New workshop!!!!!

[Michael Rutman]

After more than a year, my new workshop is usable. Still more to do, have to install the lift to the second floor, paint, trim, attach electrical outlets and get the new air conditioner installed, but I can now use it enough to be excited.

The major delay was permits. It took 10 months for the county to finally sign it.

The old workshop was a single floor 20x15. I added another 20x15 knocking out the wall in the middle. The new section is two floors with an electric lift that can carry 800lbs. I will have a walk through ladder for human access, so no stairs.

Sorry for some of the pictures being rotated, but can't figure out how to stop that.

The saturday after Thanksgiving they poured the concrete.

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The new shop was framed by christmas
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The hole in the wall was opened up
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Insulation (second picture is shot from the bottom through where the lift will go)
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Drywall and mudding
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And yesterday my impatience beat the painters and electrician. However, I'm at max attachments per post, so you'll have to trust me that I have already moved some tools into it and started cutting up some MDF to make a clamp cart.

Pictures do not do it justice. 600 sq ft on the bottom and 300 sq feet up top, all air conditioned. The top will be for storing bulky things, like extra lumber and christmas ornaments.

In 2-3 weeks it will really be done, I'll post pictures of it with all my new tools.

[Aaron Inami]

Awsome! I wish I had 600 sq ft (as I currently have 400 sq ft). Though, if I had 600 sq ft, I probably would wish I had 1000 sq ft, lol.

I have found that iPhone will automatically determine if the photo taken is in landscape mode or portrait mode depending on how you are holding or angling the phone. Pay close attention to the direction of the "1X" indicator on the screen. When you upload the photos to Windows or websites, the systems will assume that the longer distance edge of the photo indicates left-to-right, so it will rotate the photo.

[Maurice Mcmurry]

Neat-O! I like your ideas for the 2nd floor. I have not wanted to give up the space that a stairway takes and have to go outside to go upstairs.

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[Christopher Charles]

Your shop looks great and I'm with Aaron-I'd love 600 sq ft plus storage!

Do you mind sharing what caused the delays with the permits and whether you could have avoided them (besides living somewhere else-lol!).

Will look forward to seeing pics.

Best,
Chris

[Jim Becker]

That's coming along nicely! I'm also curious about why your jurisdiction was "killing the grass", as one of my high school football coaches liked to say. What were they having issue with? My permit including zoning pre-approval took less than a month this past year.

[Michael Rutman]

Sigh, sorry for the rant. I'm sure I'll be forgiven.

I live in Alachua County, Florida, where we have a very large environmental movement, which isn't bad in of itself. Also, a few years ago Florida passed a law requiring permits to be acted on within 30 days, so in theory building permits are faster. However, in Alachua county they tend to wait 30 days then go through the entire stack and "ask" for more information. If your contractor isn't on it then the process takes forever. I have friends in the permit department that explained what the hold up was AFTER I was so frustrated I complained to them. Once we knew that we got the permit through pretty quickly. They aren't supposed to be allowed to ask multiple times, but they got away with it because my contractor didn't know the legalese (nor did I until after the fact).

To make matters worse, I live in a flood zone, which used to be just signing a waver. Now we have to put flood vents into the workshop so if water rises the workshop will flood. That is not a typo, I have two gates that will open if the water rises more than 2 feet above ground. I had to research why anyone would WANT to flood their building, but that's the actual purpose. It's to protect the walls from collapsing. I'm not saying there will be some epoxy work after final inspection. They held up my permit until I got a $10K water mitigation plan, $5K survey and $15K new water retention pond and water diversion work done. I'm actually not upset with the water mitigation work as I planned to do it in 2023 anyway, just had to reorder stuff and wait on the workshop.

[Jim Becker]

The first part is a darn shame and I'm glad you were able to ascertain what was holding things up.

Now the second part...flood zone and water mitigation, that makes more sense. In fact, you're lucky you were able to actually build in a flood zone. That's no longer permitted here, for the most part, and one of the reasons I did some careful research with our county's GIS system to insure any property we considered when planning for our downsize move did not have restrictions due to belong in a flood zone. I knew there was going to be a shop building. Groundwater and disturbance also entered into the size of my project here. Ground disturbance over 1000 sq ft would have "gained" me thousands of dollars of engineering/survey work like you experienced as well as requiring groundwater mitigation during the build. That's a county thing here. I've seen the "flood gates" thing a few times when I was watching bunches of videos of various building types. It seems to be a more southern state thing but is a listed option on various metal and post frame building companies' offerings. While it would suck for water to gain entry to the building, it would suck more for the whole building to collapse if you think about it.

No matter...you're beyond that now!

[Christopher Charles]

That's a disciplined rant

Glad to hear you were able to work through all the challenges. Stinks that the process was unnecessarily long. Glad you went into the property clear-eyed about the additional requirements and are moving in. Appreciate you sharing.

Best,
Chris

[Michael Rutman]

Workshop has power!!! Not fully done, they still need to install a ladder and fix some other things, but the contractor is amazingly slow. He told me it was ok for me to use it while he works on getting the last bits done. Now for pictures!!!!

Going to start with the clamp rack I made, because I got to use my tools!IMG_0472.jpg

So I went for overkill on my tools. Starting with the Harvey G-800. I really should have gotten the G-700, but the G-800 has auto cleaning filters and, well, I'm lazy. This beast means I don't have to worry about pressure drop, it's going to be overkill even with 40 feet of flex hose.
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On one side I have my kpex and sawstop
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On the other I have my Hammer A31
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And my Laguna drill press and bandsaw
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Finally, my incra router table with Milwaukee 3.5hp router.
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It's amazing how much easier woodworking is with all those tools and all the space. No more tripping over myself or spending hours clearing a space to bring out a tool.

I'm very excited.