The Shop Build

[Pearce]

Finally time to get my shop build going! After moving back down to Orlando FL I wanted to live more of an urban lifestyle and not way out in the burbs. To much going on here in town and lots of places to easily get to. I found a great little house with a long one car garage, and a HUGE backyard. Unfortunately the Orlando area is full of 1950's homes without the big garage. I couldn't even find a house with a 2 car that was worth buying. Next best thing find a place where I can add one. I was pretty pumped to build a nice big garage in the back yard. I made a plan on Google sketch-up. The final version was 30' deep 20' wide inside wall to wall.



Well.....turns out that was not going to work. Local codes and ordinances limited my auxiliary structure to 500sf. Damn it! So shrink it I did. 25x20 outside wall dimension. I had hopes of creating a space that could one day house a boat. Hey, it's Florida, got to have a boat space. Oh well.

So the plan is to have an 11'x10' pad off to the side. I'm going to build this pad to be a future enclosed room one day. It would be sweet to have a little workshop room off of the garage. The door will be 9' tall and 16' wide. I wanted 18' but wouldn't fit when it got smaller. It will be an insulated roll up door. Walls are CMU, roof wood trusses. The attic space will not be all that tall. Low slope roofs in FL due to the hurricanes and good ole ordinances. I'll run power out to it myself from the house. But the permit I pulled is for just the structure right now. I just want the building done so I can put my truck back in a garage again. I can install the power at my own pace once the structure is done.

I laid it out this week.



Then today, rented a skid steer to begin prep work on the pad.




A few hours later and it's all set for my concrete guy. I pulled the permit to self preform the work as a homeowner/GC. But, I have a buddy that does concrete and block work. I'll set the trusses, install windows and doors, painting, the grading, install the gravel driveway and electrical. I'd do roofing too but I got a good deal and again with it being FL the are really particular on how it's done with the high winds.




I'll add more as it progresses!

[Kraqa]

looking good!

[ATL ZJ]

But are you sure you can handle building for a customer who can be a real a-hole?






















Looks good! Keep the pics flowing...

[Pearce]

And you know it!!


Few minor updates. Footings dug out for the main structure, soil has been poisoned then vapor barrier and rebar started. My buddy doing the concrete work also does epoxy flooring, He talked me into moving forward with that as well. Once that starts I will discuss it in more detail. But epoxy flooring is one of those things that has to be done really right or it doesn't last or looks like crap.
Also got the trusses delivered today. Even though I knew what it looked like on paper actually seeing the trusses reminded me how little attic storage I will have. Typical of a FL house though. Lower sloped roofs. But I did have the trusses engineered for hoisting. Should come in handy.








First footing inspection is set up for Tuesday, then pour the slab Wed.

[ATL ZJ]

Looking good. Planning to moist cure the slab after it's poured?

[Pearce]

Moist cure..... it's wet cure. Moist cure sounds like some sort of personal problem, haha.

It will probably receive a curing compound. Wet curing is great when it's done right and looked after for a few days. Since I'm going with an epoxy flooring the moisture content of the concrete will have an impact. But I trust my concrete guy to use the right products/process since he is also doing the epoxy work.

[Pearce]

There is a concrete truck in my backyard!!

[Pearce]

And now, I have a slab! Yay!

[ATL ZJ]

Looks good. Any plans to remove your old fence now that your neighbors built a taller one?

[jsteves]

Built a taller fence as soon as you moved in? Welcome to the neighborhood!

[Pearce]

LOL, that was the neighbor behind me that put the fence up. They are trying to flip that house.

[zjeepin]

Built a taller fence as soon as you moved in? Welcome to the neighborhood!

I'd do the same thing if Pearce moved next door to me...

[Pearce]

Finally going vertical, about half way. This is one of the most exciting parts. But unfortunately also weather sensitive. I should be getting inspections on my vertical wall reinforcing Thursday and pouring the tie beam and down cells Friday along with the patio and apron. I then would be setting trusses Saturday. Instead we have a bunch of rain coming. So we'll see what happens.

[Kraqa]

whoa. is that building code to use brick?

thats crazy.

[Pearce]

You can do wood frame if you want, but most homes are concrete block. They hold up a lot better to hurricanes Got a lot to protect in there. My house is also concrete block.

[Pearce]

Well, it didn't rain but half a day during the block work. That was enough to not finish up last week, and not set trusses over the weekend. So, finished up today, inspection passed. Tomorrow, tie beam, down cells, apron and patio pour. Trusses this weekend.

[ATL ZJ]

Can't wait to see the second story and the turrets you were telling me about

[Pearce]

Don't sneak up on my shop!

Last concrete pour today. We built that slab edge at the patio area to support a future wall for an extra room one day.

[jsteves]

Roof top patio!!

[Pearce]

LOL, yeah roof top patio would be bad ass. That has already been discussed for the roof of the house. Better view over the house on the lake across the street

Today was insulation day. We do it a bit different down here when building with concrete block. Foam insulation is injected into the hollow core cells of the blocks. First they drill a bunch of holes in you brand new walls.




Then this well trained gentleman uses an injection contraption to squirt a moist foam that fills the cavity from top to bottom. It's not an expanding foam, they just fill the wall up.



If you have your old 1950's home insulated also you get the occasional seepage through outlets or pipes while they inject from the outside.

[Pearce]

What a weekend. Marathon work weekend to get the roof done for inspection today. Worked till about 8:00pm last night, then made a run to HD for a few more materials to tighten things up before the inspector got here today. Fortunately he's never earlier than 11:30. Today it was about 1:30 which gave me plenty of time to get all the details done. And he passed it! He did ask me to hit all the nails in the roof decking with a hammer. The nailer I was using was either putting the head in too far or just barely not enough. To far is worse than not enough so I gave all of them a smack. All in all though it was a lot of fun, and a lot of hard work!









Had some trouble with a few sections of sub-fascia curling. So I got this big ass clamp and pulled it into position. Worked perfect!





Next should be the roofing sometime this week. Then maybe, just maybe, epoxy flooring next week. Roll up door has been ordered and just waiting on it to be ready. Lucky for me there is a warehouse here in Orlando where I can pick it up and not have to pay shipping.

[Pearce]

Shingle roof done!

[Ken L]

Looks good! Do you have plans to enclose the ceiling? Storage up there at all or just empty space?

[Pearce]

I knew it would be a small space up there but after seeing it in place it's really small. I'll probably just do minimal storage in the center area and close up the front and back to insulate. I'm still pondering ideas, but I may run a ceiling high between the trusses in the middle to support insulation and have storage between those trusses, like a ceiling pocket. The batt insulation for this attic is 12" thick. I'm also thinking about using pallet racks along the back wall, sort of a loft storage. Like the racks you see at Home Depot.

[Ken L]

Makes sense. A friend of mine put his air compressor in the rafters of his shop, which cut down a lot of noise. But it doesn't look like you'd have any room for even a horizontal tank up there.