hey everybody iam building a new home and thinking about building a workshop in the basement. using all the tools and looking for pros and cons and some good ideas as far as dust migration upsatairs as well in the heating system (forced hot air) any help would be greatly appreciated.
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Have higher than normal besement walls to give added headroom
For the basement stairs, sheath the stairwell side walls to isolate the stairs from the basement. At the bottom of the stairs, make room for a landing and put in a regular old storm door. It gives a decent seal and will keep the stairwell clean. You can go so far as to have the bottom stair tread made of diamond grating so when you enter the well you can stamp your feet to clear debris from the soles of your shoes/boots.
Seal all the ductwork. A bead of caulk on the inside or AL tape on the outside for eaxh section of duct. Treat the seams the same as the pieces are hung.
Wrap the duct in insulation, it'll help with sound transmission. Tape the insulation seams with Al tape.
Design a decent dust collection system from the outset. Doesn't have to be huge or fancy, just flexible/workable. If it's a lousy setup you won't use it.
Later on you can think about one of the Jet or Delta type of air filtration units. I just picked one up a couple weeks ago. Very nice. Maybe a downdraft sanding box.
Biggest thing, obviously, is to stop the dust at the source.
rethink that basement thing..
first
getting equipment into the basement is a hassle, major! Imagine some 600 pound piece of machinery that you pick up for a song at an equipment auction someplace. how ya gonna get it into the basement? If it later turns into aturd how ya gonna get it out?
Second
getting materials into the basement is a major hassle.. there's that sheet of 3/4 inch plywood and there's the stairwell. careful you don't bang it on the top and gouge the sheetrock and bung up the corner.. long boards? forget about it.. and the excitement of leaving the door open while you drag stuff to and from your truck etc...
third
getting projects out of the basement, you spend all winter building the king of all entertainment centers, now how are you gonna get it out?
fourth
Heat rises.. in order for the shop to be warm the house will need to be 90 degrees. and still your legs will ache.. The reason, the floor is in contact with the soil beneath and it's at 55 degrees. guess what temp your feet will be at.. while you head is at 80 degrees.
fifth
turn off that saw I'm trying to study, sleep, talk on the phone etc..
sixth,
in the basement are things like pilot lights.. if you are going to have paint you'll need to turn those off, "Hey Dad there isn't any hot water!" plus part of life is accidents you accidently leave the glue gun on and it accidently catches something on fire. or you accidently leave a oily shop rag in a pile and it catches on fire.. etc. the paint and stuff you store will really wind up being a good fire accerator..
seventh,
natural light is a good thing,, being like a gopher isn't the best way to spot slight imperfections. most basements are darker than six miles up a well diggers butt. dealing with the slight hum of florescent lights is irritating..
eighth
Basements can and do get wet/damp etc. tools and such don't take kindly to that sort of treatment, not to mention that project you're working on..
ninth
Concrete, sharp tools? what can I say there is a magnet in concrete that seems to attract sharp tools . It is usually at it's strongest just at critical moments. one last little bit and, oops ! oh darn now I've got to spend a half an hour getting that nasty nick out of the blade..
well you should get the drift,,
your garage is a much better shaop. you can drive right in unload/ load etc.. paint fumes, open the door, noise? they won't hear you over in the house.. If you put your equipment on wheels it's very easy nto move to where you need it and then put it back away when done and pull the truck back in..
Great points Frenchy. I experienced all of them.
We're building new (almost done). I will use the space above the garage. It'll be cold, but it's big and easy enough to access.
Woodside
I have an old Sears table saw on a four leg stand. I taped plastic around the legs, and I sealed the back (where the drive belt comes through) with a combination of plywood and wide shipping tape (duck tape did not work well). In the plywood on the back, I cut a hole for my shop vac. It's simple and cheap. The dust and cuttings still fall to the floor under the saw, but the fine dust goes into the vacuum. It made a big difference for no money.
Joe
Mongo made a lot of good points. His point about getting the tallest basement walls you can is a good one.
I'd also suggest an outside stair of some sort. Either one that goes directly outside, or goes up into the garage. You don't want to be carrying sheets of ply or a tablesaw through the house and down your good stairs.
There are three kinds of men:
The one that learns by reading.
The few who learn by observation.
The rest of them have to pee on the electric fence for themselves.
Edited 1/6/2004 10:00:08 AM ET by Boss Hog
My shop has been in my last two basements. DCollection isn't a big deal if you buy a DC and put in piping, that the best thing I ever did. Then if you want to spend the $ on an air filter unit that's even better.
As for the comments about the basement being a bad place, I can understand them if you don't have a walk out. My basement have/are walk outs. I made sure to put in a 3'0" door to the basement and my shop. My tools and anything I build go in/out with NO problems. Noise is a concern so insulation is key and rock/tape the walls. That will also help on dust. Fumes can be a consern so go buy an $80 window and slap it in for light and fresh air. Put a $10 box fan in the windw if you're useing something with strong fumes or if the dust gets too bad. A concrete floor in the basement is going to be the same a concrete floor in a garage. Al least in the basement you are climate controlled.
I like it and wouldn't go to a grage workshop for anything. However I would go to a 50'X75' outbuilding!
Frenchy's point about getting things up and down the stairs is a good one. I suggest wide stairs. We had a discussion about stair width a couple weeks ago and several people suggested 42". I would say 42" clear between the installed handrails is a minimum. My brother added external basement stairs a few years ago and made them 48" wide. They're great, much more open feeling. 60" is not too wide, IMO, unless there is a code issue I don't know about. That would give you enough room to carry 48" sheet goods horizontally if you wanted to. I also suggest designing in a winching point at the top of the stairs, built into the structure. Make it stout enough to winch the heaviest item you ever anticipate moving up and down the stairs.
Mongo's first suggestion, taller basement walls, will help a lot with some of frenchy's other objections. If you give yourself enough headroom, you can put in a sheetrock ceiling with as much sound abatement as you want to pay for, and not feel like you're walking around in a mine. Along with the enclosed stairwell, this will keep most of the noise and dust and the warm air in the basement. With enough headroom, giving up 2 or 3 or 4 inches for a really solid wood floor will be painless. (I mean solidly engineered, not necessarily solid wood flooring.)
Some of the objections are just silly, like the cold floor. If you haven't built the house yet, you can put as much insulation under the slab as it takes to keep it warm. If you don't like hum, there's no law that I know of that says basement lights have to be fluorescents. As for natural light, I've been in lots of basements that had windows, and in lots of above grade shops that didn't.
Edited to add paragraph breaks.
Edited 1/6/2004 2:43:29 PM ET by Uncle Dunc
Regarding basement workshop: This is where mine is, and I love it. But there are a few reasons that came with the house that make it nice.
1: Exterior entrance or "dungeon doors" make it easy to get supplies and machinery. I have lugged a 450# bandsaw (with a helper, obviously) down there. Couldn't imagine taking it through the house and down stairs.
2: My heat is hot water, and all the pipes are down there keeping the place warm in winter. Being a basement, it is cool in summer.
3: We're on the highest point in the county, so the basement is bone dry most of the time. Summertime humidity in the midwest does make it humid down there in the summer, but I put a coat of paste wax on all the cast iron surfaces, and make sure not to leave a piece of wood or sawdust on the machines. It attracts moisture and leaves a nice rusty outline.
4: I'm only 5'9" on a good day, so the low ceilings don't pose too much of a problem. I have about 7' to the 1st floor subfloor from the basement floor, subtract the floor joist width, and an I-beam under that, and I still don't come close to hitting my head. A six-footer should be more careful, though, or wear a hardhat. I wish the ceiling were higher, of course, so 8' sheet goods could be stood up for storage, but I manage. Plus, I store all my clamps on the joists above. Easy to reach and keeps them out of the way. And I have A LOT of clamps (not enoough, though).
Note: If you store clamps on the joists overhead, DO NOT span 2 joists with the clamp. When you clamp on the second one, and make it a little tighter, it will pull the joists together and the first clamp will probably hit you on the noggin'.
Dust and noise will be your (wife's?) biggest concern. Buy a dust collector and design an efficient system, hooked up to each machine, with GOOD (not the cheap plastic) blast gates. Buy the Long Ranger remote control, and you'll use the collector religiously. Seal all penetrations with caulk. Wherever air can pass, dust and sound can too.
Maybe build an enclosure around your furnace, with filters in the wall so air can get through but minimize the dust that gets to this expensive equipment.
Find an old furnace blower and motor. Build a box and mount it inside. Design the box for standard size furnace filters, and mount them 2 or 3 thick. This can work as an effective air scrubber, or you could buy one for several hundred bucks. The blower will give you a lot more air flow and filtration, and the used blower and motor can be had for free from anybody getting a furnace replaced.
Use some antifatigue mats on the hard floor. I have even used old carpet padding and carpet scraps. The whole floor doesn't need to be covered, just around your bench and tools you use a lot.
Build the walls as high as possible.
Make sure wiring is not neglected. I wired my shop with 10 gauge copper wire (overkill, I know) and put all the power tools and outlets on 2 circuits, 20A, Each with a GFCI at the first outlet protecting everything downstream. I put the lighting on 2- 15A circuits. Put in more outlets than you think you'll need. I have quads about every 4', and many outlets in the ceiling.
Use good flourescent lights, not the $10 specials. Use plenty of them. In the finishing area, and maybe above your bench, use good tubes like "Sunsticks" in the fixtures, which will be more like sunlight. Gives truer colors than the "cool white" tubes, and maybe during winter might help alleviate sunlight deprivation syndrome.
Put everything in closed cabinets or drawers to keep dust off them, and make cleanup easier.
If you wanted to get fancy, make it with 10' ceilings. Put in a plywood floor over the concrete on 2x6 or 2x8 sleepers on edge. Run the dust collection ductwork and electrical under that. DO NOT put electrical outlets on the floor, unless mounted vertically, and I would avoid even that since it would be a pain to clean around.
Cover the walls with plywood so you can hang stuff and cabinets on them.
A slop sink would be nice too.
Hope this helps. Good luck.
pete
you gave me some great idea the filter system I never would of thought of but i will definately make that happen I do have the ceiling height and like the idea of the hidden dust collection system my only concern would be is if I got blockage in the line and have to pull up the floor but the clean look would be very nice. Thanx for taking the time and some great ideas
john
Three years ago I built my "dream" house. It had a ground floor shop with an 8' rollup door to the garage, radiant floor heat, 12' ceilings, and dust collection. It was altogether wonderful to work in. Because of a job change I had to move, and my shop is now going into the basement.
Besides high ceilings and wide doors and stairs already mentioned, make sure the staircase is straight, and there is enough room at the bottom to make the turn with 10' lumber. There has to be a straight shot at the top of the stairs, too, and make sure you don't have to carry your wood through the house to get to the basement stairs.
Don't forget adequate electrical service in the basement. For a home shop you'll need one circuit for lights (with no outlets on this circuit -- you wouldn't want a overloaded tool to put you in the dark); one circuit for the dust collector, and one for tools. If you work alone you will only run one tool at a time, so one circuit is sufficient unless you feel like splurging. For a little more money you could put a small 6 breaker subpanel in the basement which would make adding future circuits easier if your main panel is not nearby.
wayne
thanx for some great info this is my dream house and the help I have gotten from this web site has saved me a lot of time and money. It would have killed me to give up that shop you had I think I would have found a new job where I was there is no way I am going to give this one up thats why I want this to be right thanx again for the help
john
I have a shop in my garage that works fine for me but i also do work in the basement and the lifesaver for me is the door that opens to the backyard near the driveway. its almost 4ft wide and big enough to roll a washer through it on a hand truck / i even put a fullsize fridge down there on hand truck by myself its the best . having a wide door is good , ive had shops in basements before and with forced hot air you need to keep the dust down / dust collection system is a must , with a few basic things like these it can be a great place to hangout, lots of fun. good luck. Dogboy