Rules of Thumb for Workshop Size

[John A langley]

Two tablesaws and one slider, Spray room 150 sq ft, one big dog 3 sq ft.

[george newbury]

Two tablesaws and one slider, Spray room 150 sq ft, one big dog 3 sq ft.

Are you allowing turn around space for the dog?

[John A langley]

His 3 feet anywhere he wants

[Ethan Melad]

I would agree that a rule for shop size based solely on machinery is not really going to be particularly accurate. I think that there are way too many mitigating factors. That said, this is what i've got:

Unisaw
18" planer
16" jointer
drill press
shaper
router table
20" bandsaw
12" RAS
vertical belt sander
vertical air compressor
2hp dust collector (almost forgot this one)

not tools, but necessary items using up shop square footage:
wood stove
lumber rack
sheet goods rack
8'x8' spray area
6x10 bench area
4x8 assembly/outfeed table

in 720 sqf - which is, of course, too small.

[Mike Berrevoets]

Sounds like a fun exercise and I have some down time on vacation.....

shop is 20' by 36' but there is an 8' by 12' corner cut out for yard tools and tractor. (Separate roll up door for the shed as I don't want my yard tools commingling with shop tools) The township limited me to 720 square feet without getting a variance so I maxed it out.

Tools
table saw
floor drill press
band saw
cyclone
jointer
lunchbox planer on mobile stand (m)
router table/miter saw on a long bench against wall
lathe
scroll saw on stand

Square foot = 624
tools = 8 to 10 depending on how you count them.
So 62 to 78 square feet per tool.

Im a hobby woodworker and I think I have plenty of room after living with it for about 6 years. I would like a little more space but I don't need anymore space. Sometimes I wish I would have went a little wider than then 20 feet but it works.

Mike

[Thomas Wilson]

Two tablesaws and one slider, Spray room 150 sq ft, one big dog 3 sq ft.

Thanks, John, for the clarification. I will revise your ratio to increase the tools by 1 and decrease the square footage by 150 sq. ft.

Z=(3700-150)/20=177.5

I would like to have a ratio as large as this. It's not in the cards for me. Perhaps we should revise the aphorism, "The guy with the most toys wins." to "The guy with the most space per toy wins." You are in the top 10 for sure.

TW

[Thomas Wilson]

I have nearly the same tools as you, except:
Scroll saw instead of RAS
Router table built into TS
OTOH, most of my tools are bigger than yours.
So it should be about a wash sizewise.

My tools are in a 13x28 area. There is plenty of open floorspace to do everything and 2 big open areas for assembly.
In addition to that, I have:
9x13 of shelving with sandpaper, stains, handheld tools...
Lumber fills 13x8.
And 7x13 that is empty so far. Thinking of a MFT for it.

So, based on my shop, and if I understand your conditions properly, you should have plenty of room as it is.

I tried to post some pictures showing my layout, but they are being rejected for some reason. I even tried to post a picture of a latch that I posted last week, but it won't post either. Is something changed?

Sorry for being a bit dense. I posted a list of all my tools and then a list of the tools that are in my basement shop. The difference being 14 versus 7. Which list is the same as yours?


I am going to assume you mean the latter (7 stationary tools). So your number of tools is 17? I am going to add the storage space for sandpaper and supplies and lumber to your shop because that is the way my shop is figured. Your revised number is

Z=(13x28+13x8+13x9)/7=83.6 sq. ft/tool

Please correct me if I misunderstood.

Thanks.

[Thomas Wilson]

Sounds like a fun exercise and I have some down time on vacation.....

shop is 20' by 36' but there is an 8' by 12' corner cut out for yard tools and tractor. (Separate roll up door for the shed as I don't want my yard tools commingling with shop tools) The township limited me to 720 square feet without getting a variance so I maxed it out.

Tools
table saw
floor drill press
band saw
cyclone
jointer
lunchbox planer on mobile stand (m)
router table/miter saw on a long bench against wall
lathe
scroll saw on stand

Square foot = 624
tools = 8 to 10 depending on how you count them.
So 62 to 78 square feet per tool.

Im a hobby woodworker and I think I have plenty of room after living with it for about 6 years. I would like a little more space but I don't need anymore space. Sometimes I wish I would have went a little wider than then 20 feet but it works.

Mike

Thanks, Mike. Let's just say 9 tools. What were the city fathers thinking, to put limits on a good workshop?

Z=624/9=69 sq. ft./tool

[Thomas Wilson]

I would agree that a rule for shop size based solely on machinery is not really going to be particularly accurate. I think that there are way too many mitigating factors. That said, this is what i've got:

Unisaw
18" planer
16" jointer
drill press
shaper
router table
20" bandsaw
12" RAS
vertical belt sander
vertical air compressor
2hp dust collector (almost forgot this one)

not tools, but necessary items using up shop square footage:
wood stove
lumber rack
sheet goods rack
8'x8' spray area
6x10 bench area
4x8 assembly/outfeed table

in 720 sqf - which is, of course, too small.

Despite your skepticism, you come out right on the median.

Z=720/11=65.5 sq. ft./tool

Thanks, Ethan.

TW

[Ethan Melad]

i think this is an interesting exercise, but i guess it still doesn't seem to provide as much info as one really needs to accurately design a shop. A others have said, one type of product may be doable in a small shop, whereas another product - in a shop using the same number of machines (or less) - may, by necessity, require more space. by the logic of this study, i could swap out my unisaw for a slider - something that would certainly not work. nor could i get a wide belt sander to replace my vertical belt sander. i understand that this is meant maybe as a guideline and not meant as a rule that always works, or to eliminate the need to design a space, but still..

[Thomas Wilson]

i think this is an interesting exercise, but i guess it still doesn't seem to provide as much info as one really needs to accurately design a shop. A others have said, one type of product may be doable in a small shop, whereas another product - in a shop using the same number of machines (or less) - may, by necessity, require more space. by the logic of this study, i could swap out my unisaw for a slider - something that would certainly not work. nor could i get a wide belt sander to replace my vertical belt sander. i understand that this is meant maybe as a guideline and not meant as a rule that always works, or to eliminate the need to design a space, but still..

You understand the utility or lack thereof perfectly. So do I.

The data are aggregating around an average. I am trying to plot a histogram of the statistics. This was easy with Windows Excel. Mac Excel is a different animal. The data are showing an aggregation around 65-70 sq. ft/tool. There are outliers which represent craftsmen whose work is not similar to the entire population but it is a Gaussian-looking distribution which speaks to the normalness of the population. Another of the laws of statistics states that if you combine enough random variables together the result is always Gaussian. You can look it up.

I wil have figured out how to do histograms by tomorrow sometime so you can see what I am talking about. Stay tuned.

[Steve Milito]

I predict that the data will be clustered around the size of a two car garage once it's multiplied by the average number of tools.

[Thomas Wilson]

I predict that the data will be clustered around the size of a two car garage once it's multiplied by the average number of tools.

If you said median instead of mean, you would be correct. We have some really big shops in the population that throw off the average. Which is to say shops that are 24x20 have about 7 tools. What is really interesting is that shops much bigger and much smaller have the same ratio.I think that observation means that people don't buy a tool they don't have a place for.

What do you think it means?

[John A langley]

The size of my shop was dictated by people not by machinery six people working equals 591 ft.² I have added on to the building three times I read somewhere that the optimum size was 700 to 900 ft.² per person

[Ray Newman]

Shop size: detached building 36 x30’, but woodshop is approximately 24x30’

Machines:
14” BS
Router table (mobile)
8” jointer
12” disc sander with 6”x48” belt sander
10” compound miter saw (mobile stand)
Uni-saw with 72x42” combination assembly/cut off/extension table plus 52” fence rails
Drill press
15” planer
25 gallon air compressor (horizontal)
Cyclone

Misc. space eaters:
Approx. 24x78" workbench (not inc. extended/opened shoulder and tail vises)
Clamp rack (mobile)
Parts cart
Fe$tool shop vacuum with circ. saw systainer on top
2 large cabinets for reloading supplies
Reloading work bench for reloading presses
2 mobile cabinets for wrenches and other non-woodworking tools
4 large cabinets for tool storage, ”consumables”, hardware, etc.
Safe

I also lose floor space due to the room my wheelchair needs to turn around, move between machines, etc.