Hi, this is my first post, but I have been reading for awhile and would really appreciate some advice on my shop setup. It is a new shop that is 20' wide and 47' long and we are getting ready to pour the cement floor as soon as the frost comes out of the ground.
As you can see from the diagram, there is a bathroom that is accessible from the outside as well. There is stairs to the second level that will be an art studio for my wife and the kids can play their musical instruments (it will be great to get the drums out of the house!). In the area under the stairs I will be putting in a boiler unit that will have supplied outside air. I will have infloor heating for both levels fed from this boiler, as well as a hot water tank that will be heated by a loop from this. I was hoping to put my compressor and dust collector in this room as well, but after reading some posts I may house the dust collector in its own little room just outside this one with some type of vent back into the shop to allow air movement.
Now for the unconventional part. The dark rectangle running from this room under the stairs to the mitre saw, as well as down the middle of the shop, will be a 8" by 8" trough that will have my dust collection ducting. I know many of you advise against this as it is too rigid on tool placement, but the trough will be accessible via a steel plate, so I could put a tool anywhere along this. As well. if I decide to put tools along the long wall to the right, I can just duct it up to the ceiling and then come down by the mitre saw. I will have electrical run in this trough as well as along the walls.
I have planned the shop in functional areas starting with lumber storage, then initial cutting with mitre and table saw, then milling with jointer and planer, then shaping/joinery with the bandsaw, router table and drill press all facing outwards, then decorative work with the scroll saw and on the workbench. Sanding will be kind of out of the way, over by the downdraft table that will be fed into the dust collector. I put it way over there to minimize the dust near my desk and assembly area. I would love a finishing room, but for now I will do any finishing over by the workbench.
The power supply and ducting will all come from the trough and be out of the way. I have kind of a slim area to work with, and I wanted most of my tools away from the walls to allow cabinets to store hand tools etc. I have walked though the process in my mind and it seems to make sense, but after seeing some of the excellent comments on this forum I thought I would lean on your experience to fine tune all of this before the floor gets poured.
I have attached a drawing of the shop as well as a picture of the framing that was finished this week. And there is no snow, I can't believe our luck this winter!
Thanks,
Dale.