Woodworking Shop in Basement

[ed_h]

My wife wants me to build a detached shop, but I'm resisting. I'm now in the 1400 SF basement. It is heated and air conditioned 24/7/365, has telephone, cable, ethernet, hot and cold running water, a bathroom with a shower, a walkout entrance, and is a 10 second walk from anywhere in the house, in my underwear if I want.

Her main objections to the status quo:

Foot- and clothes-borne Dust & Shavings: Shavings and dust gets tracked

through the house and fall off my person. My solution: Try to keep the shop floor swept. Brush myself off. Resolve to wear shoes in the

shop. Go upstairs only when summoned.

Airborne Dust: The 2 HP Grizzley gets most of it, but catching all the

fine dust from every machine is pretty tough. My solution: Do my best to collect the dust. Try to limit long- duration dust-generating activities, instead spreading them out to more frequent, smaller dust-generating incidents. This reduces my culpability by making my dust mostly disappear in the dust background noise floor.

Noise: Two or three horsepower's worth of abuse to a piece of wood can

create some pretty obxoxious noise levels. My solution: Insulate & acoustically decouple the shop ceiling. Keep doors closed. Save the noisest stuff for when no one else is home, or after my wife goes to bed. Suggest the next day that maybe she dreamt it.

Odors: My wife actually says she likes the smell of some cut woods, but it's some of the finishes, paints, and adhesives that are the problem. My solution: Do these smelly operations outside when possible. Otherwise, do them after she goes to bed. The odors will normally be gone in the morning, and I can play dumb be especially sympathetic about any headache complaints. Give waterborne finishes and adhesives yet another chance.

On the other hand, my wife does acknowledge that accessibility (to me) is pretty good the way it is, and she'd hate to give up the immediate response she now enjoys in emergency situations like, say, a bug in the

sink.

Joe Roberts wrote:

[John]

I happen to work in "my" half of the two-car garage, both bays of which are below the living space. Pros: easy access, can expand into the driveway during warm weather, excellent light with the garage door open, sufficiently well insulated so as not to bother the folks upstairs. Cons: it's dark in winter and a little cramped, had to wall off the shop to keep dust/shavings from littering "her" half and the family station wagon, the central vacuum scares the bejeezus out of me whenever someone upstairs decides a carpet needs cleaning.

Without the garage bay door I think my woodworking would be limited to quite small projects (and tooling) that would fit around tight corners and through standard 3 foot doors. Staircases to the cellar are not often well placed. (Mine aren't.)

J.

Joe Roberts wrote:

[LRod]

Most of the issues I would add to have already been addressed, and pretty much the way I would address them.

I worked in a basement shop for 21 years (in Northern Illinois). I liked it in the main. However, I didn't have a full complement of Delta tools then, and I shudder now to think of getting them down to the basement if I were still there. Not so much size, but overstressing what are essentially two half 2x12s holding things up. I think I'd do some major reinforcing, were I in that position again.

Lighting. This goes for any shop. Your eyes are the best right now that they will ever be. There is no such thing, in my mind, as too much light. I was always happy with what I had in my shop. Approximately 350 ft^2, with five or six 8' two tube fixtures, and a couple of two tube 4'ers.

I didn't realize how good I had it until I took the shop apart. I went down in the basement afterwards at midday on a sunny day, and even with the puny single incandescant on, it was like being in a cave. I was shocked.

Gawd, wiring was easy.

Can't over-agree on the low ceiling assessment. I've since been in basements that had 9' foot ceilings, and my thought is, "oh, if I'd only known." Of course even if I had, it probably would have wound up being, "oh, if I only could afford it."

One problem no one has touched on, and it might have been slightly unique to me. We had a two story colonial with essentially a full attic. I had my ham radio room in a bedroom on the second floor. The attic had lots of associated coaxial and control cable. The second floor was also where many of my wreck pearls in the late '90s came from, as it doubled as the computer room. Although I've long been smart enough to have radio room tools, garage tools, kitchen tools, as well as shop tools, that pertains mostly to screwdrivers, small wrenches, and small socket sets. If I needed a saw or drill bits, it was a two to three story hike down to the shop and a two or three story hike back up. That was less a problem when I was 30 than it was when I was 51.

In the main, I liked it.

[B A R R Y]

The furnace is right next to the non-sliding doors.8^(

[Prometheus]

Pros:

Semi climate controlled, easy access to wiring and plumbing. Sound is almost entirely blocked so the neighbors can't complain.

Cons:

Difficult to get things in/out (though that isn't true in my case, as I have a 36" door to the garage in my basement.), finishing fumes will raise up through the floor and stink up the house from time to time, low ceiling (mine is 7") and the furnace will need filters and regular cleaning more often.

Having had both a garage and a basement shop, it's been my experience that the basement shop is far nicer for me. There's no additional heating or cooling costs, and I never have to wade through snow to get to the shop. It is also more secure, and nobody knows it's there unless I tell them- which isn't necessarily true about a garage shop if you work with the door open in the summer. The furnace is far less of a problem than I was afraid it might be- I give it a good cleaning every couple of months, and it usually doesn't even really seem to need it.

[Prometheus]

One thing that really helps, and I can't even really take credit for it, is that the basement stairs in my place were carpeted when I bought the place. Works really well for scrubbing the sawdust off while climbing the stairs.

[bf]

The shop in my old house had an interesting view. The lady that lived behind me had two college aged daughters that would sunbathe in the backyard in bikinis every afternoon.. made it hard to get work done.

[bf]

I have a small window in the basement shop. I got one of those window fans and use it to blow air outside when finishing. I'll let it run until I go to bed (as the finish dries). It makes a huge difference in the amount of odor that gets in the house.

In fact, I've gotten to the point where I do almost no finishing in cold weather because I don't like the odors of finishing all over the house either.. So when spring comes, I usually have a backlog of things to stain and poly. Gives me an excuse to start new projects in the winter.. Darn it, it's just too cold to go any further on this project, time to start another.

[bf]

That's actually not a concern. My basement stairs are even wimpier than

2 X 12s .. they are prehab crap.

I've gotten a 18" bandsaw down there (I think it was around 400 lbs), as well as other very heavy stuff. It's not fun, but it's doable. The loads as you bring them down the stairs are only temporary.

Of course, my basement stairway is straight, which helps a lot. If you have a bend or landing on your basement stairs, that makes things a lot more difficult. That was the main requirement for me buying any house.. either a walk out basement or woodworking accessable stairs down there.

As far as dust control, I walled off half the basement for the shop. I sealed it off from the rest of the house pretty good, but it could be better.

[russellseaton1]

Let me summarize my rambling response. And agree with WConner. With the shop in the basement, it is far more likely to be used because it is so close and always ready to go. No preheating for 15 minutes to use it for 10 minutes, no precooling. Since a basement is mentioned, I assume the house is in the colder climates where heating a detached building or even attached garage would be required. Think about how often you just walk into your shop for a minute or two? Easy to do if the shop is in the basement. That convenience trumps lots of disadvantages. If starting with a new house you can build in ways to overcome the main disadvantage of accessibility for big heavy tools and wood and plywood and finished projects. Walkout basement, outside Bilco door, straight wide stairs to the basement from outside. As for dust getting in the rest of the house, new nice gas furnaces can use outside air for combustion so they can almost be selaed off from the inside air. Double door vestibules to keep dust downstairs can be put in. Weather stripping on doors downstairs. Lots of easy ways to keep dust in the basement. And put a bathroom in the basement so you can clean up and not track dust and dirt upstairs. Put a small cheap refrigerator in the basement so you don't have to go upstairs and track dust for a drink.

[e-mail] wrote:

[russellseaton1]

But new construction can easily solve most of your basement problems. You can build a new house with a walkout basement with plenty of windows and sliding doors on the walkout side(s). You can put the staircase and furnace off to one corner, along a wall, etc. And make sure the water main does not come up in the middle of the basement. These are free changes at time of construction. Lally columns can be minimized by using deeper rafters or steel beams as the support beam. Some extra cost here. But not a lot. Also the foundation shape will affect whether the ends of beams can be born by the foundation walls without any lally columns. Something to be considered in the planning stage. Make the basement 1 foot or 2 feet deeper. A little extra cost for concrete and digging. All of these things are relatively cheap/free and easy to do if PLANNED for at time of construction. I almost always work in the shop at night so natural light is meaningless.

[M Berger]

The cost is very high -- I was told to think about $ 5000 as a minimum starting point and another $ 2000 for proper drainage.

You can hire a lot of pe> I've noticed everyone agrees on getting the tools, material, and

[B A R R Y]

Sure can! But if I were building new, I'd still prefer to make the shop an attached building on grade. Even with windows all along one side, it's still not the same.

And all I need is a new house.

[bf]

Yes, it is pretty expensive add on. Even if you are requesting it when building new, the builder is going to probably charge you considerably, since an outside stairway to the basement is a pretty custom thing.

If you are willing to have a sloped yard with a walkout basement, that works well. Otherwise, try to buy a house with a straight stairwell that is fairly accessable. Ideally it's a straight shot from the garage door or is in an open area like a kitchen. Even if you have to move the kitchen table everytime you move a new big tool down, that's not too bad.

Even if you DIY it.. I was considering it.. it's a lot of time and labor that could be spent in the shop.

[Prometheus]

Yep, a guy could DIY it, but it's unlikely to be easy or pretty. I've done the job as part of a professional crew, and it was a real PITA even then.

Big things to consider are digging the hole- you could use a shovel, but it'll be an insane amount of work, and cutting the foundation. Cutting the foundation is the hardest part, if you ask me- we used a "partner" saw with a diamond tipped blade for the job, and it was about the loudest tool I've ever used, and created a huge amount of dust. The footing could be left in place for a stairwell, but the one we did required it's removal, and nearly took off a guy's foot in the process (the only real access was standing on top of the concrete itself while cutting it.)

Those saws are available as rentals, and a guy can get them- but using them is very much like real work. Once that is done, then you've got to pour a new footing, slab, and three walls. A guy can do all that as well with some plywood and wailers, but then you're left with a lot of concrete-splattered plywood at the end of the job.

There's really no part of the job that is fun for a woodworker, with the possible exception of laying out the stairs and building the doors. Having done it before, I'd consider $5000 a bargin for that particular job. If I were pressed, and someone really, really wanted

*me* to do it, I'd quote at least double that.

I guess the moral of the story is that if you want it, and intend to stay in your house for the forseeable future, I'd bite the bullet and pay the man who gave you that quote. It wouldn't be a terrible idea to check with an asessor as well- there's a fair chance that that would increase the value of your house quite a lot. If you think about it, it makes the basement legal living space (you've added the required second exit, after all) and depending on your house's layout, it may effectively double the square footage you can report when it comes time to sell.

[Lou]

I wonder if anyone has had the oppertunity to have a shop under the garage? It's an idea that I've been playing with. Quite a bit of wasted space without requiring extra realestate. Lou

[J. Clarke]

Maybe, if the basement meets the other requirements of code. Mine doesn't, not because of the lack of an outside access (carefully sized to make it very difficult to get a piece of Baltic Birch in without buggering it up) but because of the ceiling height--the distance from the first floor joists to the basement floor is a few inches shy of what code requires--I'd have to jack the whole house up about 6 inches to have the basement become legal living space..

[russellseaton1]

I know a reasonably wealthy individual who built a nice, custom ranch house with 3 or 4 car garage and had the builder use engineered concrete floor panels or whatever to have a basement under the garage itself. The part of the basement under the house was nicely finished and I think the under garage part was work shop or something. I did not look but I suspect there was also official engineered supports for the engineered official floor panels used for the garage floor to hold up the vehicles. I don't know how much it cost, but I would guess the cost per square foot of space under the garage was far more than the cost per square foot of the master bath or kitchen. Kitchens and baths as you might know are high cost rooms. Unless real estate is extremely dear, like San Francisco or New York City, or cost is of no concern, its probably not practical to have usable space under the garage.

[Prometheus]

Never thought of it, but it would be neat- with a couple of provisions. It'd still have to have a concrete floor, at least in my area, and that floor would have to have some kind of drainage piping run through it so that oil and other drips that come off the cars doesn't fall on your tools.

Probably be too expensive for most budgets, as the floor of the garage would have to be built like a parking garage (though I confess I really don't know what that entails.) But if you've got the money, it could be pretty cool- especially if you put some kind of industrial lift in the corner for raising finished projects and lowering tools and wood.

[Prometheus]

Ah yes- I hadn't thought about that... The last basement remodel I did was in a newer house with an 8' basement ceiling, so the second exit was all that was required.