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Looking for ideas for a possible future shop

Old School

Active member
Joined
Jan 1, 2008
Messages
33
Location
The Netherlands
Hi,

First post here after lurking for several years.

Looking at buying a place to continue with my hobby: '71 Camaro and fixing automatic transmissions and rear ends.

The place I'm looking at is 32.5 x 32.5 feet and 10,8 feet high.

Have all the usual garage/shop equipment (except a lift yet) and some more like automatic parts washer and a lift table.

Looking to create a 'clean' and 'dirty' area for working on transmissions. Interested in your ideas for the most logical lay out and other ideas, location for the compressor and air line routing and placement of other stuff as shop press, drill press, metal brake and 11.5 feet storage shelfs.

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Bessy

Well-known member
Joined
Dec 18, 2012
Messages
995
Location
Ontario, Canada
Lots to consider that you have not provided information for. Location is good to know for building codes, environmental/safety factors, pricing, etc, but I will weigh in with a few basics that you can consider in the mean time.

Size:
To start off, your measurements should be figured out in increments of 4 or 8 feet to reduce wastage (and cost) of the overall build, so 32x32. Square's yeild more surface area than rectangles if I learned anything in elementary school math, so that's something to keep in mind. You'll lose likely a 6" perimeter when you factor in wall thickness, so your usable space will be at about 31x31.

Lift:
If you are looking at a possible lift in your future plans, you're going to want tall ceilings which can be achieved in a couple of ways, either by having taller walls or scissor trusses (which allow for slightly shorter sidewalls).

Activities/Needs:
Clean/Dirty sides are a possibility, but that totally depends on the layout you choose to go with. It might be worth framing in a doorway into one of the external side or rear walls during construction so that if you choose to expand in the future, you can add a bumpout to house tools/parts/dirty work area/storage/etc.

If you desire a clean work area, it might be worth it to look into some style of industrial curtain rather than framing in a specific dividing wall. Interior walls are great for storage and tool location considerations, as they give you more attachment points and what not for hanging cabinets and lining with tools, but they come at the price of being pretty well permanent. Personally, permanence is not something I favour in a shop layout.

Air/Water considerations
Depending on your climate and temperature fluctuation you can "cheat" in a way by adding on an outdoor compressor room to keep the noise and floor space out of the main shop. You just have to route your air in from outside and put up a small lean-to off the side or back of the shop.

Run a line down the center of the ceiling of your main work area that at minimum contains air and electrical such that you can mount drop reels for air and electrical or lighting, possibly have a line (air and water) go to your roll up doors for outdoor air in the event that it might be useful (flat tire in the driveway or blowing out the lawnmower type stuff), and air drops along your bench.

Electrical/Services:
Preplan for a loop of wire every four feet or so, four feet up the wall. You don't necessarily have to put in an outlet every four feet but if you run wire to do so before you close up the walls, it's there if you ever want to change something. Plan your electrical layout with the future in mind, and take care to consider your lift placement, type and locations of garage door openers (jackshaft vs standard) and toss a few outlets in the ceiling for drop lights or cords (middle and or near door openings), and in near relation to your door openings if you plan to jackshaft openers.

Don't forget to document the build process and create a specific thread for that where we can follow along and provide advice/ideas/answer questions.

Cheers,
 
OP
O

Old School

Active member
Joined
Jan 1, 2008
Messages
33
Location
The Netherlands
Sorry for being not clear. It's an existing building I want to buy. Tryied to link some pics, but it didn't work. Looking for ideas how to organize the space.
 

Bessy

Well-known member
Joined
Dec 18, 2012
Messages
995
Location
Ontario, Canada
Ah, gotcha. I'm still not seeing pics unfortunately. Trying Tapatalk and still no luck seeing pics. Where are you hosting your images?

Sent from my Pixel using Tapatalk
 

firebirdparts

Well-known member
Joined
Jun 8, 2016
Messages
10,653
Location
Kingsport, TN
I have a shop that is square like that, but I have two doors, one on each side. I can split my shop clean on one side and dirty on the other, and the lift on the dirty side, but if you're not painting, your "clean" is not all that clean.

With the single door, your main problem is getting cars to a point in the shop where you want to work, assuming you have some interest in using the whole building.

With 30 feet in length you have plenty of room for your tools in the back of the shop.

Your picture links are actually pointing to a web site. So I looked at the pictures, but to do that, I had to look at the properties of your "pictures" and see what they were actually pointing to.
 
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