New Garage/Mancave!

truckofwinandawesome · October 17, 2016

Well, drywall mudding is just about complete is both rooms, and we are about to shed some light on the whole situation! Main reason why we got our light fixtures now is because we hope to have the electrons flowing by next week! Once the power is on, we hope to rent scaffolding to insulate the roof of the high bay, complete the data connection over the garage door, as well as run the light chains from the rafters (we are leaning towards LED lights)

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Colossus · October 18, 2016

Who is we? It is your choice, no one else

truckofwinandawesome · October 18, 2016

Who is we? It is your choice, no one else

I'm not the only person that will be using this shop, as well as it's not my money being used to build it.

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Colossus · October 18, 2016

Uh oh. will be praying for ya, bud. J/K

truckofwinandawesome · October 25, 2016

And the Mancave Gods (and our local power company) said LET THERE BE ELECTRICITY, And it was GOOD!!

And a MAJOR Milestone has been reached in our Mancave project! Today while everyone was out of the house, DES came out, and set the pole, ran and connected the wires, and set the meter! The electrons are now flowing through the electrical system (except in some places where things aren't complete like the HVAC system, the garage lighting, and the passageway) we still have a few issues with the train room lights, but those probably won't take long to diagnose.

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Colossus · October 26, 2016

That sure looks like a room to me.. Not a cave..

Oh oops I was supposed to not give you people a hard time about fake caves.

truckofwinandawesome · October 28, 2016

Our HVAC unit has arrived! It's a Carrier Comfort 15 3 Ton Gas Pack! (Dad WANTED a straight cool system, but those are special order, and it would take far too long to be built and shipped to us) now all that has to be done is the fittings and plenum have to be built in a shop, and it has to be set on its concrete pad on the northern wall. But that will wait until spring as the parents are preparing to make a second trip to Europe next month.

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truckofwinandawesome · November 3, 2016

Well, the train room is SO CLOSE to being COMPLETELY finished, we can TASTE IT! Dad chose Armstrong commercial grade vinyl tiles for the floor, with a blue gray rubber cove base for the transition from floor to wall. Also, the drop ceiling is about 90% complete; we just need to trim some tiles for the 4 corners of the room. The massive hole by the passageway is so he can run the ductwork for the HVAC in the soffit he built into it. And as seen in the 5th picture, that ductwork is mostly complete! (Heh, the old man gets to use the skills he used to put a roof over my head and food in my belly for what I call his 'Magnum Opus' of sheet metal work!)

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truckofwinandawesome · November 15, 2016

Well, the rooms are complete, the HVAC system is complete save for setting the unit outside, the baseboard heaters have been tested (after blowing a set of thermostats because the directions to wire them up were as clear as mud) and the last bits of drywall are going up! All we lack to COMPLETELY finish the drywall is a sheet and a half! This is starting to get VERY close to being ready to move in!

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Eddie 70 · December 19, 2016

Any update on the garage? We just built a new house with a garage that is 24X42. With me pulling my truck in it makes it tight with the shelves that are in there. I am wanting to add a building outside also to get the mowers, yard tools and motorcycles etc. out of the house. Do you mind if I ask how much did the metal building cost? Not sure if my homeowners association would approve of a metal building, but there are some in our small neighborhood so they must not be too strict.

TJay74 · December 22, 2016

Well, the drywall hanging has commenced, as well as the first bits of ductwork for the HVAC system have been installed! And as of this post, the Train Room has ALL of its drywall up! And now for the bad news; Dickson Electric got a little butt hurt that we didn't call them right away for a checklist of things for us to do to make them happy about our meter box (they wanted it in a spot that would have looked ugly, as well as they wanted our weatherhead over 40 feet off the ground) so now they want to charge us $800 to put a stub pole in so they can run a power line to another pole without a transformer (and I get the feeling they are going to charge us for the transformer) even though there is a pole WITH a transformer about 90 feet diagonally from the weatherhead!

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Coming from someone who works for the local electric company. Just because a transformer is close by doesn't mean it can be used. That transformer could be at max loading and in order to put a bigger transformer on the pole may mean that the pole has to be changed out. Poles are not cheap, the average 40' class 5 pole is around $1000. That doesn't include the line crews time to change it out, the transformer can go anywhere from $5k to $20k depending on the size.

Most electric companies take into account the load the customer is going to use and see how long the rate of return is going to take when they bid out the new service. In your case a small shop that wont use much electricity wont have a fast rate of return to pay for the pole and overhead service line, heck in 20 years it may still be in a position where the materials are not paid for with the profit the usage generates each month.

Remember, electric companies are out to make money, not lose money.

truckofwinandawesome · December 22, 2016

Coming from someone who works for the local electric company. Just because a transformer is close by doesn't mean it can be used. That transformer could be at max loading and in order to put a bigger transformer on the pole may mean that the pole has to be changed out. Poles are not cheap, the average 40' class 5 pole is around $1000. That doesn't include the line crews time to change it out, the transformer can go anywhere from $5k to $20k depending on the size.

Most electric companies take into account the load the customer is going to use and see how long the rate of return is going to take when they bid out the new service. In your case a small shop that wont use much electricity wont have a fast rate of return to pay for the pole and overhead service line, heck in 20 years it may still be in a position where the materials are not paid for with the profit the usage generates each month.

Remember, electric companies are out to make money, not lose money.

If I remember correctly, the stub pole cost us $822, and they were able to use the transformer that was already on the pole. (You have to remember that I live in the Tennessee Valley, the power companies around here are government run, and get paid either way.) you should have heard what the power company engineers wanted us to do; they wanted us to rip out the load center, weatherhead, and meterbox and move them to the southeast corner of the building, which is the opposite corner of where it is now.

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bloomingtonmike · December 23, 2016

Looks great. Into a shed build myself. I can appreciate the work you are doing.

truckofwinandawesome · December 24, 2016

Well, only one photo today, but that massive hole in the passage way finally got the steel door (with deadbolt!) installed! Maybe now the baseboard heaters won't be wasting their heat by trying to heat the extremely drafty and uninsulated high bay!

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