What am I thinking?

[NBN]

Im in a situation where I need to construct a new metal building at my house. The lot size and layout is maxing my aesthetic dimensions to 30x40.

I plan on 2 10x10 roll up doors, one on the 30' side of the building (sw corner) and one on the 40' side of the building (ne corner), diagonally across the building from each other, hopefully to allow some breeze through.

The building will house 3 antique cars, a four post lift, mig and tig welders, tool boxes and appropriate workbenches, along with the other "stuff" that goes along with working on/restoring old cars.

Am I expecting too much of this building? Im open to suggestions.

 

[66Caprice]

make the doors wider. you never know when you might want to roll a trailer in there and the extra room is less stress. LOL!!

 

[My Old Tools]

Go ahead and plan on AC.

 

[emktx]

I have a 30x40 with one 18' garage door and a man door next to it on the 30' end facing south towards my house. With the equipment needed and two cars in the building to do restoration work I would think it to be a little tight, doable, but tight. Here is my lay-out, maybe not the best, but is a work in progress. I have a 120 gal. comp. tank in the NE corner, misc. parts shelving and storage cabinets in a 10x8 area E to W in front of that and jig borer, drill press, grinders, welding table and welders in the 10 x 24 area along the E wall. Toolbox, oil collection barrel and workbench along N wall, continued workbench around NW corner, paint and bodywork suppliy cabinets, folded-up engine hoist and 5' workbench, 4' clean table and electric panel along the W wall and my radial arm saw and miter and cut-off saws are on rolling cabinets pushed out of the way for a decent amount of room to work on one full-sized car or pickup. Unfortunately, I only have 10' walls with a typical pole barn 4/12 roof. Good luck with your building.

 

[rok_hunter]

The one change I'd make to my 30x40 with a 10x10 roll-up door is to replace the roll-up with a standard-style garage door so it seals better (weather, insects) and I could add insulation panels, and to put it further from the edge of the building so I have walk-around-room all around the vehicle. That being said my building is 95% storage/wood shop, 3% tractor/ATV workshop, and 2% vehicle workshop so it's not a huge inconvenience for me.

Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk

 

[bctexas]

Am I expecting too much of this building? Im open to suggestions.

To lay out/plan my shop, I drew it to scale on a large sheet of graph paper. I then cut out scale outlines of everything of any size I knew I was going to place in the shop. Bathroom, cars, lift, toolboxes, lathe, mill, desk, workbench etc all in little pieces of paper. It was then easy to move things around and get a feel for how it would all work. Offhand, I would think that tying up two walls with garage doors might make it more difficult to fit everything in, but its a lot easier to figure out on paper than after it is built. Are you planning a paved driveway? How would that work with the doors on two sides?

It is very satisfying when you get it built, and all the stuff arranged according to plan and it works!

Best of luck to ya!

 

[MrSurly]

I built a 30x40 with two 10x10s on a gable end and one 18x8 at the far side of the long wall. It is essentially a four-car garage, two from the South and two from the East in an "ell" configuration . This arrangement (can be seen in my thread below) creates two usable areas, about 6x20 in the SE corner and about 8x20 in the NE corner.
that sounds like a fair amount of space but I'll volunteer, here, that is not.
Toss in a large compressor, too many tool boxes, small workbench, rolling table, two-post lift, motorcycle table lift, two cars, three motorcycles and then ~~******~~ and there's no where near enough room in MY opinion. This lead to my adding a loft. I would seriously suggest a loft in your planning or at least attic trusses.

 

[nadogail]

Sounds like you have your head on straight.

 

[rburke65]

I went with a 12’ wide over head dood....SO happy I did

 

[930dreamer]

Push it to a 40x60 if you can.

 

[LXCam]

If you’re having a hard time envisioning it and a scaled drawing doesn’t cut it. Go lay it out with stakes and strings with you’re cars parked in it. Only you know what you have for tools and or needs for benches and storage.

 

[NBN]

If you’re having a hard time envisioning it and a scaled drawing doesn’t cut it. Go lay it out with stakes and strings with you’re cars parked in it. Only you know what you have for tools and or needs for benches and storage.
Great idea
[/COLOR]

I built a 30x40 with two 10x10s on a gable end and one 18x8 at the far side of the long wall. It is essentially a four-car garage, two from the South and two from the East in an "ell" configuration . This arrangement (can be seen in my thread below) creates two usable areas, about 6x20 in the SE corner and about 8x20 in the NE corner.
that sounds like a fair amount of space but I'll volunteer, here, that is not.
Toss in a large compressor, too many tool boxes, small workbench, rolling table, two-post lift, motorcycle table lift, two cars, three motorcycles and then ~~******~~ and there's no where near enough room in MY opinion. This lead to my adding a loft. I would seriously suggest a loft in your planning or at least attic trusses.

I plan on a loft at some point

To lay out/plan my shop, I drew it to scale on a large sheet of graph paper. I then cut out scale outlines of everything of any size I knew I was going to place in the shop. Bathroom, cars, lift, toolboxes, lathe, mill, desk, workbench etc all in little pieces of paper. It was then easy to move things around and get a feel for how it would all work. Offhand, I would think that tying up two walls with garage doors might make it more difficult to fit everything in, but its a lot easier to figure out on paper than after it is built. Are you planning a paved driveway? How would that work with the doors on two sides?

It is very satisfying when you get it built, and all the stuff arranged according to plan and it works!

Best of luck to ya!

No paved driveway to conflict with opposing doors.

I have a 30x40 with one 18' garage door and a man door next to it on the 30' end facing south towards my house. With the equipment needed and two cars in the building to do restoration work I would think it to be a little tight, doable, but tight. Here is my lay-out, maybe not the best, but is a work in progress. I have a 120 gal. comp. tank in the NE corner, misc. parts shelving and storage cabinets in a 10x8 area E to W in front of that and jig borer, drill press, grinders, welding table and welders in the 10 x 24 area along the E wall. Toolbox, oil collection barrel and workbench along N wall, continued workbench around NW corner, paint and bodywork suppliy cabinets, folded-up engine hoist and 5' workbench, 4' clean table and electric panel along the W wall and my radial arm saw and miter and cut-off saws are on rolling cabinets pushed out of the way for a decent amount of room to work on one full-sized car or pickup. Unfortunately, I only have 10' walls with a typical pole barn 4/12 roof. Good luck with your building.

Thanks for the input

Go ahead and plan on AC.

No ac in the budget at this time, besides, Im used to working in the Houston heat/humidity with no ac

 

[matt_i]

I think you're going to be very cramped if you expect to store 3 and work on a 4th and have space for benches and fabrication. Possibly if you can use the wheel dollies to cram cars close or can slither in and out with minimal distance to open the doors.

The other way to think or envision it is to think about 4 x 10' wide bays. You could go put some stakes or cones on an existing drive or parking lot and bring 3-4 cars and look at them in the bays.

I do realize that there's some room at the front of the bays and if you are filling it full of Straight 8 Buicks vs. MGs makes a difference.

If your plan was to store 3 with one parked across the lift then its going to be a lot more open.

 

[CraigStu]

I'd make one of the doors standard 16 ft wide. That will be your most bang for the $ since they are sold by the millions. Another way to save a little is put it on the gable end. This way the header doesn't need to be as strong because it is not supporting a bunch of roof trusses.

 

[My Old Tools]

Go take a look at my 30x40 build with loft. It's in the new build section.

 

[MrSurly]

When you put the stakes out and then park the cars....be sure to account for all the cars'
doors being OPEN within your Les Nessman walls.

 

[67CarGuy]

When you put the stakes out and then park the cars....be sure to account for all the cars'
doors being OPEN within your Les Nessman walls.

Exactly. While you may only be able to drive one car at a time, it's wonderful to know that you can open all the doors without having to worry about chipping the paint, etc. Takes more room, of course.I generally use 10'x20' per vehicle for my spacing, unless you've got a big Lincoln or something else with doors as big as a billboard.

 

[Spareparts]

When I did my pad for my shop I poured a 5' X 8' pad on one corner for my wood burning stove, it was outside and plummed into the shop (painted a lot in the shop and didn't want to blow up), well the wood burner went away and just recently boxed the pad in, that is where the compresor went along with nut's and bolt bins and shelves all around the remaining walls. That opened a lot of floor space up and helped to organize my junk off the bench top.

 

[NBN]

Locating the compressor outside, under a small lean-to was something I was planning on doing. With the ability to stack 2 cars in one spot with the 4 post lift, have a dedicated bay for a car being worked on, shelves, toolboxes and welders pushed up to the wall, I think Ill have a little room left over for a work bench.
I guess I'll have to up my organizational skills to keep everything in place.