Backyard Workshop / Garage and freezing canadian winters

[ChriSTian_64]

Hi everyone,

I want to build a small ( 8x12 ou 10x14 ) workshop / garage for my ST1100, in my backyard. And, I'd like to hear some of your thought, or advices. I'll try to make it with a small budget... probably around $3000 CAD.

I'm seeing lots of videos of motorcycle sheds with wooden floor. I don't know... maybe if I lived in Florida.. but... I don't know. In 20 years, it will rot, and how do you insulate your floor then.

I think a concrete floor is a must. 4-5 inches thick. Specially if you want to spend time on maintenance...

I have a small concrete mixer waiting for a new project... that poor thing is waiting since about 20 years now.


And... since I live in Quebec, with long and cold winters, insulation and a bit of heating will be required.

I am planning to build this all by myself, few hours a day during my spare time and week ends. It should be done by october.


For walls thinckness, 2x4 framing is very common in north america. With this thickness, you can use 3.5 inches thick fiberglass (R-12), but, I will probably go with 2x6 and use 5.5 inch thinck fiberglass (R-22).

For heating... probably a small electric heater set to maintain a minimum and also a propane heater to warm up the shop when I'm working there.

The ground is still frosted over here. And with this Coronavirus confinement, I will have to wait a few more weeks before actually go get my material and start building it. But that's OK. I'll use that time for preparation and to think how to do it.

So, what is your experience or thought for that ?

 

[Gus1300]

I'd go with the bigger size...I have an attached 24x24 and a detached 24x24 and they're chuck full! (vintage '33 Chevy, ST, Ram 1500, kit airplane project, kids Kawasaki, mower and sweeper, shelving, freezer, bandsaw, router table, air compressor, etc...don't ask...lol) so you'll always be able to use the extra room. Especially if you go with 6x framing, you'll already be over a foot shorter than your outside pad dimension.

I always told myself that if I ever built another home/workshop, I'd consider radiant floor heating. You can do it under/in the concrete, or maybe even as a subfloor over the concrete, and it will go a LONG way toward keeping your shop livable during those cold winter days when you'd really like to do something out there and not freeze to death. Yes, a space or other heater could also, but the radiant heating (electrical or water manifold) is more efficient for whole area heating. My opinion, but having warm feet always appealed to me when I'm trying to do something in there when it's cold outside. Probably because I'm often on the ground (see below) doing things I can't get to the bench.

Other than that, I'd really like to have a 'drive on' lift in the floor at some point. Getting too old to be wrenching on my back on the bike. I can still do it, but bringing it up to my level sure would be nice sometimes. In floor would eliminate you having yet another thing to move around vs on floor/mobile, which may not be practical for your size space. LED lighting is the new rage as well, and plenty of electrical power for whatever it is you plan to run in the space to wrench.

Curious to hear what you decide and see pics of the project as you go...keep us updated occasionally!

 

[drtyrrel]

Design it with the width of a sheet of plywood in mind (or at least 1/2 a sheet). 12' wide by 16' long would make a nice size shop. It would also give you enough room to put a shelf at the end to put your side panels, luggage ect. when working on the bike. I would also use at least one window per side for light. I have a propane heater for an ice fishing shanty that will hook to a bbq size propane cylinder. I've used it in my basement during winter power outages to keep the pipes from freezing. I'd also use 8' walls and seal the ceiling from the roof . That should give you a small storage space overhead.

 

[klaproth]

After designing and building projects like this for clients for many years, I have to agree with the other posters- your dimensions are a bit too small. 12X16 is the smallest I'd build. You'll kick yourself in a few years if you don't.
- I love the idea of in-floor heat, but the associated machinery involved would be pretty spendy. Space heaters are great, cost little, and warm quickly. Be careful of open flames and gasoline though. ( when I lived up North, small woodstoves were popular)
- If you are going to run electricity out, make sure the wiring is heavy enough. I usually recommend #6 conductors, and a 60 amp subpanel. While you have the trench open, how 'bout a gas line ( I usually use CSS pipe), and a comm line.
- Windows are a must-look for some clearance units, or go to a salvage yard.
- If you are concerned with insulating it, make sure to do a great job on the ceiling , where most of the heat will escape. I'm sure you are going to cover the wall insulation some way, I have used both OSB, and drywall. OSB is a better choice for a workshop, and a bit cheaper. Makes a good ceiling too. I usually paint it, to make it less industrial looking.
Roofs: I p refer metal for roofs. Not as cheap, but easy to install, and lasts far longer than shingles.

Good luck on it, and share some pictures!
-

 

[ST Gui]

I have an attached 24x24 and a detached 24x24 and they're chuck full!

The bigger it is the more stuff you'll put in it. Strict space management is required for just about anything less than an acre.

So, what is your... thought for that ?

Zero experience but I'd say decide what you want to do with that shed now and maybe in the future, and build it a little bigger than you need/will need.

What are your max limitations in size? How much room will you need to work on the bike? Will you have a second bike? Once the shed is built will kit from the house be banished to the shed? And remember space management discipline.

Whatever you decide - take us with you! Plenty of pics of plans and the build. MAYBE – by the time you're ready to put down the foundation there could be a BuildSTOC or WoodSTOC! Wouldn't that be grand!

 

[Gerhard]

Around here I think you can build a shed of 120 square feet or less without a building permit and without it affecting property tax. That is why there are a lot of 10 x 12 or smaller sheds in people’s backyard. I know some people with pretty elaborate sheds but most aren’t heated and get by with a infrared heater over their work area.

 

[RaYzerman]

It's the old rule, sheds/garages are instantly too small the minute they are built. Pre-plan what you will have in there and stick to the plan (you won't). I would agree 12x16 is smallest I would go, check local code to see if you need permit (likely). 4" slab will be enough strength for any weight if you reinforce with 6x6 wire mesh, the key is what's underneath it to prevent frost heave... crushed 3/4" stone packs well, won't shift or and drains moisture. Put plastic vapour barrier down before you pour, insulate at least the perimeter vertically with rigid foam as part of your forms (4" of foam = R20). If you are going to constantly heat it, then go 2x6 walls and insulate the floor with rigid foam, lots in the ceiling. I agree run a gas line if you have natural gas.
I have an infrared tube heater in my 24x40, 40,000 BTU is the smallest and I keep it at 8-10C when I'm not there, 15 when I am. If going that way, go 9 or 10' ceiling. Does not take long to heat it up, very efficient and it heats all objects including the floor. Way too much for 12x16. Propane/gas heater must be vented outside to keep the humidity down. Other suggestion for work area, use 3/4"- 4x6 horse mats to cover the floor. Nicer to walk/lay on, very firm.
You'll want a workbench of some sort, don't put in too many windows as you'll find wall space for storage is very desirable... I ran a band of 1/2" plywood sheathing, bench height and up 4', drywall (or OSB) above and below... you can screw anything to the wall anywhere any time. Wire it for lots of LED light fixtures, you can't have too many.

 

[SMSW]

Your key here is the $3000 budget. Around here you can buy a 'garden shed' in a variety of configurations for under $3K USD. Shop around up there, and as @Gerhard said, check local codes. You are near a big city and inspectors can require a lot of things you think you don't want (until things fall apart and you wish you had followed the codes). These package sheds often cost less fully erected than you will spend for materials and all they require is a level place or several flat lines of tamped gravel. I was v. interested in one of these and never jumped, I was conflicted between building it my way and getting a bigger shed. In the end I made do without it.

You will not be able to pour a monolithic slab with a small mixer - unless you use a retardant (sugar) to prevent one batch from setting up before the next is ready to pour. This requires a bit of research - and a helper. If your ground heaves, then I wonder about a 4 to 5" floor - it will crack. The sheds I mentioned above use pressure treated lumber (floor too) and are usually Amish crew built. Utilities for $3K? It depends how far you are from the source. I suggest you start pricing materials and see what the total will look like. Costs add up surprisingly fast, especially when you start talking about heating and electricity. Btw, fluorescent lights do not like to light at low temperatures. LED's or incandescent will be the way to go if the shed is not heated above freezing.

 

[Sheriff41]

One of my goals is to build an outbuilding for cars, motorcycles and woodworking. Lots of brainstorming and design ideas have come and gone. I find a lot of good ideas and advice on https://www.garagejournal.com/forum/ from all over the country and around the world.

 

[Bikeric]

Any sheds etc that I built used to get filled up with stuff the ex-wife didn't want in the house, so build as big as you can!

 

[W0QNX]

I just built a shed here last spring. Under $2800 cost with the new air compressor and 1 nail gun. Concrete pad meant building permits and taxes it's so on blocks. We can have up to 400 sqft. without a permit.

Mine is 12x16 with all pressure treated lumber below the floor sheathing. I tried to follow hurricane build practices since I'm in Florida. 6 mobile home tie down (3' long) stakes into the ground with mobile home rated strap bands over the floor sill edges . Special "made for sheds" 50 year life shed flooring. 2x4 wall and rafter studs. I think the wall panels had a 40 year life guarantee. I would definitely use this wall material again. Made for sheds. The upper floor is about 80% covered in floor. 2x6 loft floor joists and OSB sheathing.

The hardest part of my build was preplanning the roof trusses angles so I only used 4 sheets of siding for the end walls. One large center panel and left and right sides required heavy thought for the side panels to make 2 parts from one sheet!

I designed it made everything myself with some nail driving help from a grandson. Raised the roof rafters all alone. I would think even in your location 2x6 walls would be overkill as it takes so little to heat (cool) such a small space.

I can get the names of the flooring and wall material if you are interested.

 

[Bmacleod]

Concrete is great but pricey. I deliver concrete every day and as a rule, the company I work for disposes of a minimum of 5-10 meters of leftovers a day from various jobs, sometimes much more, often at a cost to them. If you have a new home subdivision going up near you, approach the concrete drivers (typically the trucks that are there near the end of a pour) and ask if they expect to have leftovers that they want to get rid of. Slip them a bit of cash and everyone is happy, including the company (they dont have to pay to dispose of it). Unless you are going to excavate down 6 inches or so and put in a compactible gravel sub-base, you run the risk of cracking from heaving. I would recommend wire mesh, for what it costs. If you can acquire cheap concrete, think about going thicker for the same reason.
I like the idea of radiant floor heating but the one thing I dont like is that it takes a while for a change in settings to be noticed. Forced air systems can change the temp in a room 5 degrees in 10 minutes, and im talking in a house. Radiant can take a half hour or more. If you shut the heat off at the end of a day, it could take a couple of hours or more to bring it back your shop up to temp in the middle of a Montreal winter.
Paint it camoflauge so the wife cant see it, or it will become hers...LOL

EDIT: also, as another angle... you could go the low cost route of a wood framed floor with a small concrete slab the size of your lift under the framing below the lift. I would worry that a lift, with 700+ pounds of bike would be a little a little wobbly, sitting on floor joists. Also, put lots of bridging between the joists to add rigidity

 

[ReSTored]

^ That's a nice looking shed, pretty impressive hurricane clips on those roof trusses.

In redoing my cottage 10' x 10' shed floor 4 years ago the grade made a concrete pad or something similar impossible, so I used PT 2 x 8, PT 3/4 plywood. When doing things myself I tend to overbuild and some might say the 2 x 8 vs. 2 x 6 or the use of PT wood was overkill, but the floor is rock solid when I ride up a short ramp and park inside and that's about 1,000 lbs with me and the ST and it's long term rot resistant. The shed itself is a 25 - 30 year old Craftsman metal unit and it is in great shape, so I just lifted it off the old rotted floor, moved it to the side and then repositioned it on the new floor.

Cost for the foundation blocks, all hardware, wood etc... for the floor and the 6' ramp was $940 from Home Depot. While the shed above was done for about $2,800 US I think you're going find that a budget of $3,000 is too low, in particular because you want to use 2 x 6 lumber on the walls, you're going to insulate and US prices are lower. Could be wrong, but I think you're going to come in at $4,500 to $5,000 once everything is done.

I just store the ST in the shed during the summer months and aside from a midseason oil change I don't do maintenance there, this is done in the city. With an 8' long and 32" wide ST in the middle of a 10' x 10' shed you really don't have much space around it and I'd say you really should go to 10 x 16 or even better 12 x 16 or you're going to feel very cramped as you'll be bumping into things all the time.

 

[Coop]

I just built a shed here last spring. Under $2800 cost with the new air compressor and 1 nail gun. Concrete pad meant building permits and taxes it's so on blocks. We can have up to 400 sqft. without a permit.

Mine is 12x16 with all pressure treated lumber below the floor sheathing. I tried to follow hurricane build practices since I'm in Florida. 6 mobile home tie down (3' long) stakes into the ground with mobile home rated strap bands over the floor sill edges . Special "made for sheds" 50 year life shed flooring. 2x4 wall and rafter studs. I think the wall panels had a 40 year life guarantee. I would definitely use this wall material again. Made for sheds. The upper floor is about 80% covered in floor. 2x8 loft floor joists and OSB sheathing.

The hardest part of my build was preplanning the roof trusses angles so I only used 4 sheets of siding for the end walls. One large center panel and left and right sides required heavy thought for the side panels to make 2 parts from one sheet!

I designed it made everything myself with some nail driving help from a grandson. Raised the roof rafters all alone. I would think even in your location 2x6 walls would be overkill as it takes so little to heat (cool) such a small space.

I can get the names of the flooring and wall material if you are interested.


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Nice looking shed Raymond, but knowing your past I have to ask if you brought the materials home on your ST?

 

[Kevcules]

Check with your local codes and determine which route/size/material is best for you.

Cement floors are nice , but for a smaller 12x16ft shed, (smallest recommended size) I wouldn't bother with the added cost. Using pressure treated 2x8 or 2x10 floor joists, they will last a long, long time. Make sure to build on a gravel base and not have grass trying to grow underneath. Since you're going to put heavy loads in there, space them at 12" on center.

I wouldn't bother with 2x6 walls either. Not necessary. I built a 26 x 36 garage with 2x4 walls with a 10 ft ceiling and have no problem heating it when I want to. It stays 10-15 degrees warmer in there than the outside temperature with NO heat on , during the winter. Then it takes 15 minutes to raise the temp 10 degrees when I turn on my electric furnace. The floor is always cold though , so stay away from cement on such a small space if you can. A small infrared heater would be more than enough to heat your shed when you wanted to.

Using boards as outside sheathing is much cheaper , but more labor intensive. If you have the time, no problem. If you wanted sheets of plywood, they sell "seconds" (manufactures defects or used sheets) at significantly reduced prices.

Doing all this yourself will save you lots of money as the cost of labour is usually the same cost of the materials are around here.

Surprisingly , keep on the look out for shed packages. Most places sell packages that will give you all the material and parts required to build your own shed. Compare the prices as sometimes they are very comparable. Good luck......

 

[W0QNX]

Nice looking shed Raymond, but knowing your past I have to ask if you brought the materials home on your ST?

Did you miss the 18' long bamboo pole in the front of the shed tied to the rafter? Yup, on the bike.

 

[Coop]

Did you miss the 18' long bamboo pole in the front of the shed tied to the rafter? Yup, on the bike.

Wasn't the hand rail a 20 footer? Have you become a safety freak?

 

[Andrew Shadow]

I would not go less than 12" x 16". I would actually consider that to be a minimum if you intend to work on the motorcycle in there in the winter. Because it is winter you will not have the advantage of having the doors open and using the space immediately outside the building so the inside space has to accommodate everything that you want to do. This means that you need space for workbenches, tool boxes, places to put parts, places to put all of the pieces of the fairings you have removed, etc.

If part of the enjoyment for you is building it yourself than this might not matter to you, but I have found that it is difficult to build smaller buildings the size of sheds for less than what they can be purchased. Just for pricing comparisons have a look at Cabanon Fontaine. They are one of the biggest around here. The nice thing about them is they are very flexible. They give you the option of building all of the pieces and you can pick them up and put it together yourself. You can also have it delivered and put it together yourself. Or you can have them deliver and assemble it for you. They will also prepare the base any way that you prefer or give you the required dimensions so that you can do it yourself. Each option has a different price. They will also build any size and shape that you want with any additional options that you want. It is worth a price comparison if building it yourself was strictly intended to save money and is not motivated by the satisfaction of doing it yourself.

If you pour concrete you should have a footing around the perimeter. How deep that footing needs to be depends on the weight of the walls that you put on it and the type of soil that you have so some research is required. For buildings of this type they do not normally go below the frost line.
I have read that one of the best methods in our cold climate is the concrete footings would be insulated with two inch rigid Styrofoam on both sides. The outside is to keep the cold out. The inside acts a thermal break between the floor and the wall so that the floor stays warmer. You can buy rigid foam blocks that are made for this purpose and are actually the forms for pouring the concrete. The concrete gets poured in to the centre of the Styrofoam blocks giving you the footing, and the inside/outside insulation all in one step. You don't need any wooden forms.The floor is a compacted gravel bed covered with a sheet of Geo-textile. Rigid Styrofoam is laid down on top of the gravel before the concrete pad is poured. This is to create a thermal break between the ground and the concrete pad to keep the cold from migrating up in to the concrete to help keep the floor warmer.

If you want six inch walls for warmth using fiberglass insulation, I have read that it is better to build four inch walls using fiberglass insulation. On the outside of the wall you then put an additional two inches of rigid Styrofoam insulation. You still end up with six inch walls but you have a much better sealed building with better wind break and the bonus of having a thermal break between the 2 x 4 and the outside air.

Something to price out is insulating with closed cell spray foam. It is not recommended as a do-it-yourself insulation and is more expensive but on a small building it might be worth considering. The advantage is that you can go with four inch walls and have the same effect as you would have with six inch walls. You don't need any vapour barrier either so a small savings there. The biggest advantage of the spray foam is that it completely seals the building so well that it feels much more comfortable and requires less heat than the simple R value suggests. This makes it hard to compare using only the R value as a reference when you are comparing fiberglass to spray foam.

On a very well sealed and insulated building of this size it won't take a huge BTU requirement to heat it up. Since you are in Quebec, where electricity is cheap, I would suggest electric heating of some kind. Depending on how high of a ceiling you intend to have, as long as there is not a huge loft overhead that needs to be heated as well, something as simple as a couple of baseboard heaters would do it for a very cheap installation and running cost.

Like all projects, the budget will determine how far you want to take it. Once you start pricing out the different options your path will become clearer as you discard the options that don't allow you to remain within your budget.

Good luck with the build.

 

[Gerhard]

I have a wooden shed (12 x 8 I think) it has sat on our property since 1991 and was my father’s for the better part of 10 years before that. The wooden floor is actually warmer than a cement floor and if putting a bike on a centre stand on it I would screw a piece of diamond plate in that area. When my father bought the shed it was fully assembled and from what I remember the size was determined by the builders trailer size. My father used it for lawn mower and tool storage we had it as a playhouse. It is big enough to store a bike but if you are taking the Tupperware off your needs for space increase. My .02 worth.

 

[SMSW]

If you pour a concrete floor: A footer is usually 18" wide by 12" deep and goes below the frost line. Smart guys place a couple or three rebars 1/3 of the way up from the bottom. This might be code, I do not know. Here in Cleveland they say the footer goes 42" down - so that is a LOT of digging. A grade beam, on the other hand, is a trench dug around the perimeter of the slab and both the slab and grade beam are poured as one. Again, rebar in the GB - do not know dimensions of that, or of the rebar.

I am a proponent of thicker walls and lots of insulation. Down here, all houses now have to be built w/ 2x6 exterior walls. For me it would depend on the increased cost (2x6 over 2x4) and the cost of fuel to heat the shed, but I would lean toward 2x6. You will have to cover the insulation inside w/ something - osb might be cheapest and is more durable than drywall.