basement vs. garage for new shop

Wreckers, I'm in the early stages of looking for a new house - pondering floor plans, considering pros and cons of modular homes vs. "stick-built", etc. My question to y'all, though, regards your opinions on a basement vs. a garage workshop. I could probably claim about 10'x20' of garage space (separated from car storage), or at least 20x24 of basement space. I know getting large tools into a basement would be an issue, so I'd look into wider stairs that lead directly outside - any other solutions I haven't thought of for that? The garage would probably not be heated or insulated, so I'd guess that wood stored there would move more (basement dryness will be an important part of site selection either way). I'd guess wiring would be easier in the basement as it'd be closer to the circuit panel. What am I not thinking of? I'm hoping for comments from people who use both garages and basements

- pros and cons? What do you wish you would have done differently? Building a separate workshop (i.e. large shed) is also a possibility - are there any reasons this would be better than a garage or basement? Thanks in advance, Andy

Reply to
Andy
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IMO, that is the biggest detriment to a garage sop. That is what I have and in the winter, I work in it a lot less. On a really cold January night, it is not simple to go out there just to tinker for an hour because it takes so long to get up to a comfortable temperature. Then you shut the heat off after an hour and it is all lost. Three seasons it is nice to be in the garage, door open sun shining. In August, it is too hot and at night there are the bugs flying in to land on your new finish. Just something to think about and think about what times you like to work in your shop.

If I had a good basement for a shop, that is where it would be.

Reply to
Edwin Pawlowski

Ed, Thanks - that's exactly the kind of input I'm looking for. I'll take it into consideration, Andy

Reply to
Andy

Gotta love the garage woodshop! I have mine in the garage only because the wife thought my table saw clashed with the living room curtains! :)

Reply to
stoutman

Reply to
Wilson

i like the garage shop cause i dont really like trying to carry up the large projects, and the wife complains about dust and noise.

Reply to
John

I've always been of the opinion that dust can be a major problem in a basement shop if the HVAC is a whole house system. With a little effort I think that problem could be overcome. I do know that my wife won't let me saw much in the house.

Mike O.

Reply to
Mike O.

I get complaints about saw dust too. A vac system is on my wish list.

Reply to
stoutman

Usually the kitchen is the closest room to the garage, the basement is down a flight of stairs.

Our utilities in this house come in next to the garage. Electrical comes in to a panel in the garage and then on to the main panel in the basement. So for us getting a panel there wasn't even an add on.

But the shop is in the basement.

The biggest thing for me is there's no sink in the basement. Having to chug upstairs to wet a rag or clean brushes is a pain. Especially since the times you need a wet rag you don't always know in advance and need it right then. If you can get a sink or a half bath down there you'll appreciate having it.

-Leuf

Reply to
Leuf

If you have a lot of open positions on your house circuit panel, then it would be easier. Otherwise, you'd have to put in a subpanel anyway. Once you do that, it's not much more money to put the subpanel wherever you want.

Yesterday, I move six sheets of plywood into the garage. After doing that (loading and unloading alone) I'm glad I didn't have to put them in the basement. Even if I had a walkout, I'd hate to have to walk around the house to get them into the basement. If you had a driveway that went around to the basement door, then it would be ok I think. In that case, I like the basement idea because heating/AC is a non-issue and there's usually a lot of space. Having said that there's the probem with sawdust not getting along with the furnace, headroom, getting tools in, getting raw materials in, getting comlpeted things out, fumes and ventilation for finishes. I think it could work, but I wouldn't do it unless I had solutions for all these problems.

I'm about to build a new house also. I plan to put the 80 gal compressor in the basement and run air lines up to the garage/shop. I think I may use the basement for some lumber storage, but I doubt it.

I also plan to put up the largest outbuilding the association will allow so that I can get things like bicycles, lawn and snow equipment, and other stuff out of the garage/shop. Anything that's convenient to put elsewhere, that's the plan.

I've never had basement shop, just the garage. Heating/AC is the problem there. Insulating makes a big difference though. I'm going to try to frame in an opening for a window ac/heater in the new house.

brian

Reply to
brianlanning

Whats a basement . . . here we call that an indoor pool . . .

Reply to
Steve DeMars

Having had both, I'd like to offer a list of the advantages and disadvantages of each.

GARAGE Pro

- a two-car garage is much roomier than any basement shop I've ever seen, IF you can persuade SWMBO to park the cars in the driveway 24x7

- easy to get tools, lumber, and finished projects in and out

- dust, and fumes from finishing, don't get into the house too readily Con

- in a humid climate, tools will rust overnight, perhaps even faster

- tools are more vulnerable to theft, especially in a detached garage

- too hot in the summer, too cold in the winter

- wide swings in humidity levels can cause all kinds of problems with lumber; for example, a project built with lumber that was at equilibrium moisture content with the humidity in the garage may break within a few weeks of being brought into the house where humidity is lower

- noise of power tools can disturb neighbors

BASEMENT Pro

- consistent comfortable temperature year-round

- much easier to control humidity

- convenience of a dedicated space (not shared w/ cars, bicycles, etc)

- secure

- noise made by power tools won't disturb your neighbors Con

- moving heavy tools down stairs is a pain (but you only do that twice: when you buy the tool, and when you sell the house)

- likewise bringing lumber down, or finished projects up

- dust & fumes are in the house -- good dust collection and ventilation is a must

- noise *will* disturb wife and kids

My preference is the basement.

Not that I can see. Seems to have all of the disadvantages of a garage, with a few more added on:

- expensive to build and maintain

- less secure

- you have to go outside to get to your shop

Reply to
Doug Miller

This has been discussed many times here; Google "basement vs. garage shop".

I have a separate building for my shop and I think some of these same things apply to a garage workshop. After having a shop in both the basement and the building that I built, I wish now I had stayed in the basement. While I enjoyed the process of building the shop, the shop is not nearly as cozy as the basement was. Unless you have dedicated heating and cooling, you have to think about how you are going to handle finishing when it is very cold (will you leave a heater running when you aren't in there? Will you remember to take all the glue etc. out to keep it from getting ruined in very cold weather?

Regarding a separate building I have to agree with Doug in that when it is pouring rain on a cold night in January, it is not fun walking to the shop. I invariably forget something, requiring traipsing back & forth to the house, whereas I never got wet walking downstairs. You can always use both: I still use the basement for storing lumber and finishing some projects. It is fun to go to the outside shop on Saturday afternoons sometimes and "think" with my eyes closed. :-)

Let us know what you do and how it works out. Cheers! Dukester

Reply to
Dukes909

Having had both I would NEVER go back to a basement shop. Reasons are:

Noise: you will NOT be able to work anytime you want. SWMBO will have all kinds of reasons for this.

Dust: It is extremely difficult to keep dust from entering the rest of the house. Again SWMBO will be a major influence here.

Headroom: Swinging 8 foot or longer boards in a basement is much more difficult than in a garage with 10-12 clearance floor to joists.

Humidity: I have yet to see a 'dry' basement. I suppose there are places in the world where a dry basement is possible but I've never lived there. If you're lucky, you will only need to dehumidify.

Minor but important: Getting 300-400 lb pieces of equipment into a basement is hard. Getting finished work in and out of a basement is clumsy.

How I manage to use my garage: I insulated it and put in a window mount heat pump. I can use the garage year round and the garage stays dry. This is an easy conversion and not very expensive to do - make a deal with SWMBO and include the insulation as part of the house purchase/upgrade before you have all your stuff moved into the garage (and can be part of your mortgage so little additional cash outlay). Include lighting in the conversion.

Mobile bases on all my equipment and workbench. When I don't have a project, everything can be pushed against the outside walls and I can park the car and my SUV in the garage.

Wood storage is ceiling/back wall suspended so equipment can be parked under it when not in use.

Noise: The garage is attached to the house but compared to basement noise is at a SWMBO acceptable level.

Space: a 2 car garage will give you at least 20x20 uninterrupted floor space. A basement may be bigger but typically has center support beams that always seem to be in the wrong place.

TWS

Reply to
TWS

=========================== Gosh Andy.... I had my shop 1st in my garage... then got into restoring a car so the shop had to be moved into my basement... For woodworking, ease of use, not disturbing the baby (noise) , DUST (that disturbs the wife)...the garage is Much better... My shop is now in a detached building...BUT I am still into restoring cars and I have my shop on the second floor of this building...NOT GREAT... but I had to do what I had to do...

1.Detached..2..Garage..3.Basement ...4 .None.. is how I would rank them.

Bob G..

Reply to
Bob G.

I've never had a garage shop and don't think I'm likely to at this stage of my life, 73 YO. I originally had an entrance to my basement in the garage , unfortunately it required a 90 degree turn at the bottom of the stairs, tough for 4X8's or anything really over 4'. Closed it up, filled the hole and built a main floor laundryroom for the bride.

Opened the basement on the end of the house and installed a Bilco Door that solved getting sheet goods down and heavy machine access, if not easy, at least bearable. Course I do have to go out the back porch door and down the outside basement steps. Hot water heat with the pipes running along the ceiling handles heat and the whole house AC'd keep it a comfortable place to work year round. Available space works out to approx. 22X35. Indoor access would be nice but I can live with this. Ground level outside access would also be niice but my lot doesn't work for that. The fact that all my electric service is in the basement was a plus. Only regret is I didn't paint the floor and walls when I moved in 20 years ago. It would be a bear now.

Tom Cavanagh

Reply to
Tom Cavanagh

The first thing I did when we got the house was insulate the entire garage and drywall over it. My shop is a separate room off the main garage, but over the past 6 years, I've slowly expanded it into the garage proper and it's nice and toasty warm all year long. I also replaced all the windows with insulated glass and they can be opened during the summer and closed in the winter.

IMO, there's no difference between an unfinished basement and an unfinished garage, you'll have significant work to do on both before they're ready for a shop.

Reply to
Brian Henderson

I did it the easy way, we have one of those nice wireless expandable phone systems so I have my own phone in the shop. When my wife wants to call me, she hits the intercom and we can talk any time she feels like it. If I'm out of the range of the phone, she just calls my cell.

Reply to
Brian Henderson

It not only takes time to heat up the garage, but even longer to heat up the tools. It doesn't bother some people, but my fingers ache like crazy if I have to hold onto cold tools for more than a couple of minutes.

I used to have a garage, but as my shop took form, it did so in the basement.

- Owen -

Reply to
Owen Lawrence

Andy,

My 34x34 shop is in my basement. I have radiant floor heat from a geo thermal water to water unit which, imo, is the best way to heat there is. It's very comfortable in the summer too. I have 9 1/2 foot ceilings which are nice as well. If I were doing it over again though, I'd use floor trusses to get rid of the support posts. It's a walk out basement with no stairs.

The basement shop has 2 drawbacks and dust isn't one of them in my case. Finishing is the major problem. I absolutely will not use oil based polyurethane down there. I hate the smell in the house and I have a wife and 2 kids that I don't want to subject to it. Luckily, I have an apartment above my garage that I keep heated and I use that for all finishing. The other problem is noise. The tablesaw isn't bad, nor most powered hand tools. The worst offenders are the SCMS and the

20 inch planer. I think I could take care of the noise if I insulated the ceiling and then drywalled it. The finish smell I could take care of in the warm months with good ventilation but that would never work in the winter. The concrete floor isn't tool freindly but you'll have that problem in the garage too.

If I didn't have the apartment, I'd do all my building in the winter and finish it outside or in the garage when it was warm enough.

Hope this helps.

Bryan

Reply to
DamnYankee

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