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John Daake
02-18-2008, 2:55 AM
hey, all -
I'm into the enjoyable task of having a 20x24 ft garage built in the back of my yard, to be dedicated to a workshop. The roof ridge is 12 ft high,and the cross braces on each truss are at 9 ft high. I want to sheetrock a ceiling at the 9 foot level to keep in the heat and reflect the shoplights, but I also want to incorporate a couple of skylights into the roof when it is put on to get the most natural light. I don't want to restrict the light coming in by "boxing" the skylights too closely and making a tunnel, and I envision an inverted funnel coming down to ceiling level. Maybe I'm just making too much of this. Can anybody tell me the best way to bring the light in?

Daniel Shnitka
02-18-2008, 4:45 AM
Do the inverted funnel. It looks geat, Second measure a 4' by 8' plywood diagonal length then make your ceiling 4"-6" higher. Recess your lights flush with covers to the ceiling. There will be less issues of dust having no where to collect or you to get up on a ladder to vacuum the housing for florescent lights.
Air cleaner goes above the rafters with intake and output venting flush with ceiling and ducking above the rafters. Provide your self with a access door or slide away cover to the unit. Make the opening large enough to replace filters and to remove the unit for repair or replacemrnt.
Dust collection goes in the walls or under the floor and the wall is panelled over with removable panels.
Floor is parquet, saves your chisels and planes. Damage to the floor no big deal as you just replace the odd 1" by 4" quarter or 3/8 thick single piece.
Those are my thoughts on the ideal shop for you and what I am working towards in my own shop.

dave rollins
02-18-2008, 6:14 AM
John
If you don't already have your shop built you might want to take a look at putting in scissor trusses. Your ceiling will slope up at a lesser slope than the roof side giving you a taller ceiling in the center of your shop. I think another plus would be that you wouldn't have such a long tunnel for your skylights. It might be worth a look.
Hope this helps
Dave

Jamie Buxton
02-18-2008, 10:29 AM
Having done it, I'll tell you that framing and sheetrocking a real funnel is a head-scratcher, when the top and the bottom of the funnel are not parallel. There's no parallel lines, and there's no ninety-dgree angles. It is considerably easier if the funnel walls parallel to the trusses are vertical. Then the other two funnel walls are simple rectangles. I'd place the skylight centered between two trusses, and make simple vertical walls parallel to the trusses. If the trusses are close together, they might form the walls. Then I'd make the other two walls, either vertical or tilted. If you're really concerned about not having any light absorbed on the walls of the tunnel, you could line it with something reflective -- for instance aluminum foil attached with wallpaper paste, or duct-board. (There are commercial skylight products whose tunnel is an aluminized flexible tube.)

John Daake
02-18-2008, 1:07 PM
Thank you all for the help. Daniel, great ideas and I'll work on them -- your shop will be amazingly efficient. Dave, the scissors trusses would be a help, but this garage comes in a kit form with pre-cut pieces and trusses. Jamie, sounds like you ran into what I was worrried about -- a real headscratcher. I like the framing you suggested, and I'm going to stick with white painted surface on all components of the ceiling for reflection. Now if I can just keep the predicted snowstorms at bay for a little longer...

Chris Padilla
02-19-2008, 11:58 AM
John,

I just had 3 skylights (Velux brand) installed in my living room. I can't tell you how amazing it is having them. I keep thinking someone's left the light on in there! They look cool (cathedral ceiling, 2x6 rafters) and the light is awesome.

Due to my situation, any kind of "splaying" or "funneling" couldn't happen and didn't really need to. I just boxed them nice and straight. They did wonders to break up the large cathedral ceiling.

Here is a thread I started regarding them: *click* (http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=69548)

I should take more pics of the finished product and add to the thread.

Travis Gauger
02-19-2008, 12:54 PM
My father has a bathroom in his house that is "land Locked" from an outside wall. It had no way to get natural light in. He found a product at the local big box store that was a simple reflective tube maybe 10" in diameter that went from his bathroom cieling up to the roof. It is classified as an actual skylight but it is round. Really neat and works far better than my "Big" skylights in my livingroom. Here is a picture I found online of the design. May want to think about it. The selling point for my father was that his house was complete and installation of these are far less costly in that situation.