New Shop

[adsm08 3,630]

Work started Friday of last week on my new workshop. Friday the footing was dug out, inspection on Monday, and then framing started yesterday. Everything is delayed about half a day due to the weather last Thursday. Proposed finish date is before Thanksgiving.

 

 

Roofing went on today:

 

 

And of course the kids had to climb.

 

 

The inside wall will be attached to the old roof, and the whole roof redone:

 

 

I've had issues with the scale. I measured the footprint in the shop at work before settling on dimensions, but without anything there to give a sense of scale it feels "wrong". So I got out the tape measure and some cinder block and started adding some points of reference.

 

 

The two blocks against the wall are the foot-print of my bigger (home) tool box, approx 6x2. The other two out farther are roughly the spacing and position I want for the lift. With those in place it is starting to look more like how I'd expected size-wise.

[ebinmaine 74,582]

Super awesome! 

Looking forward to seeing this developing! 

[adsm08 3,630]

1 hour ago, ebinmaine said:

Super awesome! 

Looking forward to seeing this developing! 

 

I'm pretty excited for this. It's something we have been planning for about 15 years, since we bought our first house. I've been working with the builder since February,  and it's finally coming together. 

[Handy Don 14,664]

1 hour ago, adsm08 said:

it is starting to look more like how I'd expected size-wise.

The early parts of construction can be very deceptive. You’ll be fine!

Forty years ago we built our house. I was a newb and taking on the GC role for the construction. After the foundation hole was dug and the footers were in I got in my head that it just wasn’t right. After getting my wife to help me climbing in and out and measuring everything, at least three times, I realized that it was EXACTLY right. After that, I tried to be a little more chill and it all worked out!

Edited Thursday at 01:55 AM by Handy Don

[Brockport Bill 2,065]

just curious  -- how deep in ground did posts have to be?

[Pullstart 68,191]

Congrats!  What is the size of the old shop, vs the new?

[MainelyWheelhorse 2,095]

Cool, @adsm08 plenty of room for tractor projects and other stuff too.

[Wayne0 1,357]

14 hours ago, Brockport Bill said:

just curious  -- how deep in ground did posts have to be?

That depends on where you live and the frost line.

[adsm08 3,630]

20 hours ago, Brockport Bill said:

just curious  -- how deep in ground did posts have to be?

 

Post holes are this deep:

 

 

9 hours ago, Pullstart said:

Congrats!  What is the size of the old shop, vs the new?

 

The original shop was roughly 23x25, with about a 7 5/8 overhead, pretty standard 2-car garage. The addition is 20x30 with a 14 ft overhead.

 

7 hours ago, MainelyWheelhorse said:

Cool, @adsm08 plenty of room for tractor projects and other stuff too.

 

Very little tractor stuff will happen in the new side. This is intended to be my automotive work shop, I've had the lift for a few years already, with nowhere to put it up. The new construction is primarily for the lift, but tool boxes, a work bench, and a few larger pieces of shop equipment I have will go there, and a tire mounter and balancer will be added when I get my year-end bonus in February.

 

Anyway, today's updates:

 

 

 

 

Siding is 3/4 of the way up. Got a call from the company the builder uses to do concrete, they are having to cut off work farther north due to the weather, and so the floor pour is getting moved up to next week.

[ebinmaine 74,582]

7 minutes ago, adsm08 said:

Post holes are this deep:

 

 

 

The Imperial measuring system uses some really weird units but this is the first I've seen  " ⅝ of a kid"

[adsm08 3,630]

Just now, ebinmaine said:

 

 

The Imperial measuring system uses some really weird units but this is the first I've seen  " ⅝ of a kid"

 

He's around 5 ft, so that makes the hole around 3 ft deep.

[SylvanLakeWH 29,343]

Just now, ebinmaine said:

 

 

The Imperial measuring system uses some really weird units but this is the first I've seen  " ⅝ of a kid"

And, just checking, is his name Rod? As in Re-Rod...? 

[adsm08 3,630]

2 minutes ago, SylvanLakeWH said:

And, just checking, is his name Rod? As in Re-Rod...? 

 

No, his name is Bruce, and he does not buy into the idea that fish are friends and not food.

[Beap52 1,665]

On 11/5/2025 at 7:54 PM, Handy Don said:

The early parts of construction can be very deceptive. You’ll be fine!

Forty years ago we built our house. I was a newb and taking on the GC role for the construction. After the foundation hole was dug and the footers were in I got in my head that it just wasn’t right. After getting my wife to help me climbing in and out and measuring everything, at least three times, I realized that it was EXACTLY right. After that, I tried to be a little more chill and it all worked out!

 

When I was building houses, after the owners would see the basement walls poured, they would almost always say "that's not not going to be very big". 

 

 Another thing is, for some reason, people always want to spit in a hole. Be it a post hole, the excavated foundation hole, a hole for septic tank or even a ditch.   Folks just like to spit in a hole in the ground!

[adsm08 3,630]

No update pictures today, I got home late because I had some other stops to make after work. They finished the walls and roofed the old section, got the temporary cross supports out, so I could physically park in there but I'm "not supposed to" until I get the occupancy permit at the end of the final inspection. Got a call from the 3rd party doing to floor, they had a few jobs in the Northern Tier get bumped off their schedule due to weather, so my floor pour is getting moved up to the end of next week. Electrician will be by some evening this coming week to look and see what all we need for that job.

 

I'll get some pictures tomorrow after hunting.

[adsm08 3,630]

Pics as promised:

 

 

New storage loft:

 

 

Got the electrical ready for the floor pour

 

[Handy Don 14,664]

20 hours ago, adsm08 said:

Got the electrical ready for the floor pour

How does the floor pour work under an existing building? Wrap the posts and bottom of the sill plates with something and attach forming to the outside of the posts? Is the floor flat and level? Flat but pitched toward the big door or maybe a central French Drain?

[ebinmaine 74,582]

7 minutes ago, Handy Don said:

How does the floor pour work under an existing building? Wrap the posts and bottom of the sill plates with something and attach forming to the outside of the posts?

 

That's exactly what happened here.  

 

7 minutes ago, Handy Don said:

 

Is the floor flat and level? Flat but pitched toward the big door or maybe a central French Drain?

 

The builder we used gave us the option of floor tilt direction.. or flat. 

Central drain is not legal some places. 

 

I opted for a tilt toward building front.  

 

 

 

[adsm08 3,630]

13 minutes ago, Handy Don said:

How does the floor pour work under an existing building? Wrap the posts and bottom of the sill plates with something and attach forming to the outside of the posts? Is the floor flat and level? Flat but pitched toward the big door or maybe a central French Drain?

 

The footing was excavated out a few feet past the perimeter of the actual building, and the floor will be poured out to there, and up to the base boards.

 

I"m not going to have any drainage inside the shop due to local water-management regulations, I'll just have to squeegee everything out the door as needed.

 

For my purposes the floor needs to be level. While it is not impossible to install a lift on a sloped floor level is much preferred, and having a slope adds a degree of complexity I don't want to deal with.

[Beap52 1,665]

I live in a county that does not require any inspection of construction of buildings nor is there any construction tax charged. The towns may or may not have building inspectors (and associated fees) and the inspectors we worked with were understanding expecially on rebuilding of older home--something that I found to be my niche. 

 

The inspections and regulations of the building of the shop in this post is interesting.  Especially the floor and drains as they relate to water management regulations.  I notice that the builder used three 2x6's laminated together with treated below grade and what appears to be yellow pine above grade.  Dad had a pole barn built back in the 1960's and one of the selling points was laminated posts---darn posts still rotted at grade level.  Below grade a foot they are as good as new.  It seems a post will alway deteriorate where they enter the ground.  Basically that barn is just setting on the ground without any of the posts holding it other than what little dab of wood is left.

 

We worked in another county that required several inspections while rebuilding an old barn, one thing they required was that wood could not be in contact with cement.  When floor joists were replaced with new ones, we had to wrap the end of the joist (in heavy tar paper if I remember correctly and treated with some kind of brushed on preservatives) before incerting them into the notches in the original foundation.

 

 We do have to meet state regulation pertaining to septic systems and wells. 

Edited 1 hour ago by Beap52
after thoughts

[adsm08 3,630]

25 minutes ago, Beap52 said:

Dad had a pole barn built back in the 1960's and one of the selling points was laminated posts---darn posts still rotted at grade level.  Below grade a foot they are as good as new.  It seems a post will alway deteriorate where they enter the ground.

 

This building has a 40-year warranty. By the time that runs up I will be old enough to not care.

 

But yes, our local regs and inspections are a pain. Unfortunately many are driven by federal laws that say "if your locality meets X metric you must do Y" and then leaves the actual enforcement to be done at the local level.