The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area The Tool Chest Workshops and Garages My new shop!

We decided to add a detached 24x24 2-bay garage here at HQ with a 1-BR apartment above for visitors (we have no 2nd bedroom at HQ ... )

Thanks to what I learned working for Pat Guy (Guy Excavating), I am doing the dirt work -- basic lot prep of removing a few trees, then grading and prepping for the footers. Then, filling and spreading the gravel for the slab. After, I will take care of backfilling, final grading, seeding, etc.

To date, the footers are in and block foundation is built. Today, we've almost finished graveling the hole getting ready for the slab pour. Here are some pics.

The tree was a Hickory, not a hockory. Don't make fun -- *you* try typing with these fingers.

Looking Really GREAT. I'd assumed hockory was just a bit of High Tider English.

RonR

High Tider English??

Too bad about the hockery tree. The nuts make great BBQ smoke.

That's going to be a nice addition. Just a garage or garage/shop?

It looks to me to be a nice place to work, relax, and nice place to sleep😎. Thats the best looking all in one man cave I’ve seen! Are you sure it’s just for visitors ?

Looks outstanding John and having the pond to look out over after a day of toiling in the shop (more like having a ton of fun!) sounds like the Best Man Cave Ever!!!

Bill, The hickory is providing two good saw logs as well as a bunch of firewood for the woodstove that will heat that building. I plan to use the hickory in my furniture making, along with the cherry.

Ponch -- Yes, the upstairs will be our guest quarters.

Dan -- I don't do the "man cave" thing. The whole farm is my place of happiness. I am happiest these days lost in a woodworking project, covered with sawdust, Mozart on the stereo, pencil behind my ear, square in hand taking 45 minutes to set up the tablesaw to do a 30-second cut But speaking of mancave stuff, I do need to get around to making a shadow box for my Mameluke (real pre-ban ivory grips )

Utah -- Actually, the garage is going to be my new woodshop. The house garage here gets to return to being the home of the '49 and the truck bay. All the automotive tools will stay in here, all the woodworking stuff goes over to the new facility. The '49 is currently out in the barn ...

That all sounds great being “happiness” the key. Enjoying will not be far off.

Looks great John. How deep are your footings? Needs to be at least 42” here in Omaha. Did you rebar and slush the blocks or add a bond beam? Just curious, there’s a lot of weight against those walls.

Also, I like how you placed wider blocks to support the floor.👍

John

Having room for visitors is another "happiness" key for us. We enjoy being hospitable and have missed that here. The few folks who have visited from afar have had to go off the mountain to a hotel in Scottsboro. Not quite the same. The Guesthouse can expand some with plenty of room around the property for camping, fishing, gun stuff.

The ODSS gang that helped us move can vouch for how difficult it was with only one bathroom.

We feel truly blessed and John is having a grand time with it all.

John, Cumberland Mountain/The Cumberland Plateau is mostly a huge pile of sedimentary rock (sandstone and conglomerate). The footers are approximately 12 inches down and sitting, mostly, on ledge. We'd need to blast through rock to go any deeper there there, which may make a septic system ... challenging. Yes, the base at the corners and all along the tall wall are 12-inch block. Some rebar and the block is partially gravel filled and will have more rebar and concrete added when the slab gets poured.

Inside the foundation, it took about 50 yards of 67 gravel to fill. I'll run the plate tamper over it one more time and then we should be ready for the plumber and then the concrete.

Heated floors?

If you haven't considered that. John. Definitely do it. Nothing better for a shop.

That project makes my little16 X 50 slab floor for my shop addition look like small time effort. I have to do a little land clearing and leveling, plus a gravel base and a 6' thick reinforced concrete slab. I have 20 foot long steel bar joists for roof supports, and the 53 foot refrigerated road trailer that's been there for several years will make the outer wall. That one's got enough insulation that I can heat it with a candle and cool it with a block of ice!
Jerry

Heated floors? With the wood stove in there, I doubt lack of heat will be a problem.

Wood heating still leaves one with cold feet, or if you're working under something and have to lay on the floor, a heated floor is very nice. But it's a bit hard to do heated floors with a wood fired system.

Radiant floor heat can be pretty straight forward with wood, lots of folks here in Michigan use an outdoor boiler and it can heat an air handler, domestic water, in-floor radiant, etc. If I were ever to build, it would have radiant floor heat! Like Omaha, we need at least 42" depth for footings. I have been heavily involved with our 8500 sq. ft church addition for the past few months, 40 hours a week is hard on a retired guy.

A cool floor might be nice in Alabama😎
Just sayin’

I hear you. But a radiant floor system can also be used to cool the floor, just takes some switchover components to pump cool liquid thru the tubing in the floor. Like 78buskshot said, the first time I encountered a heated floor, the guy used an outdoor wood fired boiler. We were working on a guy's truck in the winter and laid right on the concrete to work on some wiring. Also but in a different sense.

Even if you don't hook it up, putting tubing just under the slab (on a layer of insulation board) gives you the option in the future. It's kinda hard to do later.

When you go to do your feeder for power wire and your panel. Way Oversize it. especially if is going to be hidden or hard to upsize later. it is easy to add new branch circuits and breakers at a later time. A lot harder and expensive to upgrade a feeder wire and panel if you max it out with lots of tools and toys and dare i say it "large amp chargers" cough cough.

Hah, cooling floors is “simple”, it’s also complicated. Cooling your feet and staying comfortable or kneeling on a cool floor….always interesting, but condensation is a very real concern.
I have not read the entire post but a +-42” deep pit would be pretty cool in all that gravel……working under a vehicle on a mechanics rolling seat could be awesome, but thinking it thru I also suspect it may be a complex endeavor.

Thanks for all the input about the heated floor. All I have to say about that is that the ground floor/slab space in that building is planned to be my wood shop. If I'm laying on the floor, somebody better be calling 911...

Yes, a radiant heat floor would be nice ... if I lived further North. This is Alabamalama. The woodstove will do nicely for the few days each year it will be needed. As for the warm weather, I plan on opening the garage door on one end and the sliding glass dor on the other and letting the cross breeze do the trick.

This is Northeast Alabamy and we're on top of the Cumberland Plateau. I am a born and raised Northern New England/Quebec boy ... these people may think it gets cold here in the winter ... It does not. And as for the Summer, like I said, we're on a mountain and I just spent the last 25 years on the Chesapeake Bay ... These Alabamians don't have the first clue what real humidity and heat are like! This place is Heaven!

HCB -- Indeed! Point well taken!

On those days the climate is made up of "air you can wear" with humidity approaching triple digits, nothing beats a BIG fan. I've got one in my shop that's about 4 feet in diameter and moves enough air to ventilate a small coal mine!
Jerry

I added a ceiling fan to my garage a few years ago. It keeps the air moving on those hot summer days.

The slab is getting poured tomorrow. The first cement truck is scheduled to appear at 0800. I will be taking pictures and video so Peggy can see what they're doing. Whether or not I post them here as fodder for Vultures' Row is quite another story ....

Meanwhile, I continued to act as Pond Security for all my fishies -- keeping them safe from nasty snapping turtles. Used Dad's Winchester Model 70 (pre-64 ) with the vintage Kollmorgen Bear Cub glass to "unalive" a sunbathing snapping menace. Turtles: 0 John: 3

Nothing like a little overkill, there! I've got a single shot 98 Mauser chambered in .22-250 with a 26" long bull barrel and a 10X steel tube Weaver scope that shoots quarter-sized groups at 200 yards with boring regularity. I found it at a local pawn shop a few years ago, and practically stole it because of a badly deteriorated bluing job on the barrel. The gunsmith who built that one (probably in the 1960s or earlier) really knew what he was doing.
Jerry

Jerry .... there is no such thing as "overkill" when it comes to snappers. I put 5 .45ACP rounds into one once and he was still charging me. My favorite kill was the one I got leaving the shop when I was driving for Pat. I was in the 359 Pete with the 25-ton lowboy with the Case 855 track loader. The turtle was crossing the dirt lane. I got him with the driver steer tire, then both sets of d side duals on the tractor and both sets of duals on the trailer. I was in and out 2 more times that day and made sure to run him over each time. I'm fairly certain that by the end of the day, he was "unalive." But being a snapping turtle, one can't be too sure. So I kept running him over the next day, too.

So turning a snapping turtle into fish food with a soft nose .30-06 is fairly satisfying, killing a snapper with 30 tons of 18-wheeler is way more fun.

Meanwhile ... back at the shop.... looks like Antonio and his crew are just about finished.

When I was a kid we thought they were tasty. Supposedly, alligator snapping turtles can live to be 200 years old. I remember reading many years ago about one being caught in Louisiana with flint arrowheads in its shell. The biggest I recall that we caught was close to 2' in dia.. We kept trot lines out in the Saline river a free flowing small river that was about 4 miles from the house. Big flatheads were always the best followed by channel cats, but sometimes a snapping turtle would still be on when we ran em in the early mornings. I was 7 or so and Dad used a hand ax and a rope getting him back to the truck. May have towed him back, too long ago to recall. For lack of a better description rib meat, and legs were fine eating. Soup and fried turtle tenders, wish I could go back 65 years for a mess.

RonR

Very nice. 👍 I like a power troweled floor.

John

I remembered to sign in as me today Thanks John. Antonio (on the power trowel) said he would have it like glass. He was right. His crew really put a lot of effort into the job to make it good. Hector really did a very meticulous job setting my Marine Corps challenge coin into the concrete. Peggy wanted me to scratch our life verse reference (1 Thess 4:11) into the but I couldn't bring myself to do it because Hector had done such as really beautiful job of getting it nice. Besides ... That verse doesn't actually go well with the Eagle, Globe and Anchor as Leading a quiet life and minding one's own business isn't exactly what the U.S. Marine Corps is known for ...

That glass-smooth finish, plus a little bit of oil or antifreeze can be a disaster waiting to happen. Back when I was teaching high school auto mechanics, somebody got the brilliant idea to put an epoxy coating on my shop floor. That floor looked good, but when the 50-something year old lady administrator in charge of the vocational department of Metro Nashville schools slipped on it and did a very embarrassing pratfall in front of my students- - - - -the floor got recoated with a little sand in it the second time around! Later, it was discovered that the assistant principal who kept pushing for the floor coating job had received a VERY generous kickback from the contractor!
Jerry

Happened to meet with Project Manager this afternoon and John was showing him our previous house.

Just wanted to share our "ceiling fan" with you guys. I liked it because it reminds me of helicopters.

Where is the coin in relation to the overall layout of the garage? Is it right in front of a entry door or someplace noticeable?

Otto, the coin will be off your left ankle as you either lift your right foot to take the first step to go up the stairs or pivot right to go in the 1st floor door.

If that crew has a "Have trowel-will travel" policy, I might need to get in touch with them before too long! They do good work!
Jerry

Jerry ... I'll get you Antonio's contact info. Its probably not that different to go to your place as here for them. I admit that I don't know much about concrete work but I'm no stranger to a job site -- I was impressed with their work. Maybe not up to Tim's standards but then again, this is a simple 24x24 structure -- not a Sydney sky scraper...

Framing package delivered this morning!

I didn’t see any anchors for the wall sill plates. Aren’t those required where you are? Or do they just use powder driven bolts to anchor the walls? Drilling for expansion anchors is more costly that putting L anchor bolts in the wet concrete in the wall cores.

I’m sure John has a plan, but the newer type concrete screws would work as well, and no issues with alignment.

Looking good John!