Moved last year to a place with no shop so I need to build one now that most everything else is done. It will be concrete slab on grade. I will use 2 X 4 sleepers on the concrete with plywood over the sleepers. My last shop was done this way and I liked being able to run airlines and some wiring under the floor. Somewhere I saw a picture of a shop with a plywood floor and the plywood had 2 or 3 coats of poly on it. Anyone on the list use this approach.
Assuming that you did this earlier, your actual question isn't about power access hidden in the floor. I have seen this in commercial applications an d thought it was pretty slick.
Use the right kind of plywood, and coat it with a real floor coating. Regu lar poly isn't close to being abrasion resistant enough to make a good choi ce for coating.
You have a lot of choices in clear floor coatings, and even paint. When I was a kid there were several old shops I was in that had the wood floors pa inted with "deck paint" that was a super hard oil based enamel used on meta l and wood at that time. It wore great and was easily repaired or renewabl e. With the newer products sold as "deck paint" or "deck coating" meant to coat and do minor crack filling on your backyard home deck, these products are more likely to be found as "marine deck paint" or "boat deck paint".
but there are one or two places that sell used data center raised flooring
meant for heavy stuff and traffic but not sure about a dusty environ
probably not cheap but it is modular
if you go plywood you would want to use the best you can afford and be prepared to maintain the floor how much head space do you have because if you have enough you could go with 2x6 or 2x8 etc and have some storage in the floor
That's an important point. Almost requires some sort of modular flooring in smaller sizes (32"x32"?). Or a preternatural ability to know all future electrical requirements :-).
If moving equipment around is not a requirement, I'd just seal the plywood and put down some sort of resilient flooring or mats.
An issue with raised flooring that may come into play with this shop is the amount of head room available and the height difference between the doors and the raised floor... raised floors from computer centers burn up a lot of space. Not that this couldn't be designed around but it would drive the cost up. The 2X sleepers would be a cost effective alternative and still provide chases for wiring and air lines. The raised floor system might be justified however if an extensive dust collection piping system were to be constructed under it... there was no mention of that in the OP's message however.
Depending upon the climate it may make sense to insulate the floor system... or at least provide a thermal break by putting sill sealer foam between the sleepers and concrete. This can make a big difference in comfort and in the air conditioning costs (heating and/or cooling).
Re the flooring, 3/4" T&G subflooring on 2x4 sleepers is a good start. Depending upon how good the concrete job turns out, if you want a truly flat floor you will may have to scribe the sleepers but that is not a big deal. I had my sons scribe a 16x22 foot room for me when they were about 7 and 9 years old... After the first sleeper I didn't check any more as it was perfect. I just cut what they marked using my bandsaw. They did a fine job (they were a lot closer to the floor back then!). I also left the floor independent of the walls with a small gap that was insulated. The drywall and baseboard covers the gap. A similar approach could be used in a shop to leave access to the chases for future runs... maybe a 1x4 or 1x6 border that is screwed down? A flat level floor can be handy for getting bench and tool top heights to match and co-planer and it is real handy to have a flat and level floor when assembling things. Finish... I'd probably use a good floor paint after priming with tinted primer (to help hide future scratches). I put poly on a couple sheet good shop floors in the past and they were nothing to write home about... if looks are important.
Marine grade coating would probably work although the price of anything "marine" is going to be very expensive. I probably need to visit a store that sells coatings for hardwood floors.
I hadn't considered the need to get underneath because in 17 years in my last shop I never had a reason to. The airlines were copper pipe and the wiring never a problem.
I should ponder this some more but removing a sheet of plywood is possible unless it is T&G. Might need some help even then.
I am in AL so we don't really get a lot of cold weather but we do get some hot and humid days. The shop will have AC and heat. Heat type to be determined.
One thing I absolutely need to remember is to make sure that the wall covering does not overlap the floor along the edges. Removing the floor would be very difficult without cutting the drywall.
A perfectly flat floor isn't really all that necessary as long as I can level the equipment.
All you need to do is cut openings for removable pieces, say 2' x 2' in the appropriate spots, re enforced for rolling over, and you can slide what you need to have under the flooring later on.
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