I've been pondering it for a bit. Then when I talk to people plans change and I ponder more. I tend to over think things, but spending this amount of money makes me cautious. Budget will limit some things. I pondered in floor heat, but that will blow my budget As long as I can hold back the cold a little, I should be good...until I get even older and like the cold even less.
Marten, you have a lot of great points to ponder, especially the water question. Lighting and such can change around, but if you want water I figure that needs to be done in advance. I need to find the location of all my outside spickets.

BJ, you are welcome anytime HEY! I can buy a truck and say it's yours. You come down and we work on it together...

We went shopping for some furniture yesterday. I got some sticker shock on the cost of couches and sectionals. Crazy! I can buy a basic lift for the cost of a sectional. Lawn chairs should work in a living room, right?

 

As I have been looking, I figured roll up doors are a must.

 

Roll-up doors are nice. I have regular doors and just make sure to close them when the lift is in use. The third option is a conventional door with the tracks configured to hug the front wall and ceiling. These might be called vertical doors, I am not sure. A friend has them in his 14-foot ceiling space. They work well and cost less than roll-ups.

On heating/cooling: I put a roof-top package unit on my flat-roof. Gas forced air heat and electric A/C. Then, with the 12 foot ceilings, I dropped the ductwork down to release the air about 3-feet below the ceiling. This helps push the hot air down and seems to work well. The nice thing about forced air is that I can leave shop in winter idle mode when unoccupied, at 52F, to keep paint cans and such at acceptable temperature. Then when I walk in a motion sensor kicks the heat up to a comfortable level until I leave again. I fear that radiant heat has too long a time constant to allow for effective occupation-sensing temperature management.

On electric service: The shop is tied in to the house meter. 100A service in the shop has covered welding, lathe, mill, air-conditioning, air-compressor just fine. Most of the tools are 1.5 HP, the air-compressor is 4HP. They work fine on 240 VAC, 30A circuits. (except the AC, that is 50A). If you have a beast of a welder or air-compressor you may want more current.

 

I have 3 types of large doors on my shop one is a horizontal (barn door) 9x12’6” it is very heavy uses 9’ feet of wall space on the out side of shop when open I only open it when I need extra air in the shop. It is true rollup door cost more but they are the best

 

Radiant heat is very nice. I have hooked it up for several body shops. It doesn't cost that much to rough it into the floor pour. Make sure you know where your lines are before you anchor your lift! That being said, I have electric barn heaters in my shop. I wired for 3, but with flash and batt insulation I find I only need one. Even when it was -15 for a couple days. I have 12x12 overhead doors that are opened several times a day.

 

One of the things I've learned over the years is that more doors is better. Jockeying cars around in order to either work on one or drive it is a real pain. My current shop is 22 X 28 on one side and 30 x 22 on the other. My doors are 12 x 12, 8 x 7, 16 x 8 and 8 x 8. The 12 x 12 door will accommodate anything I will ever have and is where the lift will go once I purchase one. The 16' door is nice because it allows me to pull a car in right in the middle, diagonally or even horizontally depending on what I'm doing.

The previous posts are filled with great advice. A couple of tips would be to ensure you have outlets every 4 feet on every wall. Also put outlets in the ceiling, near the overhead doors and a couple outside. Put in more lights than you think you need. I have 28 4' LED lights along with 8 can lights to ensure I always have plenty of lights. I also recommend installing 4' flat panel LED lights vertically on the wall adjacent to where your lift will be so you will always have light under the car when the lift is raised. For your outside lights, I recommend putting LED can lights in the soffit to provide down lighting which has a nice effect. I used 7 such lights across the length of my shop. You may also want to put an outlet or two in the soffit for Christmas Lights or other uses down the road. One last point, I would put wheels on all cabinets, work benches, etc so you can easily move things around when you need or want to.




You can see the vertical lights on the wall in this photo.

 

All good information given and I know its hard to go thru it all and pick what is best for what your needs are.
I can say this after its built it will not be big enough they never are.
One of the reasons we bought our house besides the 3,7 acres is MY garage.
It 25' deep and forget how wide just the bay side but the doors are wide so I can get my car trailer inside.
I also had a car in the left bay, my parts truck in between the 2 bays closer to the car and my truck I was working on in the right bay with more than enough room to work.
There is also a work bench down the right side wall of the bay.
This wall separates the bays from the work / storage room that I keep supplies, tools large table in the center and the refrig & micro wave, window on the front is in that room.


Door is in to the work / storage room.

Looking from outside the left bay to the right and the bench down the wall

From the outside door in to the work room. To the left of the "Ice Box" is a door to the bays.
There is also parts storage above the work room that I have bumpers, fenders and some Jeep top parts stored.

I did have to upgrade the service to the garage to support my compressor and more lighting etc. It is run off the house panel under ground.
Power was run to shed for a light and outlet to charge the tractor battery. Water was also run from house in the same trench to the shed for the garden.

That is a 5+ hp motor 230v compressor

I cant install a lift no room but I have nice smooth floor so every thing rolls nice. I use HF tire dollies to move the cars & trucks side way when needed.
No insulation (yet) so no heat or AC (yet also) but I have used a Northern Tool propane 25000 BTU heater to heat it up pretty fast so I could do some work when needed.

We also bought a shed for the garden tractor and all yard tools to go in. No yard tools go in MY garage other than to fix them!

Also have a 2 car garage on the house that none of my project go in, well 90% of the time LOL
My 81 F100 flare side now that it is done is parked in there and my DD stays outside as I have other projects in MY garage and no room now.
Did I say go bigger LOL

 

This was my first reaction, too. Facing the street makes for easy access for the vehicles, but lets everyone see exactly what toys you have in there. On the other hand, if you will be using a lot of power tools, you don't want the door openings facing your neighbors. Mine is oriented to split the difference.

 

You guys with these two, three, or more door garages make me jealous!

Here's what I have. It's a detached garage with a big second floor for storage. Originally, this barn like building with a hip roof had the whole bottom open for cars. I can tell it had 3 roll doors. I can see the three sets of track still in the ceiling. We are the third owner of this house and garage. The second owner was a baptist minister. They converted 2-3 car garage with 3 roll doors into a one car garage with an overhead door. The right side became the minister's office. It now gives us lots of storage space. It is insulated. I've used it to paint my 54 bed boards, my 55 headboard, and various things I've spray painted in cold weather. We've got no room to expand.

We bought this in 1988. At the time my 54 was just an old truck I used as a daily driver or a second car. So, at the time, a one car garage was good enough for me.

I park my 54 F100 in garage. My 55 F350 sits on the street. I rent space to store it in the winter.

Here's my backyard. The garage has an alley 3 feet to the left and a small but private backyard to the right, so no room to expand... Pinecone Ford has been here and can confirm.

​​​​​​Good luck in your build, Joe.

 

No Bridgeport, just a measly little Powermatic Millrite. I also have an Atlas shaper to play with, and recently a power hacksaw. I do like to old American made iron.

 

More great stuff. Here are some things I found for reference.
I love the idea of the lights on the wall. Here are 4' flat panel led lights: I found some great storage cabinets at Sam's club: Seville Classics UltraHD I have a couple of the rolling cabinets and the rolling workbench, They are nice.
I also have a couple of the industrial shelving units. Those I have in the basement for Gwen's stuff at the moment though: Industrial shelving They may be a bit overkill, but I know they will last and they are a good price when you start looking at the price of smaller shelves.

 

I bought my flat panel lights from Costco for about $60 each. Keep an eye out for sales and you might save a few more bucks. All the cabinetry I bought also came from Seville Classics. I ordered straight from their website and saved a few bucks on each item compared to the Sam's Club prices you linked. They also sell the wheels so anything you buy that doesn't already come with wheels, you can buy a set and make it mobile.

 

I’ve had a couple of shops built on properties over the years and I would say build as big as the land and your budget will allow. Also make sure part of it has high ceilings for a lift or two!

my current setup has a big hot dog gas heater for the winter and a/c for the summer. Makes all the difference for working on stuff year round .

 

One thing I did in my old studio was to tie into an existing basement slop sink with a new sink installed in a detached garage. Ran a copper water and a pvc waste pipe down into a trench 2-3 feet staying pitched into the houses foundation wall, once penetrated strapped to the basement wall and elbowed into the existing slop sink. It had a winter shut off T valve to drain the water back out into the basement sink. Also had a mini water heater mounted next to the garage sink for about five minutes of hot water.

A slop sink is pretty indispensable in a shop.

just a thought..

 

All doors are 10' high except the 12x12 where the lift is located. Front wall is 20' high and slopes to 8' so the snow slides into the pasture. Frame construction with metal siding for fire prevention up here in the north woods.


This is a shot of "high lift" doors. They follow the wall up and curve over just enough to clear the opening. I went with wood, so I got around the span problem by building large door frames in the middle wall and using 12" BCIs for rafters.