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On to some inside work, starting with some light. There's a guy over on garage journal that has posted a lot of info about shop lighting, configurations, and fixtures. I went with some custom built T8 florescent fixtures, he recommended some higher output ballasts due to the ceiling height. Bought the case and ballasts and bulbs all separately and wired them up myself.
4 rows of 9 fixtures per row. I have them going through 8 switches so I can have some flexibility in how much I have on and where. Each row gets 2 switches, controlling every other light. When they are all on, it draws 2500 watts, so not the kind of thing you want to leave the light on if you aren't using it.
Pictures do a poor job of showing relative brightness, but it is bright in there though not glaring. My eyes get worse every year it seems like, so bright is good! Seems there is some science to this lighting stuff, I would have been disappointed with my off the cuff ideas.
I went fancy with the garage door openers. The standard residential opener with the track down the middle doesn't work for 12' doors. They do make some commercial units that will work, but they are pricey and basic. Liftmaster makes these jack shaft openers that connect right to the spring shaft. Very happy with them, they are super quiet and pretty easy to install. They can also work over the internet on your phone. (not my non-smart phone ha!) Eventually, I'll have internet up there, but that's down the line some. You can get a signal out front from the house wireless, but not inside ... yet.
I skipped over the several days work of insulating and closing up the front walls. Plan is for paint, so I schlepped some up behind the openers before I put them up.
As I mentioned earlier, there is 100 amp service up there. Outlets about every 6 feet along all the walls plus an outlet between each big door. 1 20 amp circuit per wall except the back wall has 2 circuits. Also 1 circuit to outlets on the ceiling for the garage door lights and to feed a cord reel that will hang down adjacent to the lift. 4 15 amp lighting circuits. 30 amp and 50 amp RV circuits, a 40 amp circuit for an air compressor, 30 amp circuit for a demand hot water heater, 20 amp 240v circuit for a window AC, plus a 50 amp welder circuit right by the box. I don't own any of those appliances yet, just planning ahead. I shudder to think how much an electrical contractor would have charged for this!
I bought all the outlets and switches off eBay. I wanted good quality spec grade stuff, and the big box stores are NOT the place to buy the good stuff, very pricey.
Right after the ceiling insulation was done, the new trailer magically appeared on CL. Since it was the exact model we wanted, I couldn't pass it up. Nice to be able to fit it all inside, but it's not quite what I had envisioned for the space. Out with the old before too long.
The wall insulation I bought way back in June. Lowes was switching over to the pink brand and had all the old stuff on clearance for 60% off. Took a WAG at how much I needed and got lucky. I had 1 bat left over! 1 work day per wall with the wife doing all the ladder work. WOW that made a huge difference in heat retention.
The garage door insulation is going to work out OK in the end I think. Using 1 inch XPS foam panels and with some careful cutting, they fit in the panels very tight. It's paintable, so I'll spray it white once the weather warms up. Hopefully it will hold up long term.
I hate dealing with drywall. It's just evil! I wish there was a better solution than just OSB, but hard to beat the price and durability. Hoping it will look OK once I get a few coats of paint on it. Ehh, it's a garage right? So this brings us to where I am today, working on covering the inside walls. We have one side wall done and hope to get the rest done in the next week or so.
I took some general pics yesterday for a virtual tour.
Nice day for January in Ohio. Insulation works both ways, opened the doors to warm things up.
RV plugs, 30 amp (in use) and 50 amp. Doubt I will use the 50 amp, but it can also double as a welder outlet too.
Still have some space left in the box. Some of the 240v breakers aren't in yet, but there is plenty of space. The wires are in there for everything. I'll make some nice stickers eventually.
Box is just inside one of the man doors. I'll tidy up the opener wires when I do the paint.
01-30-2016, 09:35 AM
