Slick 60's

Been trying for years to buy the lots on either side of us, well tomorrow we close on the ones next to us and my plan is to build me a nice shop. What sizes do you guys think would be best. I am thinking 30x40 built so it can be added on to in the future.

Sounds like a good size, but remember, if you make it wider now, it's only a bit of front and back wall

I put up a 40x60 a few years ago and I'm satisfied with the size although sometimes I wonder if I should have made do with a 40x40. I have 10' walls with scissor trusses so you can put a lift in later if you wanted to. A friend put up a 40x40 and he's putting a 20x20 addition on now for storage. The big thing is what do you want to store in it? Lay it out and then park cars and anything else you plan to store in side the layout.

In the summer it will be too small
But during the winter , it's far cheaper to heat a smaller one
Seems like I work in the winter more

I did a 30 x 40. I have 2 10 foot doors on the 40 foot wall on one side so I have a 17 foot wide area with a couple benches on the walls and room to work I keep my Ford in it a boat 2 rzr's my daily pickup my trailer that I haul the rzr's and the ford and 4 snowmobiles in depending on the season. I have another trailer that I keep my snowmobiles in for the summer can't get it inside so it stays out. Trust me you could build it 100 x 100 and it would not be big enough.

Decide how big you need, add 10%, then double it. It will be big enough till you move in. Now to be serious build as big as you can afford.


Johnny

The key to being able to use a shop in the winter is insulation. I have 6'' in the side walls and 8" in the ceiling. That would have a bearing on the size you chose also. It makes the shop more usable in the summer and winter.

I actually prefer the multiple smaller buildings approach... One work shop/ dirty area, one completed projects/ man cave building, and a "parts storage barn" separate helps lessen the chances of a total loss of everything. Or a project mishap causing double or complete destruction.

FarmMotorSports wrote:I actually prefer the multiple smaller buildings approach... One work shop/ dirty area, one completed projects/ man cave building, and a "parts storage barn" separate helps lessen the chances of a total loss of everything. Or a project mishap causing double or complete destruction.

I agree ... why do you want to heat a 2500 square ft building
If your assembling an engine that only takes a small room

Huge is nice ... but in the northern states , takes a lot of $ if you
Use them much in the winter months

build a decent size building to be able to move around, BUT then also get a ocean container to keep extra parts that would only get in your way if it was in the building + enough room to build a engine store a engine,, here it does not take long to fill up containers and still not enough room and also if your like most of us here we want to save almost anything that might be needed down the road

Shipping containers are nice for several reasons
Water & mouse proof
If they aren't a permanent structure , not on the taxes
For somebody that might move , they can be moved to new house

It would nice yo have several small buildings, but not everyone has enough room on their property to do that, especialy if you're trying to build them far enough away from each other for fire safety. For me a larger building made sense for storage and a place to work.

What a cool problem to have!!! haha. Father of one of our friends has a pole barn up north, and his solution was to build a workshop within the barn, and only heat that. The whole barn is lighted and has a concrete floor, but it's only heated in his shop. In fact, Natalie and I have seen pole barns where they have beautiful living quarters in them, and use the remainder for storage and as a shop. Might be in our future some day.

Jerry

well I thought I had it all figured out but my wife threw a wrench in the works and suggested we build 2 buildings, one to work in and heat and one for storage. i had originally thought 30x40 with 40 being the end so it could be added onto later. We wanted the lot to the north of us but got the lot to the South and as soon as we made the offer on the south lot the guy to the North said he should just go ahead and sell it to us. He was doing some work here this weekend and kinda shot me a price for the lot so now if we get that the building ideas and plans just went out the window. My wife suggested building a nice 3 car garage to use for now and then add a shop later on that I want.