Above 1200 Sq/FT Texas work shop

[jbrentd]

Nice job so far! I bet that fan helps out a lot until you can do the insulation. I ran into similar issues with concrete companies (and other trades) either not showing up or even calling back when I first looked into contracting my shop myself.

 

[Jayman17]

The older I get the less I like getting up on a ladder. Sounds like you had a bad experience with that fall. I’ll bet you are glad to be out of the wheelchair.

Jay

 

[chad215]

The older I get the less I like getting up on a ladder. Sounds like you had a bad experience with that fall. I’ll bet you are glad to be out of the wheelchair.

Jay

I sure am! And to top it off, I got hurt when my wife was 7 months pregnant. A few months later that poor woman had 2 babies to take care of because I was pretty much worthless between all the the surgeries and meds.

 

[DeeDubz]

Would you recommend that fan? Im thinking about doing that to my garage.

 

[chad215]

Would you recommend that fan? Im thinking about doing that to my garage.

I bought from amazon- it's supposed to be ~4200CFM. It seems to be balanced well and no where near as noisy as my 36" pedestal fan.
The louvers rattle a bit but I need to climb back up and see if I can deaden it a bit. Overall I'm very happy with it, but I've only ran it a couple of hours so far. So far I'm happy with it.

This is what I got

 

[chad215]

Also- I mounted mine up around 14' and I have those big overhangs so I'm not worried about water blowing in

 

[ybnormal]

I know you want to put solar on the roof, but what about installing a "fake roof" in 8'x8' (or pick your size) sections about 12" elevated above the roof? that prevents the sun from hitting the roof and heating it up, also provides a mounting platform for your solar panels and space underneath to run the wiring when you do install it, and allows for ventilation. I know that's what our friends out in west Texas did with their doublewide, just built an RV roof shelter over it with no side panels. they told me it cut their a/c bill in half

 

[chad215]

I'm not sure where i mentioned I'd be using solar. My heavy woodworking tools will pull more power than I could ever economically store.
I do plan on installing a harbor freight solar kit on my generator shed to power a light duty 12v water pump and have some lights out there.

 

[chad215]

Work has been keeping me pretty busy so I haven't been able to get as much done. Finished my ceiling joists and got most of the decking down. Still need some trimming but it was getting hot and I was tired. I have to be careful working myself too hard out there, especially since I have an hour and half drive to make when the day is done.

 

[chad215]

Also spread a little more rock to help when I’m back my 18’ trailer in. I needed a little more room out front to help straightening up without going in the mud so much

 

[chad215]

I don't know how everyone else does this stuff by themselves, but I made a little tool to help snug up the deck sheets by myself. The pink stud in the above pic with the little stub on both sides allowed me to catch the ends of the sheets and knock them in with my mallet. Same concept as the tool (I don't know what its called) used when installing flooring.

 

[chad215]

Need to build some guard rails up there, but I'm pretty happy with it. I've now got an extra ~250sqft for storage. I bought some radiant barrier sheeting I'll run from the eave struts along the purlins to help keep some of the heat knocked down. With the overhangs I have, the upper walls pretty much stay in the shade.

 

[chad215]

Not a lot to add this week- It was ~105F inside the shop with ~60% humidty in the middle of the day this weekend (gotta love south east TX!) Bought all my PEX supplies to run my supply lines and dropped them off but it was just too hot for me to get into all that so I just cut a few acres of grass in the pasture.
The BIG NEWS is that I met with the power co and staked out the location of my poles for electricity! I've been working off of generator power for over a year so this is huge to me. It's not too bad since I'm only going to be running ~ 600ft. Now to sign some papers and see how long till they can get out there and do the actual work. I'm super excited to not have to listen to that generator all the time.

 

[jbrentd]

That's a long time to go without permanent power. Hope they get to you quickly.

 

[chad215]

I have power!!! Only took a year.

 

[chad215]

it's been between 100 and 105F for almost a month every single day out there so I haven't spent much time working. Very happy to have electricity now. I still need to trench to my shop from the pole about 50' but at least I can do that at my leisure and not wait for anyone.

 

[shortykorte]

Wow. They that busy?

I heard every Texan gets a free Tesla power wall.

 

[chad215]

Wow. They that busy?

I heard every Texan gets a free Tesla power wall.

Combination of them being busy, material availability (apparently meters and boxes were getting scarce for quite a while) and my indecision of how to proceed. I went with 200amp service. I prolly should have went ahead and did the 400 for a future structure but the cost was an issue and everything is getting more expensive every day. I still have a LOT of material to buy.
My initial meetings with them led me to believe I had to provide the meter socket, disconnects, etc and have it installed and ready to go. They would then inspect and put poles, install, and hook to my equipment. But my last meeting is when they told me they would provide all of that on the pole so I scheduled the first appointment I could get.

LOL no power walls here!

 

[chad215]

Been a tad busy. Just had our second son who had to spend nearly a month at the NICU but is home now. His brother loves him a lot

 

[chad215]

Got to the property to see my road had become completely overgrown by goats head weeds. These things grow fast and thick! Also picked up a zero turn mower. Much better cut for the pasture near the house that I’m trying keep nice. The rest I’m just knocking down with the brush hog on the tractor.

 

[chad215]

Now that I have power I can enjoy some evenings out there a little more without listening to my generator. At this point I’ve only hooked up an outlet to the pole and running extension cords.

 

[chad215]

I’ve started the wall insulation and got a lot of the OSB up on the outer walls. Last weekend I finally rented a trencher and got power to my load center in the shop. What a game changer! I’m glad a didn’t have to dig by hand but that was still a lot of work.

 

[shortykorte]

Glad you’re son is home and has big brother looking over him.

Getting the permanent power will be a game changer. Weber grill, Texas football on tube, great way to spend the day.

 

[eastmtn]

Got to the property to see my road had become completely overgrown by goats head weeds.

I was first introduced to goat heads when I moved to NM years back. My dog and I went for a walk in the backyard barefoot. Big mistake.

I'm glad the little one is home and out of the NICU. Big brother's gonna have to get him up to speed on the ways of the world. It looks like he's got a couple of years of life experience.

 

[chad215]

It's been a little while since I could get back to the shop. Two weeks after my new born boy came home from the hospital, he caught RSV(probably from my 5 yo) and went into septic shock and completely stopped breathing on the way to the hospital.
I watched my poor little boy stop breathing and turn gray in my arms while we were pulling in to the hospital. Luckily we got got him there in time to be resuscitated. He spent the next 30 days in the ICU at Texas Children's hospital and was touch and go for a while. I don't wish for anyone to go through that.
The good news is that he's back home now and doing well. He's back to being a little noise machine keeping his parents awake and so very tired!

 

[chad215]

I've been sealing up my exterior walls and framing them out. Now that I have the 'lectricty I've been running some circuits and trying to determine some final placements of things. I finally got a "porch" light installed. Trying to add the wood backer for the outside box was slightly challenging by myself. Now I can finally have some light outside the shop at night. Also finally have a dedicated outlet for my air compressor. I'm slowly but surely getting rid of the extension cords.

 

[Jon69RagTop]

thanks for checking in, and really glad your son is home and doing well.

 

[chad215]

My erector didn't add the framing for the windows when the building was built. The windows didn't even show up till one of the last days. Since I'm framing the interior, i went ahead and installed them this weekend. Lots of drilling-
That's when I noticed the windows weren't installed level, so I had to pull my windows and recut the sheeting and re-install everything. They are now sealed very well and installed properly.
The erector also never installed the foam closures at the base of the wall panels, so I've been installing them too. It's making a big difference in the amount of creepy crawling things I see in there at night. I had the concrete ledge, but for some reason the erectors just didn't put the closures in, and I didn't even notice.

 

[chad215]

The room is slowly coming along. I've got my PEX run through the walls and stubbed out. Now I need to figure out the drain vent and how I'm going to route that. Of course I got the wrong size PVC fittings so that will have to wait till next time. I've been running the lighting circuits in the ceiling and as soon as I get the vent done, I should be ready for insulation in the ceiling. I'm really ready to get out of the tent and into a proper room!

 

[chad215]

This may go down in history as the longest and most inefficient drywall job in history but I'm getting close to having a room!