Indy Garage Renovation

[traumadoc2b]

Well, we've finally moved into our house just outside Indianapolis. It has an attached 2-car garage (for the cars), and a detached 2-car garage. I just picked up a solid used 1996 Toyota Tacoma 5-speed to use for hauling lumber, parts, junk, yard sale finds, etc. Of course, also for teaching my soon to be 15 year old how to drive.

The truck will be parked in the detached 'shop' side along with the trash cans, but other than that the space will be devoted entirely to my tools and work space. It's currently insulated and covered in peg board, which I hate. Not only is it dark, but personally I think peg board is cheap looking. I plan to pull it all down and put up sheetrock. Not sure yet if I'll do the ceiling in drywall or just leave the joists exposed.

The electrical is a mess, which I plan to replace with a new 200-amp main panel and new wiring throughout the garage. Not sure yet exactly on plans for lighting, although I've been looking at some of the threads and think I will go with some combination of Edison fixtures with LED bulbs and a few fluorescent tube fixtures. I'm also going to run a couple of 220's for a welder and future use, as well as my IR 80-gal air compressor.

I replaced the rickety wooden attic ladder with a new aluminum one I picked up at Menard's. The attic space will be outfitted with shelves for storage of miscellaneous parts, bolts, fasteners, etc.

I built the work bench using PT 4x4's and a used solid core door. I will probably build another like it, but plan to cover the door/top of that one with some sheet metal for durability. Any suggestions for where to find the sheet metal in Indy?

I'm thinking about leaving the floor as-is for concern about welding in there. I don't want to epoxy the floor and then have it get all messed up from flying slag. Does anyone have any other suggestions? Will probably get more rubber mats to put in front of the benches.

The 41" MasterForce tool chest was a gift from my wife and kids. For the money, it's pretty sturdy and I'm happy so far. I kind of even like the green.

Here are a couple more photos of it's current state. Any suggestions before I get going much farther are greatly appreciated. Looking forward to making some progress and having a useable and enjoyable space.

 

[Lawson4450]

Looks good I lived in Indy for years my mom and sister still live there.

 

[94SRUNNER]

Great looking garage!

Whats specs on your attic?

 

[traumadoc2b]

It's about 19' x 23'. I can stand up and just about touch the roof from under the ridge. There is some bracing up there though, so the floor has a couple of obstructions. I'll just need to be creative in where I put my shelves.

Another issue is the humidity here. There isn't a vent in the roof, nor the soffits, yet the walls and roof are insulated. The wood windows in the attic are rotting out and they constantly have condensation on the glass. I may need to put in some sort of vent or fan, at least that I can open up to move some air through in the summer.

 

[sean Buick 76]

I suggest you just pressure wash the floor and then use a " clear sealer"... That is what I did and I am happy with it... That way there less soaking in when there is an oil spill and it it is easier to clean up.

 

[dubber]

Sweet score. That garage design looks killer.

 

[sean Buick 76]

Lots of room for work benches and shelving in those garages!! The Toyota truck should be a solid investment!

 

[yucholian]

Dude, I've been in your house early this year, no joke.
We moved to Indy from PA and were looking at houses and one of them was your house.
Congrats.

 

[traumadoc2b]

Does anyone have any feedback on the Central Pneumatic retractable air hose reel from HFT? I just got a new ad with a coupon for the 3/8" x 50' reel w/ hose for $69 (reg $129).

http://www.harborfreight.com/50-ft-...ose-reel-with-3-8-eighth-inch-hose-93897.html

 

[RickP]

Does anyone have any feedback on the Central Pneumatic retractable air hose reel from HFT? I just got a new ad with a coupon for the 3/8" x 50' reel w/ hose for $69 (reg $129).

http://www.harborfreight.com/50-ft-...ose-reel-with-3-8-eighth-inch-hose-93897.html

Here's some feedback from the HF pass/fail thread: (Post #4315)

Update: 1 year of light duty homeowner use and mine is busted. Worked well until that point. Now it retracts, gets about 15 feet of hose left on it and will not reel it in anymore. I've not yet taken it apart to see if there is a spring-type deal that can be repaired.

Your new garage looks like it's got a lot of potential. Have fun with the build-out!

- Rick

 

[pitterpat]

Another issue is the humidity here. There isn't a vent in the roof, nor the soffits, yet the walls and roof are insulated. The wood windows in the attic are rotting out and they constantly have condensation on the glass. I may need to put in some sort of vent or fan, at least that I can open up to move some air through in the summer.

Welcome to Indy, nice place you have there.

LOL, if you think the humidity was bad this summer you haven't seen nothing yet. It was very mild. There probably are no vents in the ceiling of that garage.

As far a sheet metal, there is a place on Post Rd called Metal Supermarket, http://metalsupermarkets.com/indianapolis-east/ it's just N of 30th st on the west side of the street. I've never used them but they look ok. Or there is a place on 25th St. near the Monon Trail, across from the salvage yard, on the S. side of the street, probably cheaper but it is in the 'hood.

If I can help you with anything else just PM me or email, I've lived in Indy for 30 years and if I don't know where to get it I'm sure I know somebody that does. Want that garage drywalled....I know a great guy that can do it.

 

[traumadoc2b]

Time for a few updates. Here is the old and new attic ladders - I replaced the rickety old wooden ones that were in both the attached garage and in the shop. Best price I could find is at Menards, on a Keller aluminum ladder, which actually looks like it's made by Werner when you look at the packaging and instructions.

Now that I can safely get up and down from the attic, here are some more photos. I'm still trying to figure out how I want to organize and build the shelving up there. Need to replace the windows too.

There is a diagonal support from the rafters down to the ceiling joists. I'm wondering if this was just left in place - a temporary support for when the framing was going up. I can't quite figure out how it is structural and am thinking about removing it, to free up space. Any thoughts?

Same thing with the 2x6 turned on it's side. I think that was just placed there to protect the wiring in attic - will probably plan to remove that too.

The insulation is falling down in the attic too. The paper is ripped in many places where it was stapled. Any suggestions for how to get it back in place? I could jerry rig something, but I'm hoping someone will have a better idea than I might otherwise come up with. A fair amount of the insulation has signs of mildew on it too. Not sure with the humidity, unless I figure out a good solution, what I can do about that.

Last issue (for now, of course), is the landscape lights along the driveway. Anyone seen these before and know where I might find spare parts and globes?

 

[theoldwizard1]

The insulation is falling down in the attic too. The paper is ripped in many places where it was stapled. Any suggestions for how to get it back in place?

Insulation scrim. It looks like very loosely woven cloth or window screening, but is designed just for this purpose (holding insulation in place). Comes in a roll.

Probably a multi-person jobs. One holding, one stapling. To start, rip about a 1/2' strip off of a 2x4 (make multiple rips until you get a clean solid piece) or use a 1x2. Wrap the end of the scrim completely around the piece of wood and nail to the edge of the rafter. Use box nails (short, thin shank, standard head) or pneumatic stapler with proper length staples to hold that piece. Stretch over the insulation and the uses a hammer stapler at each rafter edge.

Ever 3-3 rafters, I would put another piece of wood, but you do not have to wrap the scrim around it.

 

[madoc1]

nice set up you have. on hf hose reel, I have had one for about 8 years of light use and no probs.

jim

 

[Jetfixr320]

http://www.warnersteel.com/

This is where I get my steel. Nice people and good prices. They also sell drops and will let you dig around for what you need.

Steve

 

[jwhcars]

I would want to figure out what is causing all of those water stains on the floor.
Check that you have proper ventilation, if not perhaps this is causing your mildew problem.
Check with a electrical supply store for replacement parts for your lights.

 

[WarnerSteel]

http://www.warnersteel.com/

This is where I get my steel. Nice people and good prices. They also sell drops and will let you dig around for what you need.

Steve

Thanks for passing our company info along.

traumadoc2b: If you need anything, don't hesitate to contact us.


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[RickP]

I'm not sure if that diagonal brace in the attic is still needed, but it looks like either the builder or owner went to the trouble to install the floor boards around it. Maybe they felt the rafter size/spacing wasn't enough to prevent racking with the height of that end wall? If you'd like to remove the brace and still want to do something to prevent racking, you could build a knee wall a few feet on each side of the window and tie it into the end wall. It could be part of your shelving system, but structurally tied into the rafters and end wall.

If you remove the 2x6 protecting the wire, are you planning to relocate the wire or use conduit for it? Is that 2x6 supporting anything on the roof or is it tied into anything structurally? I see a dormer on the side of your garage where the pedestrian door is located -- is the dormer roof tied into that 2x6 by any chance?

 

[brum]

^ Right down the road from my work. Nice to know that.

Looks like a nice garage build! Keep it updated with lots of pics!

 

[traumadoc2b]

nice set up you have. on hf hose reel, I have had one for about 8 years of light use and no probs.

Great Jim, I'll be sure to pick one up before the coupon expires.

http://www.warnersteel.com/

This is where I get my steel. Nice people and good prices. They also sell drops and will let you dig around for what you need.

Thanks Steve, I emailed them and will probably get my bench top from Warner. Any recommendations on thickness? I'm thinking about 1/8" maybe, mounted onto a solid core door as the bench top.

I would want to figure out what is causing all of those water stains on the floor.
Check that you have proper ventilation, if not perhaps this is causing your mildew problem.
Check with a electrical supply store for replacement parts for your lights.

The water stains are from a leak around the flue where there is no flashing - will need to be fixed. There is no ventilation, so perhaps that's the big problem. Will need to figure out about installing a vent, although I don't think a hat vent, etc will be enough. I will still need something low, like an soffit vent for air intake and to allow for cross ventilation, no?

As far as the lights go, those are long fluorescent bulbs and the ballasts look old. I think I'm just going to replace them with a few 4' fluorescents and several cheap edison porcelain fixtures with LED bulbs.

I'm not sure if that diagonal brace in the attic is still needed, but it looks like either the builder or owner went to the trouble to install the floor boards around it. Maybe they felt the rafter size/spacing wasn't enough to prevent racking with the height of that end wall? If you'd like to remove the brace and still want to do something to prevent racking, you could build a knee wall a few feet on each side of the window and tie it into the end wall. It could be part of your shelving system, but structurally tied into the rafters and end wall.

If you remove the 2x6 protecting the wire, are you planning to relocate the wire or use conduit for it? Is that 2x6 supporting anything on the roof or is it tied into anything structurally? I see a dormer on the side of your garage where the pedestrian door is located -- is the dormer roof tied into that 2x6 by any chance?

I have trouble believing that it's really structurally integral. It is pretty flimsy when you push on it. The floor boards may have been added after the fact, I'm thinking, or the builder was too lazy to remove the diagonal support when installing them. I do like the knee wall/shelving idea though. We'll see when I start working on it.

The 2x6 does protect the wiring, but I'm rewiring the shop, so I can run the wires somewhere else, probably through/along the joists and under the floor boards. The 2x6 doesn't seem to tie into anything on either end.

Looks like a nice garage build! Keep it updated with lots of pics!

Will do. Just finished the first phase of my electrical upgrade to 320 amp service with parallel 200 amp mains for the house and shop. Check out the thread: http://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=262440

 

[traumadoc2b]

Last night I found out why the shop smells so bad. It was clearly the musty smell of moisture and mildew/mold, but I thought it was pretty strong to just be coming from what's on the surface of the insulation in the attic.

The side of the shop has a shed that's accessible from outside, but not inside. The floor of the shed is raised about 2-3' above the floor of the garage and it's completely contained within the structure and exterior walls of the shop. That means there's an alcove area below the floor of the shed, within the shop (see photos below).

This area was covered in fiberglass and foil sheets of insulation, with some plywood underneath. This area, under the shed and thus under the attached outside deck, was the only thing separating this damp, dark area from the inside of the shop. No pressure treated wood, no moisture barrier, no exterior sheathing. Ugh.

I think I'm going to rip this all out, fabricate some sections of knee wall that will fit, attach a moisture barrier and exterior sheathing to them, slide them into place, and nail them to the surrounding wood with concrete fasteners through a pressure treated 2x4 bottom plate. Then I can insulate the stud cavity and sheath the inside with green board.

I also need to figure out where those electrical cables are coming from/going to and clean that up. What a mess.

 

[traumadoc2b]

Just a small update since I've haven't posted for months. The winter put a damper on work (at least around the house and shop), but I'm getting back at it now.

Below are some photos from the holidays, including our Thanksgiving turkey, done on the Weber over charcoal as always, and a pic of my wife and I with Coach Ditka at his place in Chicago - I was there for a business meeting and we had the chance to catch his radio show. There are also some photos of our Krups coffee pot that I rebuilt this winter - replaced the control board and heating element, which was leaking. The metal sculpture was made by a student at IUPUI (Indiana Univ-Purdue Univ at Indianapolis) out of metal car and motorcycle parts. I was able to identify most of them, at least what they were not necessarily what model car they came from.

But back to actual work... Here's some photos of the rotted out exterior wall that's just below the tool shed, which is accessed from the raised deck, but is under the roof and within the detached garage/shop.

This photo was taken after removing the rotted plywood, which didn't have any exterior sheathing, insulation, vapor barrier... nothing. If you look closely at the 2x4 cripple studs, you can see that the bottom several inches of them have just rotted away and the bottom was bathed in wet dirt. The bricks you see are under the raised deck and the weight bearing member above the 2x4s is the joist that supports the tool shed.

This shows rotted wood that's 'supporting' the deck. Surprised it hasn't fallen apart yet. That's another project to add to the list.

This is after cleaning up rotted wood. I don't know what they were thinking with the NM cable there. It's just running from the house out to the shop, just through a hole in the plywood 'wall' that was there before. Crazy. Working on fixing all of that.

Here's the cinder block base I built. The concrete blocks should keep all of the wood from coming into contact with any soil or constant moisture. I installed a total of 4 anchor bolts and filled all of the block with concrete. There is a foam gasket between the blocks and the PT 2x6 base plate. You can see the framing I'm working on too, in order to support that joist, and the OSB sheathing that I put up. I'll need to finish the exterior of it once I rip out the deck and can get to the other side. The other PT lumber you see there is the temporary supports for the floor joists above.