My Warehouse

[Muckin_Slusher]

I bought a few empty lots near my house with the intentions of building my shop there. After procrastinating for a few years, a warehouse on the same street as my house came up for sale. Bought it in 2016. Basically got it for the price of the land.

Warehouse outside dimensions are about 73x100 feet.

Originally had a 6 unit apartment building, which burned down 7 years ago. The workshop area is the basement from the apartments. I've got a nice 18x40 foot concrete driveway that used to be inside the apartments. The roof of the shop is a poured concrete floor, which was just torch downed over (and leaked bad).

Walls are a combination of 12 inch block and 11 inch poured concrete.

There is two sections to the warehouse. One is 41'x73' with 14 foot ceiling. 24 inch tall steel trusses span 41 feet and are 9 feet apart. There's steel decking on the trusses and torch down above.

The other section is I beam colums and beams with 2x6 wood on 12 inch centers. Wood decking and torch down above.

First pic shows apartments. Rest are what's left after the fire.

 

[Muckin_Slusher]

Backside laneway. The rear block wall does not support the trusses. It was pushed in from plowing the laneway. Previous owner blasted rebar through the blocks the poured about 3 foot thick conrete to secure the bottom of the wall. Been good so far, but someday I'll fix it better.

 

[Muckin_Slusher]

Interior pics from when I first took possesion. There's a second floor with a ramp. Able to get small boats up the ramp onto the floor. I just use it for golf cart and atv/s and snowmobiles.

 

[Muckin_Slusher]

This is the ramp. It's 16 feet long. The upper floor deck is 6.5 feet off the floor, and clears 6 feet underneith. Good for boats and cars under here.

 

[Muckin_Slusher]

This is the small work shop. This is the only remaining part of the original building. Walls are all poured concrete with a poured concrete ceiling supported on 20 inch tall I beams. Leaked bad in here, since the previous owner just put torch down on the floor to make a ceiling. Had some huge mushrooms growing on the OSB on the ceiling.

The little room behind the lazy boy was originally a stairwell. The landing where the stairs change direction is still there, again it's poured concrete. There will be stairs here again someday.

Through the doorway beside the lazy boy is the furnace room, three steps down. It's about 9x19 feet.

 

[Muckin_Slusher]

There's a 8x55 foot hallway behind the shop. Lots of storage here, All full of junk left behind. Some good, some trash.

 

[Muckin_Slusher]

Big glass sliding doors and record player/radio left behind.

 

[Unruh]

Wow! That is full of potential awesomeness! It looks like you have a lot of work ahead of you, but it’s cool that you are finding gems in some of that trash. Post some pics of your gems.

 

[930dreamer]

Lots of space and potential, where are you located?

 

[Muckin_Slusher]

Lots of space and potential, where are you located?

Added my location.

 

[Muckin_Slusher]

Done for the winter. 2700 square feet of covered roof (56x48 feet).

Gives me half that as useable floor space which will eventually probably be converted into an apartment. High half goes from 7.5ish feet up to 13 foot ceiling. Low half goes from 7.5ish feet down to 16 inches. This will be a nice area for furnace/water heater/closets etc.

 

[Pluribus]

Looks like a whole bunch of space, and you can hardly beat the location/proximity to your home without being on the same property.

I see that you used I-joists for rafters, and that they bear on the top plates. What kind of connections did you use at the wall ends? (I-joist to top plate)

 

[coljar]

That is very nice MS. My wife would probably say that it would be dangerous for me to have that much space.

 

[Muckin_Slusher]

Looks like a whole bunch of space, and you can hardly beat the location/proximity to your home without being on the same property.

I see that you used I-joists for rafters, and that they bear on the top plates. What kind of connections did you use at the wall ends? (I-joist to top plate)

There are two I-joists to span from eave to peak, each 26 feet long. At all bearing locations the double top plates have a wedge sitting on top (2x4 ripped to a 13.5 degree wedge).

This matches the pitch of the roof. Each I-joist got 2 nails through the bottom flange into these wedges. That's it. There's only 4 nails holding each I-joist.

Apparently you don't need any special brackets to resist sliding until 4:12 and up. This roof is a hair under 3:12.

 

[Bib Overalls]

How are you going to keep that monster of a building warm enough to work in the middle of a northern Canadian winter?

 

[Muckin_Slusher]

How are you going to keep that monster of a building warm enough to work in the middle of a northern Canadian winter?

With natural gas, naturally. The people that own this stuff will pay for it.




You can see a 200,000 BTU unit heater hanging at the top of this photo. I also have a house furnace heating my personal shop area, which is walled off from the rest of the warehouse, allowing me to keep a warmer temperature there. It also allows me to make a mess without contaminating the stored vehicles.