Building plans

Atlas Knife Company

Atlas Knife Company

Joined
Feb 16, 2010
Messages
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I just inherited 17 acres of farmland, and no one died. It's a wonderful day.

I'm planning to build a 64x40 building on it and move my shop there, closing the computer repair shop that I've been working out of for the last 11 years. Building forges doesn't really work the best with a retail storefront. It's a nightmare trying to keep clean enough for retail customers when you're painting, welding, and handling steel all day long. I've got some ideas for the layout of the shop, including a paint room, welding room, office, kitchenette, bathroom, and a pit in the floor for working on cars. I also plan to have an overhead storage loft. It will have 3-phase electric, city water, and natural gas, but no sewer.

Is there anything else you can think of that I'm missing?
 
a sweet wood burning stove too
 
Brother, congrats on the obtaining of the property. I have built about 30 different buildings from maintenance facilities to golf clubhouses to sales centers and manufacturing buildings/offices during my real job days. Two things I will recommend very strongly is to A. be very informed and comfortable with your choices for lighting in your shop, and B. similar advice on HVAC. If I was building one, I would talk to a few friends I have in the HVAC business and be sure of a strong HVAC design. Secondly, I would talk to some friends or find some at church who were knowledgeable in the lighting arena. I can tell you they are doing some awesome things with LED lighting nowadays. I'm very happy for you, and jealous at the same time--I am a customer of yours having bought a couple Mini Forges from ya'll, I wish you great luck!!
 
Have someone check the land and drainage for where the drain field and septic system will go. Also check that they are allowed by county ordinance.

Look into Amish builders. They can do really nice work reasonably and do quality work.

I really agree with Fish that the HVAC and lighting should be prime parts of the engineering and planning stages.
 
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Looking into heating flooring and spray foam insulation. Insulate the hell out of, that was my first thought.

Lighting will be a mixture of solatubes, translucent panels, and LED systems. LED are pretty impressive today, especially in the spectrum reproduction arena. My grow lights give off 7 different spectrums, IR, UV, white, blue, 3 different red. I've seen bulbs that offer 20 spectrum, amazing! I've got a pomegranate bush growing in my office and my indoor poinsettias are 3 years old!
 
I'd have the building oriented so it has large north facing windows.
Natural day light all day without the sun shining in directly
 
If you install a pit please add ventilation in it. Sub floor pits are confined spaces and dangerous.
 
Congrats. If I were starting from scratch I think I'd have a full size kitchen in-shop. Also, don't forget a dartboard!
 
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