New shop

[David Van Asperen]

buying and old building that will be my NEW shop when I retire ,a couple of years, . Lots of work to make it useable . It is an old main street business in a small town , the current wood floor is almost gone in parts so I figured to take it all out and fill the hole with dirt and the put in a concrete floor. My thought is put in floor heat.
What I have seen so far is electric or water heat.
My question is which is the best and most cost effective and which requires the least maintenance ?
What are your thoughts and experiences with in floor heat. Thanks in advance for your time and info it is really appreciated.
Dave

 

[duncsuss]

My house was built with water heat in the slab it sits on. I loved it.

A few years after we moved in, the copper must have corroded and it started to leak, hidden from view of course. By the time we figured out what was going on, it was too far gone to save, and the insurance would not cover the full cost of installing a new under-floor system, so we ended up with baseboard radiators.

If I could have afforded it, I would have done the new pex under-floor system.

 

[Nature Man]

Great idea on heating the floors. I've seen a few videos on various types, and heard from a few friends how pleased they were with them. A good source of info might be with the local contractor's association in your area. Chuck

 

[duncsuss]

Further thoughts... If you don't already have a water heater (boiler, furnace, whatever you call them) that's an additional cost to consider.

It might work out cheaper to install electric under-floor heating. That's used a lot in Norway, but electricity is/was very cheap there. (I lived there 1986-1991.) I don't remember ever having a problem with the heating in my apartments.

 

[rocky1]

The one advantage to a heat pump, that you don't have with electric, is cooling the building during the summer months. That's not an option with electric under the floor to my knowledge, but it is on a liquid system.

No way would I ever put copper in or under a slab. It is an excellent conductor of temperature, but one little nick in the insulation in concrete, or in any semi aggressive soil, and it's toast! Poly may not conduct temperature as quickly, that stuff is pretty much indestructible. They lay it out on top of the ground in the oil fields and run over it with bulldozers and it doesn't fail.

How bad is the hole in the ground? Can't finish a basement to use for additional storage?

 

[JR Custom Calls]

buying and old building that will be my NEW shop when I retire ,a couple of years, . Lots of work to make it useable . It is an old main street business in a small town , the current wood floor is almost gone in parts so I figured to take it all out and fill the hole with dirt and the put in a concrete floor. My thought is put in floor heat.
What I have seen so far is electric or water heat.
My question is which is the best and most cost effective and which requires the least maintenance ?
What are your thoughts and experiences with in floor heat. Thanks in advance for your time and info it is really appreciated.
Dave

Your shop sounds like my new one. Only mine might be in better shape. Built in 1908. No gas? No option for wood burning? Mine has a chimney available, but the building code regulations make it nearly impossible to put in a stove without spending a fortune.

 

[David Van Asperen]

Thanks for the info guys.
@rocky1 the roof is a in bad repair and the floor is worse .
Was thinking of taking the floor out completely as it has a lot of weak and or rotted spots from water and no maintanence for years( same with the roof) filling the hole that is really just a deep crawl space and putting in the concrete.
The building is 50X50 A 20X 50 space for my wife and a finishing area. A 30X 30 space for my shop and the back 20X 50 for the saw mill
Now the roof is a mono slant from front to back that I plan to repair the rafters and replace the tar and rolled roofing crap with steel.
I will get some pictures after I get the deal finalized the seller is a little strange and will not allow me to take pictures of the building until after it is all done
Just trying to get some info so I can do it right the first time around
Dave

 

[JR Custom Calls]

Might want to make sure, if you haven't already, that zoning will allow for these things to happen. It took an act of congress (seemed like it) to convince zoning and planning that I wasn't setting up a multi million dollar wood product manufacturing facility. And insurance... ugh. Finding an insurance company who would insure my business took a total of 20 phone calls to different companies.

The biggest issue with woodworking in down town areas, from what I found online, is that noise is often considered to be too much. I was able to avoid that, by having my dust collector and air compressor in the basement, and none of my other tools are really that loud. But, would suck to buy the place, then find out you can't set up shop like you intended.

 

[rocky1]

I honestly think I'd look into digging a part of the basement under the building for a mechanical room if nothing else. Get the water heater, water meter, Furnace/AC, pump for the heat pump, air compressor and dust collector (if noise is an issue), and a few other odds and ends out of your way. It would also get the bulk of your water service below ground where surrounding soil can help prevent freezing in the event of power outages.

Since you're on main street, there is somewhere nearby, a water main, and it or building supply lines can rupture and flood basements. Typically rather quickly on main street, because there's usually a main there sized sufficient to provide fire protection for the business district, and even if the 1" service line ruptures it can bless you with an UNBELIEVABLE amount of water in short order. And, therefore you really don't want to store a whole lot below ground. Were I to do it, I wouldn't do it at the front of the building. The further you are from the middle of the street, the better off you are!

Mono-slant roofs are also problematic. I know several of the businesses up in Turtle Lake had issues forever because of snow loads, ice build up, and such. It's about impossible to keep those roofs together on old buildings up there, try as you may. They tried roll roofing, tried tar roof, tried steel. Couple of them finally leveled the outside walls up and put rafters over them. Simply got tired of fighting it over the years. The ones that did, said they wish they'd done it DECADES sooner!! In both cases they went in and insulated heavily over the old roof. No more leaks, and saw HUGE savings on heating and cooling

Biggest problem you're liable to encounter with that is watershed on adjacent buildings, which many small town main streets have an issue there. Even if you aren't dumping it on top of the neighboring building, dumping down their wall, or too close to the wall can cause issues in their basement. Both of the businesses in Turtle Lake had the room to do it. Might be something to think about before investing heavily in the existing roof, if you can get away with it David.

 

[David Van Asperen]

Lots of stuff to think about ,thanks so much for bringing them to light.
This small town has a population base of around 200. They seem pretty accommodating.
Many seem happy to have the building put back together instead of being torn down. My wife and the wife of my sawmill co partner have a store on the west side of this building so this makes it quite handy for th furniture repair and refinishing. So the four of us will most likely form an agreement or partnership of some sort on this redo. The other couple are locals and he was born in the area and has lots of connections with what goes on in this town. Hope to get some of these things sorted out very soon
Dave

 

[JR Custom Calls]

Lots of stuff to think about ,thanks so much for bringing them to light.
This small town has a population base of around 200. They seem pretty accommodating.
Many seem happy to have the building put back together instead of being torn down. My wife and the wife of my sawmill co partner have a store on the west side of this building so this makes it quite handy for th furniture repair and refinishing. So the four of us will most likely form an agreement or partnership of some sort on this redo. The other couple are locals and he was born in the area and has lots of connections with what goes on in this town. Hope to get some of these things sorted out very soon
Dave

There is a big push across the country right now to get main streets back closer to how they used to be. I know here, they are doing all sorts of stuff to get people down town. We are super excited about everything going on. Sounds like you've got some good neighbors and since it's a smaller town, probably won't encounter the issues we did.

 

[Schroedc]

Where I'm at, I can do anything except open a topless bar and the city and neighbors don't care. they just want the building in use.