Dimensions

[W3WN]

The front deck project is proceeding very well. A few days delay due to weather issues, but as of this morning, I only have to finish the railing on the side by the garage, put a handrail on the front steps, get the flag pole in, and finish some minor trim & cosmetic work. Hope to be done for the most part by the weekend.

So the time has come to start planning Phase II.

Imagine a room, approximately 12 feet wide and 22 1/4 feet long. Current opening is along side a driveway, 12 feet long, about 3 feet in from the edge (so there's an overhang), made out of painted particle board & home-made doors. Common wall with the basement has an I-Beam at the ceiling level, supported on several positions on cinder blocks. Inside area has an uneven dirt floor. No power at present, but that's available on the other side of the wall shared with the basement. No windows.

Challenge: To divide this space into three areas:

A front section that will serve as the equivalent of a garden shed or mini-barn, with space left for general tools and such.

A (probably) center section that will be used as general storage. Some shelving, possibly a small cedar-lined closet.

A (probably) back section that will be the new ham shack. It will have at least 2 operating positions, a space for my desk, possibly a small repair bench. Bookshelves and display/storage shelves will take up some of the wall space, as will areas for photos and certificates etc.

How would you lay the area out? Seriously. I have a few options in mind, but nothing is set in stone yet.

A few other comments:

-- at some point, a doorway into the basement will be cut. A friend has the right tools for the job & can't wait to take out his aggressions (he has a teenage son... no, I am not introducing his son to my daughter... besides, they've already met. but let's not digress)

-- I can build the "new" front in a couple of ways. One big door or double doors, or two separate ones - one for the 'shed' area (and isolate it), one for (eventually) egress to the house via the basement & the shack. And I will put in a window or some other way for air to circulate.

-- Obviously I can 'flip' the positions of the storage area & the shack, if desired. If I put storage in the back, though, that means that access to it goes through the shack -- if I put up another wall, that limits shack area. Not neccesarily bad, but it's going to be cozy as it is, so I don't want to make it TOO tight.

-- depending on exactly where the basement door is cut, I may be able to extend the existing HVAC ducts into the area. If I can't, then I'll have to figure out a heat source for winter. Not an big problem, I've done this before.

-- and I have to figure out what to do for a floor. $10 K to have a concrete slab pored is out of the question; no shekels. I'm considering laying down bricks, and then lay some tile or other flooring material (Hardibacker under tile or carpet?) in the shack itself & maybe the entrance corridor. Again, not an insolveable problem.

This is going to be the fall/winter project. With any luck, by the time the ARRL DX contests roll around, I hope to have the new shack functional & pretty much everything done. Famous last words...

So any positive suggestions appreciated.

[K7SGJ]

Since the foundation will be the most important part of your structure, I'd probably suggest a lot of thought there. I don't know what your annual weather conditions are like, but since concrete is out, you may want to consider putting some pressure treated timbers in concrete into the ground. On that, build a suitable support framing and underlayment for your flooring. I'm no structural engineer, but the whole base will have to support your structure; which by your preliminary estimates will be substantial at appx 265 sq ft. I think if you just lay down bricks, your going to find in time, everything is going to settle in it's own way, and become unstable. Plus, you'll want to weather and critter proof it as well as possible. Also, do you have ordinances that require a building permit? If so, you'll have to submit plans to you city/county, which is a pain in the ass. When I lived in the city, I put on an enclosed patio on the house without a permit. An inspector came out and told me the damn garbage men going down the alley turned me in, and I had to get one plus pay a fine.

Any-hoo, The foundation was the first thing that came to my mind. You do have the right idea about giving it some thought early on and looking for different ideas and suggestions.

[KC2UGV]

Yeah, with no slab, I wouldn't build any sort of structure on it, short of maybe an overhang. Which, in that case, you should be able to get away with cemented pillars supporting it. And, I'd detach it from the house as well.

[W3WN]

Good points.

I plan to mount pressure-treated 2x4's on the 'outside' walls, then insulate as I put up panelling. Most likely it will be OSB or something equivalent in the storage & shed areas, better panelling in the shack. So that should take care of any settling.

Outside of a support here or there for the concrete pad above (the former front porch now covered with the deck), the interior walls won't be load bearing. So I have some flexibility there. Again, pressure-treated wood for the portion that has contact with the existing dirt, with some concrete to hold them in place, is the most likely course of action.

I didn't make this clear, so permit me to add: the 'room' already exists, and the exisiting concrete block has a foundation (of sorts) underneath it. From what I can see, a previous owner dug this out & used it as a second garage -- the rails are still in place, though the garage door itself is long gone. A subsequent owner took the garage door off and walled it off (badly -- which makes me think it was the folks we bought the house from, her brother was a "handy man". I've spent 6 years fixing his "work")

Since the room exists, I don't think I'll be required to get a permit. I'm not making any "structural" changes, that's what they told me when I first inquired about it a few years ago. But I will have a word, again, with the Code Enforcement folks before I get started, just to make sure.

[K7SGJ]

Sounds like you have it by the ying yang. Post a pix or two of what is already there; that would help a bit, too.

[W3WN]

I'll try to do so tonight. If not tonight, definitely over the weekend.

The room is a mess right now; I suspect that half the stuff stored in there is going to end up on the curb. I've also got the remaining wall cabinets from the old kitchen in there; they're going to get hung & used in the storage areas, especially if I can strip the paint off of them (layer of white on top of a layer of green), as they're pretty fugly at the moment.

Ugh. I actually don't want to think about everything left to do. And it's all little stuff, relatively speaking, just time consuming. I have coax running through the wall to the flag pole area, which has to get run into the current shack (won't be a waste, that coax will eventually route the HF6 into the new shack).

Also have 12 gauge wire for the future outdoor outlets. Got to wire the outdoor outlets... and squeeze one more in, which I almost forgot about, for the low voltage outdoor lights & the seasonal lighting. Do I run that to the main panel (I have a 30 A 220V breaker for an electric dryer, sitting unused since we have a gas dryer), or to the sub-panel put in last year for the new kitchen (which has 4 unused breaks slots in it... by design)?

On an unrelated note, thinking of the LV lights (which I already have, left over from the old house); just got done refurbing most of the solar lights. Most retail stores sell replacement NiCad batteries for solar lights for an average of $3 each. Found a place online that had them for $.89 each; with shipping, net cost for 30 batteries came to just under $33. Not only are they working much better now, but I ended up with a lot more working lights! (That includes a dozen given to me by our new neighbor... the previous owners left a dozen behind, and he preferred white LED's over yellow. For the walk on the side of the house? Who cares!)

Getting back to the room, almost forgot one unrelated problem: I have to find a new place to hang my aluminum. I have an HF2V, HF6V, and a Mosley 3 element beam (all of which need varying degrees of TLC) hanging on the side wall of the room, along with other steel and aluminum tubing. The Butternuts will get broken down into smaller sections & stored until I'm ready for them, but I don't know yet what I'll do with the Mosley. (But this is a GOOD problem to have).

[W3WN]

OK, here's a few snapshops of the ex-Garage.
740874097407
First picture: Doesn't look like much from the front; if anything, the flash makes it look better than it is. You can see the recess under the overhang that I want to include.

Other two: Gives you an idea of what I'm working with. On the last picture, you can see the I-beam & it's supports, and I think you can see the rails from the old garage door. (And I am thinking that it wouldn't be THAT hard to move the one rail in & make a small door to pull up, similar to what you might find at some of the self-storage places. But that may be more agravation than it's worth, plus the overhead room needed to hold the door when it's open may be more than I'm willing to give up.)

I don't think you have a good look behind those old cabinets, which will end up back on the walls when I'm done; there are some fall decorations & the Christmas animated deer & angels. Personally, I could care less about them, but the wife likes them, so I have to make sure there's storage shelves for them as well...

[K7SGJ]

I'll try to do so tonight. If not tonight, definitely over the weekend.

The room is a mess right now; I suspect that half the stuff stored in there is going to end up on the curb. I've also got the remaining wall cabinets from the old kitchen in there; they're going to get hung & used in the storage areas, especially if I can strip the paint off of them (layer of white on top of a layer of green), as they're pretty fugly at the moment.

Ugh. I actually don't want to think about everything left to do. And it's all little stuff, relatively speaking, just time consuming. I have coax running through the wall to the flag pole area, which has to get run into the current shack (won't be a waste, that coax will eventually route the HF6 into the new shack).

Also have 12 gauge wire for the future outdoor outlets. Got to wire the outdoor outlets... and squeeze one more in, which I almost forgot about, for the low voltage outdoor lights & the seasonal lighting. Do I run that to the main panel (I have a 30 A 220V breaker for an electric dryer, sitting unused since we have a gas dryer), or to the sub-panel put in last year for the new kitchen (which has 4 unused breaks slots in it... by design)?

On an unrelated note, thinking of the LV lights (which I already have, left over from the old house); just got done refurbing most of the solar lights. Most retail stores sell replacement NiCad batteries for solar lights for an average of $3 each. Found a place online that had them for $.89 each; with shipping, net cost for 30 batteries came to just under $33. Not only are they working much better now, but I ended up with a lot more working lights! (That includes a dozen given to me by our new neighbor... the previous owners left a dozen behind, and he preferred white LED's over yellow. For the walk on the side of the house? Who cares!)

Getting back to the room, almost forgot one unrelated problem: I have to find a new place to hang my aluminum. I have an HF2V, HF6V, and a Mosley 3 element beam (all of which need varying degrees of TLC) hanging on the side wall of the room, along with other steel and aluminum tubing. The Butternuts will get broken down into smaller sections & stored until I'm ready for them, but I don't know yet what I'll do with the Mosley. (But this is a GOOD problem to have).

You could change the 220v/30a breaker out to two 15a or 20a 110 vac circuits if you wanted to, however, it might come in handy some day to have the 220 available. (Think spa) If you have 4 open positions in the sub panel, I would probably use one of those for your outdoor and seasonal lights. 12 Gauge is more than adequate for that. Since you have the 12 Gauge I'd do a 20a outdoor GFCI in a weatherproof box for that stuff. Also nice to have if you need 110 vac for a car charger, lawn tool, or what have you.

Looking at the pix you posted, I'm still trying to get an idea of the layout. If it were me, I would still consider a poured slab. if 12x22 is your finished size, you could probably do two pours. Here's what you might consider if you have the resources: there are places you can get a small loaded mini-cement truck, drive it yourself, and offload it. I've also seen trailers like that, but I don't know the capacity or the cost of either. Probably varies from place to place anyway. Each load would probably do one pour. You'll have to do the math figuring a 3 1/2-4 inch slab, 10x12 per section or so. Since you mentioned the deck and the other stuff you have done, you certainly have the skills to frame out the area for the pour. For me, when it comes to concrete, about all I can do is make it gray and hard. If you have some friends or friends of friends that can finish the flat work, you'll get in very very inexpensively, and have a great foundation to build on. You mentioned 10k earlier, but it shouldn't cost anywhere near that to do it yourself, or as much as you can do. Even if you have to hire a couple of guys to finish the slab after the pour, you'll still get away in good shape. Also, done properly to last, it should increase the value of the home some, I would think. Framing it out, drywall, insulation, paint, electrical and that stuff is a cake walk. You'll be surprised at what you'll have when you're done. Might even get a 30 min slot on DIY network.

[W3WN]

Well, I appreciate the vote of confidence... but I've tried working with concrete before. I'm not good at it.

I'm not sure if any of the local companies would let me drive the truck myself & unload myself. While I could check into it, it's still most likely going to be more cash than I'll have on hand. That's part of the issue... I'll be working on this in small doses. There's just no way I can finance doing a slab, or even half a slab, at a time.

[ab1ga]

I don't want to say too much before learning more, but there may not be a need for a slab.

To prevent settling of one of my sheds I placed cement blocks in spots I had dug out and then filled with a layer of gravel and a layer of fines from a local landscaping place. You might be able to do something similar for your floor. Place PT joists on your "footings", then some subfloor, etc.

Depending on how much height difference between inside and outside you can tolerate, you may have to dig out some dirt in the area, but I have an aversion to lumber touching dirt, no matter how much poison is in it.

A bigger problem might be moisture control. Where you live that dirt might be a source of lots of moisture, and while ham ops may be able to tolerate mold, something in a cedar chest might not, and could lead to angry wimmens in the home.

I admit I'm challenged to imagine your layout; could you perhaps sketch out a floor plan and post a photo of it? Also, could you perhaps do a tour around the building showing the structure from all sides? I know it's a lot to ask, but perhaps I'm not the only one who'd like to help but just can't visualize the site properly.

73,

[W3WN]

There is no floor plan. It's just a big empty space with a dirt floor. That and a few old wooden pallets that serve as a temporary floor for a few things.

It's also not really possible to do a tour of the building. Except for the entrance area, it's just about all underground.

... let's not get too sidetracked. Like I said, a slab is not going to be possible (I can't afford to do it), so there's no point in worrying about it. A brick floor, which I can do a small section at a time, is going to be more practical. But that's not the key issue.

Trying to figure out what I want the floor plan to be, that is the issue!

[W3WN]

Maybe this will help... This is NOT to scale and the proportions are NOT precise, but just to give a general idea of what I'm thinking about:

7457

Now:
-- I haven't decided exactly how to hang the outside doors, although I'm thinking of having the "shed" area with a separate front access (makes it easier to take the lawn mower out!). That area will also include a tool/work bench. I may also put a "back" door into that separating wall, so that you could go across from the basement right into the back of it.
-- I also haven't decided if the storage area will be walled off with a door, or have a half wall & an opening, or no door whatsoever.
-- The position of the entrance into the basement itself will depend on exactly where & how we cut the doorway... assuming we can, of course, but I think we can.
-- Obviously, general layout of the shack area is still pretty vague. I'm considering putting in shelving in one corner specifically to hold parts etc., with a work bench right next to it, and a small wall separating it from the operating positions. We'll see.

Any thoughts?

[ab1ga]

Overall the dimensions look fine, but you may want to consider the following:

- Run both partitions all the way across, and put a 36" wide door opening in the middle of each one. If you can center the basement access door in the basement wall, then that will give you the opportunity to install 18" deep shelves on each side, with a 36" corridor down the middle. Halfway down that corridor, you turn left for the shack, right for the garden shed. You can frame both walls on ground, one on top of the other, and then flip them up into place.

- Based on my experience, you need three feet of width to walk and carry stuff, and four feet of width of there's a chair in the way. Given this layout, your shack would have room for 20 feet of counter/bench space, all three feet deep. Generally you only need a workbench six to eight inches deep, since if it's any deeper you only pile stuff on it until there's only the closest six inches to work with, anyway.

- For the floor, I'd still suggest spaced 8x16x4 inch thick cement block (two inch thickness has a tendency to crack), with sill barrier on them and then sleepers on top of that. Follow with 3/4 TG underlayment, and you won't have to worry about the floor giving way. I'd cover the plywood with butt-ugly tile for wear and water resistance.

- If you do put in a floor, make sure water vapor has a way of escaping from underneath it. In PA, I suspect mold could be a problem, and trapped humidity will ultimately lead to an unhappy XYL.

73,

[W3WN]

That's not a bad idea about the partitions. I was thinking of a separate corridor parallel to the basement wall, so that people entering via the front would not walk through the shed area, which in general has passed muster with the boss. Now if there's only one entrance, and it's through that area, the shed will have to be, at all times, cleaned, neat, and presentable. Or she will nag me until it is, on the grounds that it's "embarrassing" otherwise. Especially when her mother saunters through. (I've learned some things after 20 years of marriage).

The location of the doorway into the basement is flexible, it will depend on exactly where we can cut. Remember that there's an I-Beam at the top of that wall (support for the cement roof ex-porch above it), which is supported on four columns of cinderblock. (You can see the beam and one of those in Picture 3, to the left of the flags). So I might not be able to exactly center it.

However, if it's close enough to the front (and where the water line enters the basement, on the other side of the wall, is a factor), that minimizes the "walking" distance into basement, and also leaves more square area for the storage shelves.

WRT the shack... Wall location will determine the exact size, so it may not neccesarily be a straight line, although that's the plan now. The "workbench" already exists, the upper shelf is about that deep, the lower one a little deeper, so it will simply be slid into place.

Thanks for the suggestion on the cement block. I ought to be able to find that at one of the supply stores, and I can get it a little bit at a time as the shekels become available. I will have to figure out a vapor barrier, but that's not an insolveable problem. Randy N3ZK was also telling me that the floor needs to be 4 " thick, and was pushing for a concrete pad, for the same reasons. Problem is that I don't have the $$ -- he figured that a 4 " thick floor would require about 4 yards of concrete. That alone, delivered, would be in the $500 neighborhood. To pay someone to pour and prepare the slab would be at least double, if not triple, that on top of it.

[ab1ga]

Understand about the basement access door location - not only are you limited by the location of structural members, but you also want to keep the HVAC distribution simple.

I used the cement block approach on my garden shed and was very happy with it. A block like that runs what, three to four bucks apiece at Home Despot, and the approach will allow you to work at your own pace. After I located where I wanted the blocks, I dug about four inches into the soil and about two inches bigger than the block all around. Then two layers of stone, which I also got from HD, normally used for under patios and walkways. Two inch layer of coarse, two inches of finer stuff, and even a few years later the thing hasn't budged, even when the ground was soaked with spring melt and rain.

Vapor barrier won't be enough by itself, imagine you're building the world's shortest crawl space. I'll see what I can find in my reference library once I get home, but I seem to remember 6 mil plastic, well taped at openings, is the standard. Then you need a way to vent that space to the outside, which may take some creativity but is eminently practical. And if you want to keep your feet warm, put 1/4" of pink foam between the sleepers and the plywood, or add a bit more as budget permits. This will keep moisture out of the room, and the foam is more than strong enough to handle any weight you'll put on it without crushing.

Good luck!

.dale.