Fredy's new shop

[FredyCro]

Hi everyone,

I haven't been around much lately. My wife and I bought an apartment and moved house, so there was a lot of work involved.

As a big benefit there was the garage that came with the apartment, it is an independent building about 45 m2 in size, and it shares one wall with the neighboring garage and has a car port in front of the garage door.

As you will see, the garage had/has quite a big problem with water ingress. While I noticed that there is a problem with humidity I was not aware of direct roof leaks and further damages. There were only small signs of trouble in the summer, but the whole thing went to sh*it during the fall and winter.

See for yourself below.

Anyhow, I thought it would be nice to share the repair project with you and to document my progress as I go. Your ideas, comments and help are more then welcome as I am doing a lot of this small repairs and fixes for the first time.

Finally, I will be sharing my ideas on the lay out of the shop , tools and similar and would love to hear what you have to say on it.

Drive in from the car port. New to (to me) workbench with foldable vice and a rocker arm for putting it on wheels.

Street view.

The flat roof was covered with some kind of waterproof asphalt which cracked on the lower side of the roof so the water was going directly into the wall, the whole roof is now professionally repaired with bituminous sheeting.

I cleaned up the mess behind the garage.

Still to check if this corner needs to ne unearthed and checked for damages/water leaks.

Crack between the garage and outside wall (water ingress number 2) provisionally repaired, it will be covered with metal sheeting to provide additional protection. I guess this was the source of the water damage in the lower part of the wall, water was passing from the roof and dripping before reaching the water drain directly in the crack.

I would like to unearth the garage further, but the roots from the neighnours tree and proving to be a formidable opponent.

 

[FredyCro]

General plan now is:

1. Find and repair all the water leaks (roof and visible cracks are already repaired)
2. Dry the walls, throw everything out including the wooden separators
3. Put a hole in the wall, install a large fan for the grinding room and for taking out the humidity
4. Paint the walls with a paint based on concrete
5. Install more lights and electricity outlets
6. Build a small grinding room out of OSB board with sliding doors and glass windows for light

 

[Ken H>]

You got a fun project for sure - do keep us updated on progress with photos.

 

[Hengelo_77]

White walls lots of light and electrical output as you mentioned.
My only advice is to take your time determining the hight of your workbenches.
Half an inch to high or low can mean back pain. I have my workbenches build abound me at three different hights

 

[Daniel Fairly Knives]

Lots of work and looking good!!!

 

[Pinoy Knife]

don't forget to put gutters on it... that way you have some control of where the water goes. you could angle the downspouts to a 55 gallon drum ,away from the building, with a bottom drain.
if it were mine id dig next to the wall with water problems and seal the cement up real good .... followed by gutters and a drain away from the building...
even if only into a culvert/ tube with holes on the top to funnel the water somewhere it won't hurt anything....
gutters can in a pinch be from pvc pipe with the top cut open..... only problem can be how to hold it to the roof ,being round..
45m2 oh yeh great size

 

[FredyCro]

don't forget to put gutters on it... that way you have some control of where the water goes. you could angle the downspouts to a 55 gallon drum ,away from the building, with a bottom drain.
if it were mine id dig next to the wall with water problems and seal the cement up real good .... followed by gutters and a drain away from the building...
even if only into a culvert/ tube with holes on the top to funnel the water somewhere it won't hurt anything....
gutters can in a pinch be from pvc pipe with the top cut open..... only problem can be how to hold it to the roof ,being round..
45m2 oh yeh great size

Yeah, that's the plan if I can't get it dry without it. But the two walls under the earth level are actually dry. It's the one corner that I am still not sure about, so if it is not drying in week or a two, I will dig that corner up and check it out. But I am quite confident that all the water was from the crack in the roof and the crack in the fence wall.

 

[FredyCro]

White walls lots of light and electrical output as you mentioned.
My only advice is to take your time determining the hight of your workbenches.
Half an inch to high or low can mean back pain. I have my workbenches build abound me at three different hights

I will be moving most of benches and stuff from my old shop. I am planing a working place/bench for working in feet as well. I still need to measure all the stuff out and figure it out, but now the water problems are giving me enough headache for the time being

 

[FredyCro]

don't forget to put gutters on it... that way you have some control of where the water goes. you could angle the downspouts to a 55 gallon drum ,away from the building, with a bottom drain.
if it were mine id dig next to the wall with water problems and seal the cement up real good .... followed by gutters and a drain away from the building...
even if only into a culvert/ tube with holes on the top to funnel the water somewhere it won't hurt anything....
gutters can in a pinch be from pvc pipe with the top cut open..... only problem can be how to hold it to the roof ,being round..
45m2 oh yeh great size

Oh, i thougth you meant underground gutters/ground drainage. There is a gutter on the lower side of the roof, roof has a gentle slope and the water flows to the gutter and drainage towards the street.

 

[FredyCro]

There is also a small metal sheet lip on the sides of the roof, its just covered in the sheeting now, so its not showing good.

 

[Pinoy Knife]

yea i would drain anything i could away from the building..
even if it takes digging down deep to make sure everything is dry.. the gutters just need to move the water to where to want it to go
you could use a plastic/steel drum filled with gravel to catch the water and a drain from the bottom of the drum to put it where you want it
you could also dig a hole/well away from the building and use that/those to spread the water out ... you fill them with sand/gravel ...
i think they are called a dry well......

 

[FredyCro]

I hope you guys can live with my old school hand drawn plans, I really should try some simple program for drawing on PC. The plan is as follows, the round thing is a pillar.

I thought first of putting the grinding room in front of the window, but I couldn't bring myself to "permanently" sacrifice the parking spot. We have 4 or 5 bicycles and will potentially need a spot for a cargo bike (not practical to hang it on on the wall). The idea is to try to get some light through the windows and open garage door to the grinding room and to have bigger machines in the grinding room on the wheels in case I want to roll them out. So a lot of glass windows and large sliding door is planned for the grinding room. Another small sliding door on the back. When not in use the room should be ventilated plenty to avoid problems with humidity, two doors should generate enough draft for this purpose.

Some ideas, I will try to upload a better pic:

View from car port through the garage door/entrance.

Potential "Clean room/storage" area.

"Grinding room", the wooden separators are going away and the wall should be about 40 cm to the left of it.

Recycling unneeded furniture, shoe closet with two sliding door, will get a bench top.

Same goes for this large two door wardrobe, shelf mounts will be used as a belt rack (will weld additional tubes):

 

[Pinoy Knife]

Freddy
i think if you separate the space into 4 pieces (id use the post as a divider id put the grinding area in the farthest corner making a wall
then a second wall (with a door to close it in) then maybe clean room???
or add a 2nd door yo go into semi clean (assembly) area... then clean room ...
i would very strongly say add many LED light bars/Florescent style to the ceiling... it looks like there is conduit there already... maybe adding a couple box fans for air movement
i think i might think hard about drilling a exhaust hole in the wall to vent out the air from the grinding/dirty work room maybe a 4 inch pipe..
looks like a fun project...

 

[SwissHeritageCo]

Nice little thread you have here.

 

[FredyCro]

Freddy
i think if you separate the space into 4 pieces (id use the post as a divider id put the grinding area in the farthest corner making a wall
then a second wall (with a door to close it in) then maybe clean room???
or add a 2nd door yo go into semi clean (assembly) area... then clean room ...
i would very strongly say add many LED light bars/Florescent style to the ceiling... it looks like there is conduit there already... maybe adding a couple box fans for air movement
i think i might think hard about drilling a exhaust hole in the wall to vent out the air from the grinding/dirty work room maybe a 4 inch pipe..
looks like a fun project...

Hi Pinoy, thats the plan, if you check the orange lines above. The grinding area is in the furthest right corner and it is about one meter wider to the left then the post. There will be two walls woth OSB boards, two sliding doors and large glass viewing wondows. This leaves a 3 meteres wide "parking" area which I would like to use a movable work space (bench, welder, forge, anvil, all on wheels).

On the ventilation, I orderered a large 10 inch fan. I will need to make a 5 inch hole next to the door for the air inlet and two holes on the opposite wall, one next to the window for the mobile AC and a large one for the fan in the grinding room. The holes on the window wall will be PITA, as it is 10 inch reinforced concrete.

 

[Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith]

You might consider putting the vents and fans through the roof.

 

[Bill DeShivs]

As far as the A/C- I recommend a mini-split unit. If you have 220V available, get a 220 unit, but the 110 V units work extremely well.
These are easy to install without an HVAC technician, they don't take up a window, and are energy-efficient.
Mine cost right at $500. I can supply more info if you need it.

 

[FredyCro]

You might consider putting the vents and fans through the roof.

Same reinforced concrete

I was thinking of putting some windows on the roof, but since we just made it waterproof, I am not touching it anymore. I bought a Bosch drill hammer and I will try to do some work by pre-drilling. If it doesn't work I will need to find someone to borrow a larger demolition hammer.

It's very rainy the last couple of weeks, so the wall with water damage is drying slowly. In the meantime I am gathering the things I will need. My next post will be on the ventilation and the sliding door system.

 

[FredyCro]

As far as the A/C- I recommend a mini-split unit. If you have 220V available, get a 220 unit, but the 110 V units work extremely well.
These are easy to install without an HVAC technician, they don't take up a window, and are energy-efficient.
Mine cost right at $500. I can supply more info if you need it.

Yeah, that would be nice for sure. I got the mobile device from our last apartment. It's under powered for this size of the room, but it is free at the moment and it also has a dehumidify function, so I will try to run it for a bit. I hope to upgrade down the line. I will see how hot it gets in the summer but since half of the garage is under earth, the earth keeps it somewhat cool. I am rather interested in the heating for the winter and dehumidifying for the condensation.

 

[Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith]

I had to drill a 10" hole through the side of an air traffic control tower. I did this:
Get a good size hammer drill and a 1" masonry bit long enough to go through the wall. Draw a circle where you want the hole. Draw a circle 1/2 inside of that circle. Drill around the inner circle ever two inches. After all the holes are drilled you use a stone chisel in the hammer drill to clean the webs out. Once every other web is gone, a few smacks with a big maul will dislodge the chunk of concrete. If you find rebar that you need to remove, you will have to cut it with a long demolition carbide blade in a reciprocating saw. Clean up the hole with the chisel bit or a stone hammer.

If it is just for ventilation and air exhaust, you can just drill a lot of 1" holes in a honeycomb pattern. No need to remove the concrete plug or cut any rebar.
Fit a cover as needed on the outside. Lot of drilling, but would work.