out to LEDLightingSupply, who happens to be based out of NH. They took the spec sheets for the recessed and the UFO's and ran a lighting analysis for me. I dealt with a guy named Charlie who was awesome. If anyone wants some help picking out lights I'd highly recommend you email him and he will set you up! He even offered to bring the lights home for me as he lives somewhat local! [email protected]. I'm going to run all the recessed on two 3 way dimmers and the UFO's will be on a 0-10v dimmer as well. All the lights will be set a 3k color temp, I can't stand 4 and 5K colors from LED!

I'll be back at it tonight to get some more strapping up and throw up some more of the recessed. The UFO's should be here sometime next week, then I can finally pull down the construction lights. Slow, but steady progress at least!

 

[Juiced06GTO]

Big weekend in the barn!! Made a ton of progress and getting another step closer to getting this thing wrapped up.

First off - got some more recessed lighting mounted on Friday night. Also, I found a Lutron Maestro dimmer that will handle up to 30 of these recessed, so my layout and plans changed a little. I'll have 20 recessed and 8 - 100w LED lowbays. The low bays will be on two 0-10v Leviton multi location dimmers and the recessed will be on a single Maestro multi location dimmer. I was going to go smart switches on everything, but itwas getting too difficult/expensive to find something to handle the wattages and hub requirements to make them all mesh together.



Since I have a giant pile of ship lap taking up the middle of the barn making it impossible to set up the baker staging to hang strapping, I decided to get all the ship lap on the walls where it belongs! My buddy came over on Saturday and helped me get the wainscoating done.



After he left I worked late into Saturday night to start the walls. Sunday I had expected to hit it hard again, but after taking my wifes car for a ride and realizing she has probably needed brakes for a few months, I started Sunday with a brake job on her Yukon. After that my buddy came back up and we hit it hard and got the rest of the wall done! Hopefully next weekend we can get the other three closed in and I can get the electrical boxes cut in and the rest of the strapping and lights hung.

 

[jbrentd]

Walls and wainscoting look great...keep up the good work!

 

[Maxcustody]

WOW, Barn looks great! You have done a ton of work. That in floor heat is nice, we have that in our house. We don't have any plans to finish ours on the inside, however that may change in the future. We are getting the ceiling spray foamed.

Looking forward to the updates.

 

[Notgrownup]

Very nice Juiced. I know you are happy. That insulation will be great up your way.

 

[JoshS]

Insulation and the walls looks awesome,good work. Really coming together

 

[Juiced06GTO]

Insulation and the walls looks awesome,good work. Really coming together

Josh if you decide to spray foam, let me know I'll pass on the guy that I used. They did a great job, and were very reasonably priced, well as reasonable as spray foam costs can be!

I'm heading back out there in a few hours hoping to get the other walls done. I took a break yesterday afternoon/night so I could wire up a kitchen for my buddy who is remodeling. It was not a fun project, whoever wired it last time really had no clue what they were doing, so it was a gut back to the feed and fish all new wires through the ceiling and walls. I'm still trying to pick the fiberglass bits out of my hands and arms....

Hopefully some new updates later today!! Thanks for the motivation guys!!

 

[Juiced06GTO]

Cooking with gas today!! We are down to needing to finish the last wall, where the garage door is and we'll be done! Still lots to do after that, but getting closer. I definitely reduced the pile of wood and made some room so I can get the rest of the strapping up!

 

[KBS 1957]

Juiced - what have you planned for the boards on your walls ?

They are beautiful . Maybe some oil, or stain ?

Just looks fabulous .

 

[KBS 1957]

Last fall , I put some very nice 3/4 plywood on the walls of my shop and I seriously came real close to just putting some clear timber frame oil on,

In the end , we sprayed it with a Slate Gray paint and then Delta rib above that .

Every once in a while , I walk in and think - should I have just oiled these walls ?

 

[Juiced06GTO]

I think I want to leave them as natural as possible, I haven't figured out what to coat them with if anything.

Anyone have any tips? Anyone have untreated eastern white pine up for a while indoors? I'm not sure how it will age, but I'd like to keep it looking as it does now.

 

[tj675]

I wrapped the steel posts in my shop with unfinished white pine a few years ago. They are a little darker, but look good in my opinion.

 

[67CarGuy]

I like the unfinished look, but I could see how a coat or two of stain would look nice to. If you're going to cover it with anything, probably better to do it now before it gets full of... stuff and access to each wall is difficult. Put down some plastic sheeting on the slab and break out the sprayer!

 

[Juiced06GTO]

I think I am leaving it natural, that is the plan anyway as of now. Got a few more boards hung last night and tied in my first electrical box!!

A keen eye will notice the snake up in the ceiling......someone forgot to run low voltage wires for the 0-10v dimmers on the low bay LED's.....

 

[jollygreengiant]

The shop is looking really sharp! I love how you finished your walls.

As for finishes, I would suggest something like a clear coat if you want to maintain the natural colour. If you just leave them bare they will eventually age and turn grey where they are exposed to sunlight.

 

[Juiced06GTO]

More updates!!

All the walls are done! I have one corner that for some reason didn't line up, so I need to go back and do some strategic trimming to make it look right. Other than that all the strapping is up, so this week after work I'll start picking away at the rest of the recessed lights and the UFO LED's. I was told the power company would be by this week to set the meter and tie in the lines at the pole.

It is also getting nice enough where I should be able to wash and stain the exterior here pretty soon! Stay tuned lots more to go!!!

 

[67CarGuy]

Those vertical boards are looking great on the inside! Makes the building look lived-in already, somehow. Warmer looking than drywall, too, and there's no need to paint it!

 

[jollygreengiant]

I agree. Drywall looks nice but there are other interior wall finishes that really look great in a shop. Looking forward to seeing your finished exterior!

 

[Juiced06GTO]

The umbilical cord to the house has been cut and my shop has officially been born!!! The POCO made the connections at the pole today and installed my meter, we have power!!!!

I'll have to get some pictures tomorrow, it is getting dark here and after the kiddos go to bed I'm heading out to coil up all the wires and start flipping on some breakers!!

 

[tj675]

Congrats!

 

[Kevkx125]

Awesome !!! Can't wait to see how you finish it out now.

 

[Juiced06GTO]

Welp, not a lot of work got done tonight, but I did drink beer......lol

 

[67CarGuy]

16 oz curls? That's gotta count for something, right?

 

[OOBER]

Progress looks awesome! Loving the walls, they came out great.

 

[Juiced06GTO]

I can't believe I haven't updated this since April! Lots has been done since then. Aside from the drywall on the ceiling the downstairs is done! I decided to wait on the drywall until costs come down as it isn't really needed right now anyhow. I moved all the extra ship lap upstairs and will slowly work on finishing that out. Meanwhile I have moved on to working in the barn a bit instead of on it. Pictures speak better than my words so I'll do a big photo dump here to show what has been done!

 

[Juiced06GTO]

Back in mid April I enlisted my helpers to get the interior walls done. They loved learning to use the tools and helping me out!


With the walls done and power finally up to the barn, I moved onto getting the construction lights down and putting in the recessed lights.


I had to add a fridge out there as there was lots of Bud Light consumed to keep me fueled up during this part of the project. Most work was done between 8pm and 2am after the kiddos went to bed. I get up for work between 5-530am so these were some rough days, but I had a goal to have it done by Memorial Day so we could hang out in there for our annual Memorial Day party!

 

[Juiced06GTO]

In the midst of finishing this out I became a bit of a traveling handyman, helping out a few buddies from work with projects they had going on in Rhode Island and up in NH. A buddy got in over his head with rewiring his kitchen so I spent a few nights over there reworking things that would have been way easier to do before he decided to install cabinets and drywall and all that fun stuff....

I ended up adding in 6 new recessed lights for him, two ceiling fans, and rewiring his range hood so that you didn't have to have the lights on for the hood to work...



Then we made a trip up to NH to strip an old deck, add on a new corner, and prep it to be re-decked with new trex decking and metal railings. As you can see the bud light followed us to NH too.....We had the whole deck stripped and that new section framed in about 20 beers between the three of us lol...I'm pretty sure it was square....

 

[Juiced06GTO]

Getting back to my project, it was time to tie in the 8 million electrical outlets I decided to install. Now this was probably a bit excessive, but let me tell you it has been handy already having an outlet around no matter where you are standing! Between cutting the ship lap and everything this was several long nights after work to get completed. I believe there is a total of 22 outlets spread between 7 different circuits with each 2 gang box an alternating circuit so no worries about ever overloading things plugged in near each other.

 

[Juiced06GTO]

Wrapping up the interior electrical for the first floor it was time to install the LED UFO Low Bays I got from LED Lighting Supply. Talk to Charlie there if ya need anything he was a great help! I added 6 of them to the 21 recessed cans.

The UFO's are 0-10v dimmed with multi location Leviton dimmers. So I can dim them at the entry door and at a switch over by the stairs. They are 15k lumens a piece and 3000k color and at full bright it looks like the sun in there so the dimmers are handy! The recessed are on Lutron Maestro dimmers also multi location dimmable at the door and stairs. I was doing to go smart switches but I didn't feel like dealing with hubs/apps/wireless signals and honestly finding them in black was an issue!

 

[Juiced06GTO]

So that wrapped up the first floor interior electrical, it was May 16th, so we were getting close to the big party on Saturday of Memorial Day weekend. Time to refuel and get back to work to get this done! More bud light was consumed........(this wasn't just by me, I'm not that much of a drunk!)



Now it was time to case out all the windows. Again much like the plugs I was lamenting my decision to put so many windows in! The great part was I was able to use a ton of the scrap and boards with defects in them to trim all the windows. I only cut down one full board to complete all of them and the door, which should leave me plenty to finish upstairs! It did make a bit of a mess though!