patdaly

Wherever you decide to have your lift, dig down an appropriate depth ( Personally I like overkill, I would go 18" deep ) hole plenty big around to catch your lift base legs. When you pour, make sure you have some rebar in there for support.

If for whatever reason you decide later to place the lift in another location, you could always cut out the area and dig down and re pour, but with the Pex tubing in place, that could get dicey.

Another thing to think about is plumbing, in the event you would ever want to have a stool, sink and shower. I put all mine in and stubbed it out the side, sealed it with duct tape and poured over it. When wife.com gets to be too much, it will make it much easier to make the shop livable.....

dodgeguy71

I second the plumbing. You most likely will think after time you'll want an "office" or maybe not a real "office" but a place inside your place you can sit and chat.

The wife will grow tired of greasy paw marks in the house sinks so a place to wash up after a night of tuning smokers is good.

4" of re-enforced concrete is equal to 6" of un-re-enforced concrete and less $$$$. This is how I understood the psi rating of the concrete as explained to me by a concrete contractor when I said I wanted a 6" pad. I believe a friend of mine has a 4" fibre pad and he has a two post lift, he works on cars. Same friend has an office, waiting room, shower, hang on the wall urinal and the most treasured bathroom item....the porcelain thrown.

My shop......when built will have tie down points in the floor, 4 points to where if I ever need to pull down or tie onto something I can tie to the floor. Usually a hole a few feet deep with a plate at the bottom and a piece of chain anchored and then fill the hole with concrete and leave the chain sticking above your final pour on your pad. The chain sticking up may get in the way but I have heard other ways to do this without the chain sticking out in the way all the time. Just something else to consider depending on what you are gonna be doing.


Also consider your power service, your box. I would not get anything less than a 200 amp service. This to power your welder, lights, compressor and whatever else you can imagine. As far as lights I would go with the nice fancy ones, not sure what they are called but they have the big bulbs, not flouresants. Maybe some of the other guys can give you the right name....I know what they look like....but duhhhhhh on the name.

Also second the notion of higher roof. Check and see what kind of clearance you need on your lift so your not stuck I know a guy who just put one in and he told me what kind of height you needed but I can't remember that either, maybe 12-13 feet??

Good luck!!! I'm also on the envy list!! My shop is just a dream right now, but a 40x60 pad with an 18" turn down plus grading the yard is kinda costly........
any donations???

scottsjeeprolet

I have a 30x60 pole barn. they built the building then i had the concrete poured 6" with wire and fiber glass in the cement.
My friend who did the concrete is also a Rotary dealer and gave me the dimensions for the two posts, i dug down about 10-12" 4' square for the footers. the lift is a #10K rotary.

This site has lots of info about garage's kinds like here and Cummins stuff.
http://www.garagejournal.com/
If you are doing a pole barn make sure you have them insulate the roof before putting it on. I insulated the walls with 1.5" Styrofoam then 3/4" plywood.

nirion

I found that garagejournal.com site earlier and wow, there is a lot of stuff to read on there. After looking at pricing, I don't think I will be able to spend another couple grand on the radiant floor heat. It sounds great and now is the time to do it, but I just can't afford to spend that much more after buying this.

As far as the door, I figure, I can always add a second door next to the first one later, right? or on the other side.

Scottsjeeprolet, I have admired your shop in other threads on here. Very nice. The walls and ceiling are going to be insulated.

I will have water once I get ready to build the house, because that is when the well and septic will come.

I checked out Rotary's site and they said for the 10k lift, a 12' ceiling is ok, and the peak will be higher, so I should be good since I will have 12' walls. Any idea on pricing on these lifts? $2-3k?

Keep the ideas coming guys and thanks a lot.

ArkansasRam

we have a 48x72 with 2 hoist. just last weekend we cut a 4ft sq out where the post were. the 4" concrete started to crumble around all the post. we replaced with 6" and 10" thick directly under the post. floor heat and add a wood burner intime to heat the water.

berner

Building and renovating always costs more than you expect. If you can get the tubing in when they pour the slab, you'll have the option to do the rest later on.

I wish I would have done it when I built my garage last year. I heat it with a gas fired unit heater. It's all right but a nice warm floor would be a lot easier on these old bones.

Patriot_Auto

The heater floors is the first thing that came to my mind. I'm going that route with my next shop regardless.

I would certainly poor a 6'' slab for any shop seeing heavy trucks. My cousin is a big concrete contractor and when we did mine it came out 6.5" in the middle and 11" on the outside edge. Wouldn't go any thinner.

I also agree with the 10' doors and a higher wall. I would go 14' walls and 10' doors minimum. When you shop for lifts check the min. ceiling hight. Then add 2' to that. Should give you plenty of room.

trksrfun

im another one for the heated floor and geothermal if you have the money for it. my uncle just did a big addition to his house and built a shop and man is it nice layin on warm concrete when its cold outside, my dads house also had it in the living room made it real nice heat rises so start at the lowest point i guess... my uncle also did the geothermal heating in his house which all i know is that it works really well, cuts monthly cost down BIG time and you can get a rebate/discount w.e for getting it (going green) if you would like send me a pm ill call him and get some prices for you so you know what you would be looking at cost wise, congrats and good luck with the shop!!

nirion

I will look into putting just the tubing in now (costs).

As far as the concrete, do I just need to have the extra deep concrete just where the posts for the lift go?

Thanks,
Nick