New Shop Do's & Don'ts

I don’t agree with the “run you broke” statement about the floor heat. We open our big 36x16ft bi-fold door 2-10 times a day moving stuff in and out and our bill for gas is very small for as often as the door is open.

We run natural gas tho, if you don’t have access and have to run propane then it gets pricey-er for sure.

I don’t reallu see why you couldn’t do waste oil radiant heat, never seen it. But I’m sure it can be done if you’ll have that much oil.

DO NOT GET A WORTH LIFT!! Guy who sells/owns them is a DICK now and the quality is the worst. They were good in the 80's 90's but now they SUCK! i had a worth 12k i was afraid to work under it. Sold that pos and Bought a Rotary 12k 2 times the Lift

Any input on shop drains?? I would like as few as possible because they are always in the way, engine hoists, carts etc. But snow melting is a concern. Do I do s drain per lift?

I have one drain per bay in my detached garage currently. When I build the garage addition on the house I am going to do the same, but make it a trench drain at the door side of the bay and slope the garage to it. This will help keep things from getting inside as well as get things out of the way if I do end up using this garage for any work.

Another thing I would suggest is to put pull points in the floor, there are several different options, each has their benefits. Something like this

I could have sworn there was a thread on here that had suggestions for a shop, must have been on another forum, if I find it I will link it back.

Clean Burn makes waste oil boilers for floor heat. Local concrete company just uses 2 natural gas on-demand water heaters which take up zero space. It's a huge shop but their only complaint was the thermostat is just on the wall and not a probe in the floor. The drivers will open the doors and wait for the trucks to air up and the cold air makes the water heaters come on. They will burn the whole time and when they trucks all leave the shop is 85* the rest of the day since now the slab is hot.



Waste oil is great except the tank has to be stored inside the shop and it's dirty. Friend uses a Clean Burn and other than the yearly cleaning it's problem free, of course he let people talk him out of floor heat and has regretted it for 20yrs. If you have it and pull a snow covered truck in before you leave for the night, the floor is dry when you come back in the morning. Local car dealer generates more waste oil than they can burn so they give it to anyone that can haul it away.



I've said this 1000 times and will keep saying it, wood is only cheaper if your time is worth nothing. If you won't work in the shop for free, then cutting wood isn't free.

06 DIESEL said:

I have one drain per bay in my detached garage currently. When I build the garage addition on the house I am going to do the same, but make it a trench drain at the door side of the bay and slope the garage to it. This will help keep things from getting inside as well as get things out of the way if I do end up using this garage for any work.

Another thing I would suggest is to put pull points in the floor, there are several different options, each has their benefits. Something like this

I could have sworn there was a thread on here that had suggestions for a shop, must have been on another forum, if I find it I will link it back.

Click to expand...

That'd be great, getting ready to put up a shop myself in a month and I'd like to incorporate all I can ahead of time.