Help build my shop

[Wes Billups]

This is really premature as we don’t even own an acreage yet, see this post (http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=92062) for details on the land.

My wife and I made an offer on some land last night and we were discussing our plan for the property. Ultimately we’ll be building a home on the land but that’s 8-10 years out due to our kid’s ages and our current home’s proximity to the elementary school (2 blocks).

My dream is to build a dedicated stand alone woodworking shop which would be 30-40’ from the house. The land currently has no utilities so we’d be laying out a lot more than just the building cost. My first question is regarding the construction costs. What would everyone guess a 35’ deep by 40’ wide building would cost in central Ohio? I’ve told my wife I think we can build an insulated building, run electrical, dig a well, and install a leach septic system to the shop for under $50,000. The utilities would be sized appropriately for both the shop and future house. I realize there are a lot of unknowns in all of this but for those of you who have done similar things, am I in the ballpark?

I’m looking for input/suggestions on the shop details. My preference would be for the shop to have a poured foundation below the frost line and a poured slab floor. One item is that the building must be easily convertible to a garage. We’d also like to consider a small living quarters above the shop but this is definitely optional.

Based on responses to this I’ll be posting a lot more questions in the future.

Thanks,
Wes Billups

[John Keeton]

Wes, 4 years ago I built a metal building, 24x40, with 24' of it insulated with spray foam, electrical, lights and slab for about $14K. The insulation was $1,800. so deduct that.

Our septic system was about $4,500, and we ran a 1,500' water line from a municipal water tap, so don't know about the well. When we did our geothermal, the three wells (200' deep) were less than $3K I think, but it was in the overall bid so I am not sure. Of course, with water you would have casing, etc., pump, so the costs would be more.

[David G Baker]

Wes,
I live in Mid Michigan and had a 30'x40'x10' Pole building built 5 years ago that cost me $17,000. Composition roof, metal siding over 1" foil covered foam insulation, 1 roll up door, 2 windows, 1 walk through door, 6 inches of concrete over 2 inch foam board. The price also included an OSB covered ceiling. I did the electric myself and paid $2500 for a natural gas furnace installed which included running 200' of line from the house supply to the shop. Plan on adding as much insulation as you can afford because insulation is one of the item that will pay for its self in savings.
Suggestion, you may not want the building far from the house, this way you can tap off of the house gas supply, water supply (well), septic and electric supply. You will save thousands by doing it this way. You will also spend more time in your shop if you don't have to walk a long distance from your house to your shop. You may even be able to tap off of the house heating and cooling system if you design your system to go that route.

[Von Bickley]

Wes,

We are presently living in a pole building while we build our house.

30X36 pole building with a 10X36 porch, inside of building insulated, 10 ft. ceilings at the sides and approximately 17 ft. to the ridge, 3 windows, 2 three foot service doors, 1 roll-up garage door, concrete poured and finished in building and for porch. Pole building cost in January 2006 was $16,850.

We closed off a living area of about 450 sq. ft. That works out to be a 10X16 bedroom, a 12X16 kichen and sitting area and a 8X12 bathroom & laundry.

I put a 400 amp service on the building so I could take a 200 amp service to the house and not have to have a meter can on the house.

My 4" well is 62 ft. deep with a 1 HP pump that checked out at 35-40 GPM. My well cost me $2600 but the well man is a good friend of mine also.

My septic tank and drain field cost me $2600 for the tank and drain field. That was for 200 ft. of drain field and we put down 140 ft. of infiltrator lines that would be equal to 200 ft. of standard drain line. I also had to put down approximately 100 ft. of french drain in front of the drain field to catch rain water.

I have about $1000 dollars in my electrical system for the building but that also takes care of the service to the house and a manual transfer panel for my generator connection.

I have about $1000 dollars in my plumbing for my bathroom, washing machine and kitchen area.

Since the building was insulated, we just put R-11 in the walls and R-19 in the ceiling of our temporary living area. We have a 3000 watt electric heater in the kitchen and sitting area, and we just use a 1500 watt space heater in the bathroom. We cool out living area with a 12000 BTU window unit.

We just put 1/4" luan on the walls and ceiling and painted that. We put down 12" stick down tiles thru out the living area.

For the kitchen, we just bought some white cabinets from Lowe's and put down a countertop from Lowe's also.

For right now I have a work shop area of about 600 sq. ft. (20X30) and everything works fine for us.

My cost in my building is approximately $30,000.

Hope this info helps.....:)

[Tom Godley]

Wow -- I could not touch any of those prices.

PA is bad -- but NJ is just unbelievable. $2500.00 for a septic system - SYSTEM!


Just unbelievable.

[David G Baker]

I had a 6 inch well drilled to 121 feet for around $2300 three years ago. My septic system is still functioning fine so I haven't had to put any money into it other than having it pumped out for $100.
I think about sinking a hand driven well for my pole building because I can hit water at 20 feet but that is a future project.

[Rollie Meyers]

Just paid $ 2500.00 for a 1 HP pump & replacing pipe & wire, labor.Pump set @ 160'. (Last pump 4 years ago was 1600.00 bucks but that was w/ existing 1 1/2" galvy pipe from the '70's). In the future who knows how much things are going to cost.

[John Keeton]

One other thought. Not sure about material pricing right now, but as far as labor costs, this may be the most opportune time to build that we have seen in decades. Many in the building industry are out of work and I imagine some of this contracted work can be had as cheap, if not cheaper, than 5-6 years ago. Just be careful! I would want to pay for all materials direct from the supplier, and not pay a sub-contractor for materials and end up with a lien. Times are tough for a lot of people right now.

[Jim Becker]

PA is bad -- but NJ is just unbelievable. $2500.00 for a septic system - SYSTEM!
Yes, add a zero to the end of that number for around here.

But Wes stated in his previous thread that he can use a traditional non-pressurized leach field on this property, so that really changes the cost dynamic. As you know in eastern PA and NJ, "perk" doesn't happen and it's all sand-mound all the time... Ching Ching...

----

Wes, what you might start doing is to contact the pole barn and metal building companies that operate in your area to get ball-park prices. Check for signs along the road for evidence about who does a lot of them in your area and perhaps, ask the farmers who have such structures who they recommend.

[Don Bullock]

One other thought. Not sure about material pricing right now, but as far as labor costs, this may be the most opportune time to build that we have seen in decades. Many in the building industry are out of work and I imagine some of this contracted work can be had as cheap, if not cheaper, than 5-6 years ago. Just be careful! I would want to pay for all materials direct from the supplier, and not pay a sub-contractor for materials and end up with a lien. Times are tough for a lot of people right now.

John is correct. Labor costs are down quite a bit in my area right now. Many in the building industry are looking for work. I actually get them to call back the day I contact them.

Material prices, except for anything made from metal, are down some as well. As John states, it's important to make sure you are careful. Some of the contractors are operating on little capital. It would be very tempting for them to use supply money to pay their other bills.


...
Wes, what you might start doing is to contact the pole barn and metal building companies that operate in your area to get ball-park prices. Check for signs along the road for evidence about who does a lot of them in your area and perhaps, ask the farmers who have such structures who they recommend.

Jim's got the right idea. Only the local contractors can give you accurate estimates of the costs involved. They also know the local building codes. Often what can be built in one area, especially if people will live it, can't be built in another area. On wells a lot depends on the depth needed to reach the aquifer. The depth can even vary on your own property.

[Wes Billups]

We still haven't heard back on our offer and it's been 36 hours. We gave them until tonight to make a decision. Hopefully this means they're seriously considering it.

Anyone have any comments on structural insulated panels (SIP's). I got some quotes on these a few years ago and they didn't seem half bad compared to stick built. Nothing compares real well with pole or metal buildings but I'm not a big fan of the expense methods of finishing off the interior of these type structures.

Thanks,
Wes

[Jim Becker]

Wes, I wanted to build my addition with SIPs, but it wasn't in the cards for a bunch of practical reasons, including my chosen GC and Architect not having experience with them. I will say that they are a great way to build a structure, especially with a pole barn or timber frame for support. VERY energy efficient. A little harder for electrical, but not a show stopper. The building goes up fast, too.

[John Keeton]

Wes, our home is a hybrid timberframe built with SIPS from here http://www.thermocore.com/ In these panels, the electrical outlets are molded in the walls with conduit stubbed down (or up) for feeding of wire. Not sure that would work well for a shop as it requires a lot of planning and doesn't lend itself to changes on site. Both sides of the SIP are OSB. They can be designed to support the roof, of course, but you would have to engineer collar beams of some sort unless there were sufficient interior walls to tie everything together.

For a home, however, we have been wonderfully pleased and I would highly recommend them. We built 4 years ago and I am sure there are others in the market by now, but we did a lot of research and prefer the polyurethane to the EPS panels - both for R value and ease of install. I have a series of pics of the panel installation if you develop an interest.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Wes,

I had a contractor build my 30'x24' shop 4 years ago. The empty unpainted shell with 10' ceilings, 2"x6" construction, poured footings, poured wall, poured floor, 3 4'x3" insulated thermopane windows, 1 10' insulated overhead garage door, 1 36" walk-in door, better class asphalt shingles cost me $16,000.

I did the electrical, the exterior painting, insulation, 1/2" plywood walls, 5/8" sheetrock ceilings myself. I haven't kept track of those costs.

The electrical....the shop has it's own meter and 200 amp service.

Insulation...R-19 in the walls and R-40 in the ceiling.

The LOML bought and had installed a Lennox 75,000 btu hanging natural gas furnace for me as a Christmas present. I think she wanted me out of her hair in the winter time too!

[John Keeton]

Wes, Ken's post reminded me of something I meant to mention. I have double sliding doors on the uninsulated end of my building - the 16' section that is storage. I prefer it to the garage door setup. I can open one of them partially, or fully, or both of them for about 15' clearance. They latch tight enough for the purpose. If you were going to try to heat/cool that area, then I would probably feel differently. I would think the garage door would seal a little tighter.

[Ed Bellman]

I work in the commercial/industrial/healthcare construction industry in SW Ohio and while work is a bit slow and affecting labor pricing accordingly (down) material prices are still continuing to go up - an average of 6.6% annually over the last four years. Granted some materials are dropping but more are going up on the whole so the overall average is continuing to rise. Can't say about residential construction, that's a whole 'nother ball game.