floor for a workshop

WHat's the plan for rot control?

Moisture penetration?

If I were building a dedicated wood shop I would opt for a slab under a wood floor with moisture barrier.

If your floor joists are adequate that will make a very good floor. I would personally rather have a wood floor than a concrete one in my shop, just because the wood is, like, 10,000 times easier to stand on for long periods of time. All I'd recommend is that you put a couple of coats of a good floor paint on it before moving stuff in.

An added bonus may be that you can get the wood floor level more easily than you can a concrete one. The concrete in my garage/shop is not very level. The contractor saved some money by doing it himself rather than having a concrete finisher do the floor. "It's only a garage, after all."

Tim Douglass

Pour a concrete slab and seal it.

Sounds good, watch the rot factor. Wood floors make it easy to run a dust system under the floor instead of above if you have one.

chuck

Thanks for all replies. I guess plywood floor on 12'' centers is strong enough. I plan to have plastic sheets underneath the plywood for moisture barrier. I could save $1800 of the concrete slab for more tools.

TP

I say go for wood too. I have a wood floor, and I like standing on it better than any concrete slabs I've had to stand on professionally.

Rot is a real concern though. Build a real foundation under it, with a real vapor barrier and real ventillation. Make sure the wood is high enough off the ground that it won't invite termites.

My shop meets none of the above suggestions, and it's only a matter of time before it falls down. It's rotting badly, and I have severe termite problems.

I didn't build it, incidentally.

You asked this as I was sitting here trying to draw up my shop. The 3/4" floor should be adequate, but take into consideration the spans of the floor joists. If they are 12' you really should move up to a 2x10. You mentioned a contractor was building the shop so I would hope he would do this. I worked in a shop with 2x8 joists 16" OC over spans of 9 feet or so (every 4th joist was doubled) with 1 layer of 3/4 ply and it was fine. Fine to the tune of about

That looks like a deck setup. What are the dimensions?

In my fathers workshop we just have beams (probably 5 by 10 or 15 cm) on the floor, with a plastic foil below that and just the raw earth with a few bricks to lay the beams on as a "foundation". On top of the beams 2cm thick boards are nailed. This stands now sice 25 years with no noticeable deterioration, is nice to walk on, stable enopugh for TS, Jointer/Planer/Thicknesser combi, DP, and workbench.

BTW: The walls of the shop are mixed round and square posts screwed to angle irons set into small point concrete foundations (each the size of a bucket), with boards nailed on on the inside and corrugated fiber cement (Eternit) boards on the outside and on the roof. This outer part stands now since 45 years without problems.

I have 1 layer on 16" centers and it is rock solid. It's all about the structure underneath the ply.

Wood is better than concrete. A concrete floor is better than dirt. I have a concrete floor.

Feh. My termites like the green salt on all the pressure-treated snacks they're eating. :)

I guess the moisture (it has been perpetually wet for most of this year) has leached out most of the poison or something.

I plan on living here until I die. Hopefully at the age of 115 or so. I want to live to see the '80s again.

I may rip off some of your suggestions though. I'm planning to try to dig the low side out and see what I can do about repairing it this spring. Get rid of the leaky doors and maybe put in one human-sized, tight-fitting door instead. I'd like a bigger building, but I really don't have any other place to put one, and I don't want to be shopless while I'm building the new one. Seems like trying to prop this thing back up for a few more years is the way to go.

Maybe re-work it and put on some kind of addition while I'm at it, though it's hard to build onto something that has a roof that comes all the way down to within 4' of the ground.