Above 1200 Sq/FT No existing workshop... Another 40x60 shop

[julesthegreat]

I've never had a proper workshop. After seeing a few buddies struggle with town boards and HOA groups I had always said I would buy a place with the buildings I want already on them. However once I saw the prices of places with existing shops I decided I was broke and building would be better.

Having grown up in the most northern part of NY state we had never had any heated indoor work area. Despite getting down to -30 degrees in the winter taking care of animals and fixing the tractor we just did it all out in the cold.

First job out of college was in Groton, CT. The house I eventually rented for 5 years the landlord had died and I commandeered the 6'x20' entry way to the main basement for my tools.

Next I moved to Marysville, WA rented a house with a detached 20x20 garage for the next 10 years.

I finally decided to move to Oklahoma and bought a "house" on 40 acres.

 

[john.k]

Big acres is good if you want to hunt or graze livestock ,but not so good when the neighbour wants half a fence repair cost ,or the agriculture board serves you with a noxious weed controll notice .

 

[julesthegreat]

Although I always rented in town I spent most of my spare time messing around in the garage. When I was looking for a place in Oklahoma I wanted land for future cattle and a house far from the road. My driveway is over a 1/4 mile long which to me is awesome.

I started looking for steel building contractors although I likely could have done a pole barn or post frame construction...

Through marketplace I found a guy that answered lots of questions and gave me costs for all different options and sizes.

I choose this location for the shop despite there being many trees in the way figuring I would have the shop corner 50 to 75 feet from the corner or the house. The other building is a "barn" not worth keeping.

 

[mrbill55]

The barn not worth keeping, is it metal or wood, if wood, post and beam?


Bill S.

 

[julesthegreat]

The barn not worth keeping, is it metal or wood, if wood, post and beam?


Bill S.

Not in my opinion, it's dirt floor very old and all rotten. All the garbage and filth doesn't help my opinion of it either.

 

[txvwnut]

The pics of that old barn don't look too bad. Cleaned out and up it might make a good tractor or implement shed.

 

[julesthegreat]

The move from WA to Oklahoma rally started last year. I wanted to help my Dad and brothers move some "stuff" from the old homestead in NY. I searched around and lined up to buy a trailer in Indiana on my way to NY. I had bought a used 2017 F150 with a 5.0L the year prior.

Having an enclosed trailer previously I didn't want this one getting dented up. Seeing the price of rock guards I didn't want to pay for one and welded this up from square tubing and installed riv-nuts to hold the mud flaps.

I actually used Autocad to locate the flaps so they would protect an 8.5 wide trailer from the bottom edge of the tires.

I had setup the trailer pickup for Saturday before Labor Day, planning to leave Thursday morning drive for two days and pickup Saturday morning. I lined this up a month early with the trailer people and they were ok with it. Tuesday afternoon I get an email saying they will be closed Saturday and just noticed my email from a month earlier. As I was planning to pack throughout the day Wednesday I suddenly had to drop everything and rush to pack and get ready to leave the next morning which was quite annoying and frustrating.






In Indiana, they just rolled the trailer out front and left it for me to hookup myself which wasn't a problem just a stark contrast to what WA does.

 

[julesthegreat]

The pics of that old barn don't look too bad. Cleaned out and up it might make a good tractor or implement shed.

I do agree that it looks nice enough in pictures. I cleaned out the open bays. The whole place had been abandoned for the last three years. Previous owners had thrown all the old carpet underlayment in there. I swear it was 50% rat **** and very disgusting!

 

[txvwnut]

I do agree that it looks nice enough in pictures. I cleaned out the open bays. The whole place had been abandoned for the last three years. Previous owners had thrown all the old carpet underlayment in there. I swear it was 50% rat **** and very disgusting!

I looked at place one time that had a pole barn that looked pretty much like yours, just random **** thrown in on a dirt floor. The smell of cat piss was indescribable. The house wasn't much better so I passed on the buy that day.

 

[julesthegreat]

I looked at place one time that had a pole barn that looked pretty much like yours, just random **** thrown in on a dirt floor. The smell of cat piss was indescribable. The house wasn't much better so I passed on the buy that day.

Sadly the house I bought did also have some "inhabitants" AND smelled awful, after some cleaning and killing 4 mice and a rat, it was acceptable enough for me.

This barn is also quite low, eaves are around 6 foot at the outer edge.

 

[julesthegreat]

I promise a shop eventually starts getting built.

My older brother and I loaded up and both drove from Ogdensburg, NY to Denison, TX.

Unloaded brothers ranger frame and his, 1952 F7 frame, the big flathead, 300lb power hacksaw, 200lb bench vise and various other **** then I drove that back to WA and started watching properties for sale in Oklahoma.

I chose a 20 foot 10k trailer which is the Mac the F150 can tow and probably about the limit for the poor little gas engine. Never had a diesel but I'm sure it's a more pleasant tow!

 

[julesthegreat]

Over the next six months I loaded the trailer to the max and then some. I sold my mill and my lathe. I had to move my shop stuff, two large safes and all sorts of tools, my 1955 F250, 1965 Comet 1978 mini project. I looked at buying a box truck and renting box trucks and all other options before my first trip to Oklahoma.



My buddy offered to store my trailer at his place so I left the trailer there. While working from his home we looked at all sorts of properties for a few weeks. I didn't want to get a storage locker so I drove back to WA with just the truck.

Looked at more trailers and box trucks but was worried about it breaking down and not being able to fix it. So I bought a second 10k 20 foot trailer and loaded it up again. After loading the second trailer it was obvious I had too much **** and would need more than two trips!



While in WA I found another place to look at and drove there overloaded again. F150 max combined it 16200 but the F150 did just fine. I had installed airbags which I find are a far better towing aid than the load distributing hitch.

 

[julesthegreat]

On this second trip I made my offer on the third place I found acceptable and it was accepted. 40 acres, 1900sqft house, a pond and someone else's oil well.

I had never dealt with real-estate before but it all seems like such a scam! First place I put an offer on was 54 acres with 3000sqft, daylight basement, 3 car garage and a shop with a very wonky floor. House was moldy and rotten, shop was pretty bad too. Can't believe I offered $525k but luckily they said no. Funny enough they are now trying to sell it for less lol.

Second place I put an offer on was in pretty rough shape too, 40 acres all cleared with the house up in a hill and a two car garage animals had broken in and been living in there. There was also a steep daughter out someone living in there. I offered too little and it sold for $240k but needed foundation work and a roof and all sorts of repairs. There was a shop with a cracked wonky floor and a decent horse barn.

I also offered 425k on a modern house with 3 car garage and no ship on 5 acres but luckily they said no too, not sure I could have afforded to build a shop after paying that much.

Bought the place in at now in June and started looking for shop contractors.

Although I said I would never return to NY or get a storage locker I unloaded both trailers into a storage locker and went to NY to help my Dad again.

Loaded up with almost a whole Allis Chalmers WC, my huge Lincoln welder, 3 phase transformers and other tractor and machine bits although I now owned a place I still parked this loaded trailer at my buddies place.

 

[julesthegreat]

After talking with my buddy who had built a couple pole barns I decided I needed a steel building and was only looking for the red iron type. After putting 20% down on the property I would have enough cash for a building.

Back in June before heading back to WA I met with a steel building guy. We looked at the woods(red) and the area on the other side(blue) although the blue site was fairly flat and likely would have been fine I choose to use the woods site and have the building 50 or 75 feet from the house corner.




Before leaving for WA, July 4th with family and making my final trip to OK, I started clearing the woods by cutting some branches of a big oak. The building guy said he could clear the site for $180 an hour but he only has a backhoe and it would not be able to pull the big oaks.

 

[julesthegreat]

Big acres is good if you want to hunt or graze livestock ,but not so good when the neighbour wants half a fence repair cost ,or the agriculture board serves you with a noxious weed controll notice .

I do eventually want to have cattle but also like the privacy of the large area, most of the fences need to be repaired but they commonly do 4 or 5 barbed wire fences here. I will make some drill stem and sucker rod fence in places eventually! I don't know that Oklahoma has such a board?

 

[john.k]

Wow $180/hr for a backhoe ....thats insane .

 

[julesthegreat]

Wow $180/hr for a backhoe ....thats insane .

Yes, I was initially thinking I could start clearing everything and trimming the branches so there would be only a trunk left to remove and it would save me money...

 

[julesthegreat]

Before I left for my last trip to WA I only had 4 rolling racks of "stuff" that weighed 2700lbs my 1965 Comet and my 1955 F250.

I wanted to only have the two vehicles and was thinking I could fly back and drive the truck towing the car(I had already covinced my brother of this so he changed his flight to fly out of OKC after our 4th of July family vacation) but the racks were too much and the bed of the truck was already full.

Another consideration was flying back and taking a Uhaul with the racks towing the Comet and my brother driving the F250. When you look at the price of Uhauls and trailers, add in a flight it was so much more expensive than just driving my truck and one of my trailers back again this was the plan chosen.

This was from 2017 when I towed the Comet over the mountain from Eastern WA.

 

[julesthegreat]

After back and forth in different sizes and reading on here I decided I could only afford a 40x60x14 steel building with 6 inch concrete with two 12x12 doors something like this.

 

[loganb]

Looking forward to following along!

 

[julesthegreat]

After the family time in Washington we headed back to Oklahoma. My older brother drove the 55 in over hundred degree heat both days! Shockingly the only problem we had was in the mountain pass between WA and OR the red truck overheated due to splitting a fitting in the heater hose. We used the 55 to drive back down 10 miles to get a plastic Tee and hose clamps. Red truck continuing to spike temperature in the hills likely due to the heat! I had to show down compared to what I had done on my other two trips.



Made it over 2000 miles in two days with no other major problems.

 

[littlebean]

this sounds (reads) like it's going to be great

 

[julesthegreat]

Looking forward to following along!

this sounds (reads) like it's going to be great

Thanks!

 

[julesthegreat]

I have all sorts of big plans for this property and wanted a backhoe anyways so I figured I could do alot myself. I had been looking at backhoes on marketplace for almost a year so I had a general idea of the sale price( I hesitate to say "value").

Around mid July I saw a New Holland 555E about three hours away thinking worst case I could drive it home. I went and looked at it, the owner wasn't there as he was seeking the property and the key was just there. Thing fired right up and everything seemed to work. Almost all the old Ford 555 backhoes sell for Around 15000.

At the same time I finalize the contract for the building, signed it and sent it back.

On the 23rd of July I sent a $23,000 down payment for the building and wired $16,000 to the backhoe guy.

On the 24th of July the job I was working got terminated and I got furloughed lol. Perfect timing!

 

[julesthegreat]

By the end of the week as a jobless bum I had lined up a hot shot driver through a broker we had used before to bring things from NY. For $600 I got the backhoe delivered home. The driver was very patient and it took us a while to get it started. When I went there to look at it the guy says to bring pliers cause the key was broken off. I couldn't get it to crank and neither could the driver. After trying to turn the broken off key many times my fingers were sore so I crammed the key stud in the frame and turned the dangling switch. It fired right up, the driver noted that I was able to put more force on it that way which made sense!

Backhoe weighs 16,000lbs so he has an impressive rig.



Got it home next to the trees/ forest it needs to remove!

 

[julesthegreat]

With the backhoe on hand I started ripping all the trees out of the ground. Anything 10 to 12 inches and smaller I was able to pull without digging. Ripped the 3/8 lifting chain in half a few times too.

 

[jollygreengiant]

I think I'll need to follow this one to see what you do with the new property!

 

[julesthegreat]

Over the next week we had several failures.

Closed the door and the little gas shock punched out the window.


I think I drove over a stump and crushed one of the hydraulic oil cooling lines that runs under the machine.



The worst one was blowing the end out of the dipper cylinder then bending the end of the tube lol.



The day after replacing the dipper cylinder with a used one I blew the main hydraulic line that feeds the backhoe control valve. I thought I wasn't going to have any problems so I didn't even clear the under brush before I started digging and had to clear it just to crawl under the machine lol.

 

[julesthegreat]

I was able to find a new window for $140 delivered, so that was nice.


The oil cooling line was around $300 which I ordered online but I temp patched it to a slow drip as well with silicone self fusing tape and a hose clamp.


The replacement cylinder was from a New Holland dealer in Arkansas, being furloughed I was free to drive there and pay $2500 or something like that for it sadly. While there I bought some premium hydraulic fluid to refill.
I used my truck to pull the arm out.


The new hydraulic line was made in OKC (Oklahoma City) for around $150 or so. I lost 8 gallons of fluid when the line blew, I felt the premium hydraulic fluid would look the same as the cheap stuff on the ground and started buying the cheap stuff from Atwoods.

 

[julesthegreat]

While working on clearing the woods I also needed my tools to maintain and fix the backhoe as I kept breaking things. A previous owner had built an attached porch or maybe enclosed an old porch on the back of the house.

The critters, rats nice and others had kindly marked the carpet in the attached porch for me. Dragged it out, sprayed bleach almost everywhere and started loading things from the locker.

 

[julesthegreat]

This huge oak tree was in the way, too bad or wasn't somewhere else on the property. I was not cutting the branches from the ladder, I was using the ladder to get up onto the bucket and cutting from up there, which honestly wasn't much safer. I tried standing on the top/back flat of the bucket like in this pic and standing in the bucket, neither really felt too safe honestly but it was all done with no injuries to me!



5 gallon bucket for scale of branches


My only chainsaw is this little 019T I got from a buddy in WA and fixed up years ago.



I unfortunately don't have any pictures of the big tree trunk after I limbed it. It was too heavy to pick up with the trunk and root ball so I had to cut them in half. Anything too big to lift I chained away. some of the branches I was able to scoop with the bucket edge forks.


After dropping the trees I used the bucket edge forks on the back and would stack all the branches up by hand

 

[julesthegreat]

By the end of August I had most of the area clear for where I wanted the shop so I started digging a hole to bring fill in.



I made this huge pile and thought this would do quite alot of filling at the site, boy was I wrong. I was shocked at how little a huge pile can raise an area.

 

[julesthegreat]

While digging the hole one of the pin end clips popped off and the H link got bent!

I was able to fit the porta power in there and straighten it back out. Then questionably welded the washer on because the clip was missing and I needed to get the site ready for the building guy.





I back dragged the site to pull the high side down to the low side a bit before starting the major fill. August 28th



Over the next two days I was able to move a huge amount of material. I would use the bucket of course to move up from the pit dump while rolling back, then grade it out and roll down each bucket load. August 30th.

 

[julesthegreat]

I continued to bring over more fill over the next two weeks and got a load of crusher run gravel delivered In the building site which was a bad idea. Next time I would get it dropped outside of the building site...

Here is the overall layout.


I laid out the bathroom and put all the plumbing together wrong but it should be fine.




Got this started in the ground, too deep really but should be fine.

Then I decided I needed to run the septic pipe to the corner closest to the house. I figured this would be hard to do one the concrete and or building was in place. This septic line goes to the north end of the house.



I also decided to trench in the electric and water around 5 feet away from the foundation so there would be room to dig after the pad was in but had to wait a few weeks for the ground to firm up after all the rain. The conduits run at about a 28 degree angle leaving the building. 3" conduit for electric, 2" for misc or more electric maybe 3 phase. And water all going to the south side of the house. It was now Sept 30th.



Here are the ends of the conduits before a buried them so the building guy and concrete trucks wouldn't have a hole to avoid.



There were chunks of concrete everywhere in the woods, because I needed to fill between two to three feet at one end of the building I broke this up and laid it at the bottom before starting all the red fill.

 

[julesthegreat]

End of September and some of the steel was delivered. The building site was inspected and they were surprised I was within an inch with just using a bubble level. I would have bought a laser level but I was still furloughed and trying not to spend money.

 

[julesthegreat]

With the build site mostly ready I felt I could relax and work on some other things instead for a bit instead of knocking trees down or digging and moving dirt.




Not all in the correct time order but around the first week of October I was focusing on emptying the storage locker. Shoveled out all the old rat droppings from the "barn". Found these pretty rough concrete slabs down in the woods to set things on.



Got all my paints and chemicals from in the locker in place.



organized some junk and set up my work bench a little better.


made some aluminum mounts to attach two LED lights to each mounting point.






Got the compressor and reel mounted up in the attached porch. Tool boxes, bolt trays and set up the shelving to maximize space and save $250 a month on the locker fees but really because you can't do anything without all your tools and supplies if you are used to having things available!

 

[julesthegreat]

Also picked up this 100 gallon diesel tank with the top broken off. Filled it with water and welded it back together. The pickup had also fell out and the guy had re-threaded the pump pickup to a pipe thread so I cut those off and welded them together.


I found a place online that sells used backhoe parts, the guy said he would sell me a air conditioner mounting bracket, third function loader valve with the control stick, all the linkages, and all the lines up to the loader bucket for around $1500. I was suspicious because I noticed he would reply to messages late at night. Then he sent me the pay system and it was based in Nigeria so I had to search harder. I found a place in Louisiana that specializes in parting out old for backhoes. I used Google maps to look at their address, there were backhoe parts all over the ground so it seemed legit. The most surprising part maybe is that the first scammers price was about the same lol. Here is the valve and piping on a pallet at their facility.


Sadly the hoses and hard lines they sold me were the older one piece design and I didn't really know so I had to get the braze on fitting ends to convert the hard lines to use replaceable hoses. These are the same ORFS O-Ring Face Seal or something like that. I tig welded two on and sort of tig brazed two on lol.


Here are the hard lines installed. I installed the lines up to the underside of the cab but still needed to use the bucket so I didn't crawl under to install the third function valve body yet. 1/2" flat face disconnects.



The bucket edge had been loose and flopping around for the last few months so I also cut off the old bolts, turned the edge around and bolted it back on.



Nice new bolts and new edge. the other side isn't that worn honestly.


The fuel gauge also wasn't working so I pulled it to find the sender wire had de-laminated. A new sending unit was $250 or more can't recall so I soldered this one back together. I tried to find an aftermarket one as well but it seemed to be an odd European resistance/ohmage.

The gauge still didn't work and upon further probing I found just that one wire was broken in the main bundle running behind the missing heater control panel, what are the odds?

 

[julesthegreat]

Second week of October and they started prepping the forms and finish leveling the site. I didn't have enough gravel so I just dug out more red dirt/ clay.


With the forms in place and level I cut the plumbing to the elevation I desired. I didn't want the pipes poking up, thinking the concrete would be smoother or more level with the pipes flush? I cut the pipes back so a coupling would be flush or below flush with the top. I put some cardboard discs and ring in there and filled it with spray foam to make a plug. On the toilet flange I glued and clamped some thin styrofoam in the cavity so it wouldn't fill with concrete.

 

[julesthegreat]

The following Monday on October 14th I went to pick up a Rockwell sander and shaper. I got back just as the concrete crew was coming up my driveway.



Concrete has arrived.

Got sprinklers set up to keep it wet while it cured for the next month.





They weren't planning to cut it so I rented a saw from home depot. Cut the pad on 10 foot spacing. The nut came off the saw while cutting so I had to re-install and tighten that. Otherwise it was OK. Builder said he would be back in a month or so to start.

 

[julesthegreat]

Over the next month while the concrete cured. I cleared some more trees and dug the trenches one for septic to the north side of the house and one for the two conduits and water to the south side of the house.

I had taken tape measure pictures of the conduit and water locations before burying them prior to concrete. I got lucky on digging them up again.

I set the piles off to the side just enough so I could drive the backhoe to the other end if need be. This made it a pain to fill back in but seems like a good idea.



I was planning to use 1" black poly but the pex was cheaper. I didn't realize 1" pex had a smaller ID than the 1" poly but it should be fine anyways. While in the ground here I ran a Tee off to the corner of a planned patio and hydrant.


180 feet of conduit and pex


With rain coming I filled in the trench up to the future meter rack location over by the existing power pole south of the house. I wrapped the pipe joints with 2" wide vinyl tape and put pipe caps on top keep the water out, hopefully.


Almost all these trees are coming down. The one in front of the backhoe and the three behind it. The one behind the steel pile all the way to the left will stay.

Time line on pictures is out but here you can see downed trees and pex pipe poking up.