Concrete versus wood for shop floor

[Paul F Mills]

I have a garage shop with concrete floor. I use foam mats around my work table and tablesaw along with comfy shoes. The foam makes more of a difference than the shoes in my opinion.

I have a bunch of cork floor left over from when we did the basement and I have considered laying that to help with the comfort.

[Terry Therneau]

Because I didn't have the space (didn't want to rehang every door), I used 3/4 OSB over Foamular 250, no sleepers over smooth concrete. Where the bandsaw sits I have wood under wood instead of foam (26" Moak, 1100 lbs), and also used a 1x3 under the staggered butt joints. The floor itself is not screwed down. My reasoning was that if the OSB can spread a point load over a 10x10 area, 25 lbs per sq in translates into 1 ton. The building is a detached 22 x 28 garage with an upstairs (gambrel roof). If I had forseen "wood shop" when I built it 20 years ago I would have done several things different, though I was farsighted enough to pull 100 amp service.

I had no trouble rolling the bandsaw over the floor on 3/4 pipe, nor can I see any effects moving my 16" Minimax J/P, a standard HF tool cabinet full of wrenches, or the Eksrom-Carslon edge sander (400 lbs, on a rolling cabinet with drawers full of bolts.) The latter two don't move very often. It's been 2 years so far.