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Reply to "Another Speedster project"

I vote for the heated floor.  One of my cousins did that (he builds commercial buildings for a living) and it is heavenly.  Super easy to do while building, too.

When my wife told me she wanted to move back to New England from South Carolina (in retirement) I was less than thrilled.  In fact, I hated the idea and she knew it but here we are watching the snow fall in Grafton, MA just the same.  I found that being close to grandkids can be a big magnet.

One thing she offered to get me to be less hostile to the move was to build a 24' square, 2-car detached garage, mostly to house the Speedster and her car.  I was constrained by underground septic in two directions, but 24' is OK if you put your shop on the same side as the Speedster - they both fit.

Garage

This one is a pre-fab job from a company in Connecticut and has 11 ft ceilings (we just made the foundation walls a bit higher), a full attic and 8' high doors.  It was built off-site in parts and then assembled on-site in two days, including roof, siding and trim.  Access to the attic is via a set of pull-down stairs in the center, so no floor space is lost to stairs.  I think it's a 12/12 pitch so there is plenty of room upstairs to walk around (I'm 5'6" tall).  The walls are 2" X 6" and it's fully insulated but not yet heated or cooled (although I can get it up to 70F in about 40 minutes using a Charboil "Big Easy" turkey frier)

OK, so things I would have done differently:

  1. Radiant heat in the floor slab
  2. A "Mini-Split" AC unit (you don't need the heat side, given #1, but it's handy if you keep the shop at 55F all the time and want to bump it up when needed)
  3. A Bend-Pak 4-post lift.  If not that, then a 48" high scissors lift (I currently have the 3500 Quickjack for the Speedster but lust for something higher)
  4. Going to 26' square or even 24' X 30' would have been better for some larger machine tools, but I've found other tools in town to use, anyway.
  5. 220 volt 80 - 100 amp service (I opted for 110 only - bad forethought)
  6. Cat-5 Ethernet cable direct from the central house router
  7. Run high pressure air lines above the ceiling to the bench area and both bays

    That's about it.  Others will have more, I'm sure.

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  • Garage
Last edited by Gordon Nichols
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