Elevated shop

[Dave Norris]

Hi,
I'm in the early stages of designing a new shop. I've also been reading John Birchand's book on door and window construction. In the first chapter, he discusses building a shop, and he shows a drawing of putting a shop on piers to lift it off the ground. His reasoning is to put storage underneath. My dad had his door and sash shop on piers, and he never had issues with rust and dampness like I do in my concrete floored shop. Loading and unloading was also easier, as the truck just pulled up to the doors, laid down a sheet of plywood, and everything wheeled in and out. I'm curious as to the groups thoughts on putting a shop on piers?

Thanks.

[Cory Hoehn]

Well, I don't have any experience with an elevated shop, but I do have quite a bit of experience with elevated warehouses. All of my buildings have a dock level door on one side and a drive-in level door on the other. I can tell you that having both is a big marketing advantage for me because all my tenants LOVE having the option of either driving right in or unloading without a liftgate or forklift.

If you could make part of your shop at "truck bed level" and another part at grade level I think you'd have the best of both worlds.

[Colin Wollerman]

I just built a post & Pier house using TJI Floor Joist with double 2x12 rim joist. The floor is so flat and solid...plumbing was a breeze, I expect this would be great for DC too.
The TJIs cost a little more but they went in very fast and with glue and screwed 3/4 ply decking produced a strong, quiet floor.
My shop will exist only in my imagination for a while but I would seriously consider Post & Pier construction if the cost were even close to that of a slab. I guess really big machines might require slab work...not sure about this?

Colin

[Lee Schierer]

Elevating high enough for a pick up truck bed wouldn't be bad, but could be a problem with heating. In cold climates you would need to insulate the floor in addition to the walls and ceilings.

[David G Baker]

In cold climates floors should be insulated if you want to conserve on energy and not have cold feet all the time. I use 2 inch blue board rigid foam under my concrete and am going to have the area of my house that is not over my basement insulated with spray foam because the fiberglass is not enough to keep the floor from being very cold during the cold months.
I would love to have a loading dock height on one side of my shop. I vote for a elevated shop for all the reasons mentioned above and many that I can't think of right now.

[Andrew Joiner]

If you could make part of your shop at "truck bed level" and another part at grade level I think you'd have the best of both worlds.

Great idea. It would be cool to have lumber and panel storage at loading dock level ,then it could slide right to the saws at saw height. Stairs might be a hassle though.

The cheap way to get this on a small scale is ahttp://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/gifs/clear.gif rolling Hydraulic Lift Table.