Shop Construction

May 30: Construction was started today.  The three man crew came in and set all of the support poles.

Once everything was lined up, concrete was poured around them and everything was left to cure.

In the meantime, I dug ditches.  These were for the drains from the downspouts.  We have a small pond, so water from one half of the roof will drain into there.  This keeps us from adding water during the summer.  I also extended the power and auxiliary conduits over to the new building.  They ended at the old garage, but the new building is offset by four feet.  The auxiliary 1½" conduit is empty now, but I'll pull telephone and Cat-5 Ethernet cable through it.

June 6: The crew was back and got to work.  First they put the girt and skirt boards horizontally around the outside of the building.  You can also see the trusses being setup prior to lifting.

 

Then they sandwiched each pair of trusses around the three center poles.  The trusses were just raised with two simple crank winches that set on top of the poles which had been left long just for that purpose.  Pretty low tech system.  The final thing was to take a chain saw around and trim off all of the poles.

So at the end of the day, this is how it looks.  More like a corral than a shop, but it's starting to look good.

June 10:  After only a half day on Friday, lots of progress happened today.  The rest of the roof framing was completed and they started sheeting the roof.

June 12:  The rest of the sheeting on the roof is complete and the siding is mostly done.  The building construction should be done in a couple of days.  Then there's just the roofing material and the concrete left to do.  I've been working on the ramp to join the existing garage with the shop.   That will be part of the concrete pour so I have to get the fill and 2x12 material for the sides done.

June 14: The building is almost complete.  You can see the track for the double doors and (on the right) the frame for one of them.  However, they can be built with either metal braces or 2x4s for those braces.  They didn't order the metal braces, so one was done using wood.  This ended up with the frame warped and it was clear that the two doors would never fit properly in the center.  So that ended that project until the metal braces are available.  But the remainder of the framing, siding and people doors were installed in addition to the boxes on the roof for the skylights.  The roofers are supposed to show up tomorrow, so it should be weather tight except for the large doors.

Hopefully everything will get finished on Monday and the concrete floor done next week.  The floor will need to cure for 2-3 weeks before I can install the lift.  But the day is getting closer where I can just put the Ferrari on the lift and be able to work on it standing up.

June 17:  The roofers showed up on Saturday, but the materials were supposed to have been delivered on Friday.  Since I didn't know that, I assumed that they were bringing the materials with them.  So no roof yet.  I spent some of this weekend putting in the permanent circuit box and digging down where the lift will go.  I want a thicker concrete area under the lift posts.  I also finished the ramp connection to the existing garage.  This will be walled in with a roof once construction is complete on the shop.

June 19:  The actual building construction is complete now that the blocking and double doors are done.  I've been working on the wiring and have that about ready for inspection.  The concrete people are supposed to arrive tomorrow to install the 3000' (over 1/2 mile) of rebar and get ready to pour the floor on Friday.

The roofers are coming back on Saturday (materials are to be delivered on Friday).  The people installing the gutters are coming on Monday and the garage door installers (for the rollup door by the lift) on Tuesday.  Then I have to prime the outside, install the 1x2" battens over the seams and paint with our house color.  Then I just wait for the concrete to cure so I can install the lift.

Click here for the final finishing of the shop.