Workshop to House space?

[Bryan Rocker]

Hey fellow creekers,

I am now in the serious planning stages of my new shop. SWMBO has said I can start when ever I am ready. I have a ranch house on 1/2 acre with a 2 car garage. I am looking at building a detached 20 x 35 shop. It will extend past the house about 12' so I will have a drive up door there. My thought is what about building it say 6' from the house, and putting up doors on each end to create a space for the air compressor I don't have yet and the dust collection motor, venting it outside. This area would be all concrete. I envision joining the 2 roof's and putting guttering between them to move the water away. I am not sure 6' is enough although my current eve's are 3'. The house was built in the early 60's.

I am also trying to save a nice sized maple tree. 20's + the 6' puts it at the drip line, any further out and the tree will have to go....

Any thoughts or comments are greatly appreciated.

[Matt Evans]

First thing is to check local building code, if you have one. There are limitations on how close you can put buildings if they are not attached to one another.

Aside from that, I would say 6' is plenty. Just try not to block house windows that you don't have to.

Sounds like a good sized shop. Best of luck on the build!

[Don Bullock]

First thing is to check local building code, if you have one. There are limitations on how close you can put buildings if they are not attached to one another.

Aside from that, I would say 6' is plenty. Just try not to block house windows that you don't have to.

Sounds like a good sized shop. Best of luck on the build!

Matt is correct when he stated that you need to check your local building code. According to our building code my unattached shop/garage had to be a minimum of 10 feet from the house. The space between the two now has an overhang for a roof that connects both buildings.

BTW -- I checked the difference in cost between an attached shop/garage and one that is unattached. The unattached was a great deal cheaper to build and it also has lower property taxes than an attached shop/garage.

[Bryan Rocker]

Thanks for your input. I have been reading some of the code and the limit on shop size is 800 sq ft. I haven't found any space minimum yet. I think I could go another 4' but I think the maple would have to go. Not a terrible thing. Even with the footer at the drip line I am concerned about root problems.......

As to the window, I am not covering any of them, SWMBO wouldn't let me go that far ;)

[Sam Layton]

Hi Bryan,

I agree with the others about the code. My shop is 13 feet away from the house. The city made me install fire sprinklers in my shop because it was so close to the house. The city would only allow 900 sq ft for my shop. I built a porch on my shop, and the city counted that as part of the sq ft. My shop is 750, and my porch is 150 sq ft. Try to make it as big as you can. It sure gets small fast...

The only problem I see with your plan is your dust collection. If you heat or cool your shop, the dust collector vented outside will suck your cool or hot air out is a second.

Sam

[Don Bullock]

Reading limits on size for your shop is interesting. My shop/garage is 960 square feet. It was limited only by the size of the area I had and the size of my budget. I had to fit the building between the house and propane tank with a required set back of 10' for each and keep the build under a budgeted amount. I ended up with set backs of 11'. I wanted to make sure that the inspector and I didn't have conflicting ways of measuring the distance. Due to fire sprinkler requirements and the resulting drywall instillation I did go quite a bit over the budget. Since plastic instead of copper was used for the sprinkler pipes the drywall was required by code.

Perhaps of you called the building a garage or garage with space for storage and crafts like I did your maximum size might be larger. No, we didn't have to explain what kind of crafts were planned. Once the inspector saw where the electrical plugs were placed on the plan he knew what we were doing, especially the ones in the middle of the floor.

Knowing your local code and any other agencies requirements as well as possible is a good idea before actually planning your building. Also finding out if there are any recent changes is helpful. My permit was delayed because my area of the county had adopted a new requirement for concrete slabs. The initial plans showed the slab 6" above grade, but the new requirement was for 8". It's my understanding that the new requirement was set by the local fire district, not the county's building code.