I have been in the process of moving since last september, and in april we started the new shop. The pics are fairly explanatory, but the in floor slab heat is now complete, and soon it will be completely sheetrocked and painted, which means move in the equipment!! Maybe 3 weeks from now.

I started insulating with 1-1/2 inches of foam panels, then framed metal walls, added r-13 paper face batts, and then will sheetrock over the roll out insulation. In the ceiling I put hat rack, rolled r-19 and then 1-1/2 foam boards screwed to the bottom, this will be painted white.

a few more pics of the process, the barn is 64x 34, the shop area is 40x34, the rest of the barn will be toy parking and automotive storage. I framed in 2 isolation pads in the concrete for hammers, and mounted 2 posts for vices, I plan at least 3 forges in the shop for future classes and hammer in events with MABA (Michigan Blacksmith Artists.)

Very nice. You'll love the in floor heat if you have never had it before. When and if I ever get to do my own shop, that's what I plan to do.

 

I probably don't need to tell you this, but I'll do so anyways. The one down side of radiant floor is the fact you have to be very careful if you need to later anchor something down. I'm dealing with this issue now as the guy I used to work for put radiant flooring in his basement. He passed away 2 years ago and now his wife wants to finish the basement off and put in stud walls etc. When he was alive and we went to move the staircase, he had laid out the tube to avoid where he thought the stairs should go. However as far as we know he never gave any thought to other walls etc. That leaves us with only two options, gamble we don't drill too deep and hit the tube, or glue down the walls and hope the glue is strong enough to keep things in place when we start adding the heavy storage shelves... The only thing I have as a reference is a few in progress picts I took while helping do the work. Supposedly he had more picts for tube location reference, but no one has located them yet.

Insulator contractors have those fancy "Flir" camera's that can show difference in temps(heat loss). I had a heat loss test done of my house and they took the infra red pics and e-mailed the pics to me so I could reference them during a re-insulation process. I would think they would work perfect for finding the "hot" spots in your floor - so say you have your floor temps at normal and the outside temp is 30-40 lower (open the doors and windows to cool the room) they could easily find the were the heating tubes are. A quick conversation with them I'd think you could have them check it out for you reasonably or for a trade with some hand forged work.

also 3/4 inch ramset pins work fine with most radiant floors due to the 2 inch concrete cover over the pipes. FLIR cam is a great idea.

You can rent the IR cameras. . . Here at least. Really nice looking shop Mike. About the moving equipment in when it's finished part, there's that big red thing just sitting there; letting the shop taper into it's new job?

 

Frosty The Lucky.

Since 1992 I have been involved with two new structures with radiant Heat and it's the only way to go. We did a Firestation in '92 in Vermont and none have been built since in our area without radiant. We also built a new house in '03 in Vermont with radiant and when we finished part of the basement we glued down 2x6 onto the floor and ram set near support posts that we knew didn't have tubing, worked good so far.

The big red power hammer in the picture might concern me, only because I've heard of heavy vibrating machines causing broken tubes?? Haven't seen it personally just heard??

Good Luck with your shop looks great.

Notownkid

Pex is pretty stout and I doubt vibration alone would cause many issues.  If the floor cracks and settles, then I could see issues. It sounds though like he isolated the base pads from the rest of the slab, so I doubt the pex runs thru them.

Vibration damaging in floor heat systems is from the days they used metal tubing and is no longer a factor. At first they used copper but concrete and copper react in a bad way for copper, steel tends to corrode and stainless tends to not like the concrete checking or vibration.

 

Pex is darned near bullet proof. When I laid it in my shop floor I pressurized it as per instructions but over pressured it for a couple weeks just to see if it'd spring a leak. 125psi for two weeks and zippo. You pressurize it when you pour the concrete so it's expanded a little and makes a little room for heat expansion.

 

I mapped the Pex in my floor and it's all tied to the rebar which is welded to the gozintas. I didn't know about renting an IR camera if I wanted to drill holes.

 

Frosty The Lucky.

the pads for the heavier machines are completely separate from the rest of the floor. and no heat lines near them, shouldnt be a problem at all. i helped put the pads in.

well you are getting closer to me now, only about 3 hours away  now, Welcome to the neighborhood Mike

Greetings Mike,

 

Welcome to Michigan..  We have a great group here in Mich ...  MABA..  Lots of great smiths and super meetings.. Look into it MIBLACKSMITHS.ORG

Find me at SOFA and we can talk..

 

Forge on and make beautiful things..

Jim

Frosty, the red machine is in place, the other red machine soon to join it, Posts buried in concrete for the leg vices. Steve Sells, someday we will meet, Seldom, you da man! Stuart, miss you too, come to a MABA meet someday, Jim Coke, been a member on and off for a few years now, got to know the Parma boys pretty well, prolly will host a hammer in here in Kzoo next year if we can swing it!! Got the sheetrock up and fire taped this last 2 weekends, now paint, and hang lights, then move in!!! ohboyohboyohboy!!! Oh yeah, gotta build the smoke collection system, Seldom????you hearin me????

Mike: I was commenting on the silly claim you made about NOT moving anything into the shop till it was finished! Seriously, you're more of a regular blacksmith guy than that! I know I'm an extraordinary example but my shop was getting crowded before I got the roof on. Really, you were not only moving equipment in before it was finished but you are bolting it to the floor.
 
You are my kind of guy Mike. Enjoy the shop, she's a beaut.
 
Frosty The Lucky.

• yeah frosty you are correct, more crap in the way in the unfinished side than you can shake a stick at, but so far only little red in the finished side. not much longer though!! soon to be a forgin...bwahahahahahaha

im listening mike

So now for hanging lights and painting, and getting the smoke collection system in place, already have some interest in holding beginning courses from 2 guys. not long now.

cant wait to help get the place dirty ;)

Looks great Mike! Glad to see the progress.

nice shop! looks great!

Ok, drywall and painting almost done, lights and benches being put up, and some of the rusty stuff getting tossed in piles, still no smoke collection system, but hey, Rome wasn't built in a day, and I do have my gas forge about set to go to keep feeding my addiction.

Lookin gooder all the time Mike!

 

Frosty The Lucky.

You can never have enough bench space. Is that peg board behind the bench?

yup, peg board is my friend as I always misplace stuff, so if I hang it up, when I use it, I know where it is supposed to be put back. Long way to go, but I have to button the back wall up before the snow flies, that darn smoke collection system is weighing on my mind!!

Greetings Mike,

 

Wow that's a lot of flat bench space...   Any horizontal surface I have  collects  STUFF..   In my old shop I used a commercial large vent system from a large restaurant designed for grills...  It worked great...   Lots of used equipment like that goes to the scrap heap.  Find local HVAC guys that install this kind of equipment .

 

See ya at SOFA   

 

Forge on and make beautiful things

Jim