# Putting a wood floor on a garage shop?



## mwhals (Apr 13, 2010)

Does anyone put a wood floor on a concrete floor shop? I would think wood floors that are like the ones in a house, are not worth putting in a workshop. As a result, what kind of floor do most people put in a shop if they want to cover the concrete for something a little warmer?

Also, since I am planning on a 30' x 50' building for a garage / workshop, should I leave it open for easy expansion or partition the garage from the workshop? I think I shoud partition the workshop from the garage portion with a roll up door in the partition as access to allow for moving big things in and out of the shop through the garage.

Heating / Cooling would also be less if I just heat the workshop area. I would insulate the garage side too, which should help with keeping the air warmer on the garage side of the partition to reduce heat loss through the partition.

Mark


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## mdntrdr (Dec 22, 2009)

Put a moisture barrier under your slab!

Treated 1X's @ 16" on center with 3/4 plywood would make a comfortable floor in my opinion.

Also I would go with French doors, I think you would get real tired of up and downing a roll up.

JMO


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## mwhals (Apr 13, 2010)

mdntrdr said:


> Put a moisture barrier under your slab!
> 
> Treated 1X's @ 16" on center with 3/4 plywood would make a comfortable floor in my opinion.
> 
> ...


I will have foam insulation and a moisture barrier under the slab. Inexpensive french doors are a good idea. I will put those in the partition wall instead of a roll up door and entry door. That would give me more wall space.

I think I will just leave it concrete, so I have a level transition from the garage to to the workshop to eliminate a step.

It will be several months away, but I can not wait until I start building my garage/workshop! I will finally get the tractor out of the attached 3 car garage and have a place where I can buy some full size tools (instead of all my bench tools). My contractor table saw is the only non bench thing I have in garage right now. I can't wait until I replace it with a 3 HP cabinet saw!

Mark


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## JohnK007 (Nov 14, 2009)

Mark,

Way to go on your future shop!! Make sure to take lots of photos of the building process. Love to watch someone's dream become a reality. Congrats. I'm green with envy.


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## mwhals (Apr 13, 2010)

JohnK007 said:


> Mark,
> 
> Way to go on your future shop!! Make sure to take lots of photos of the building process. Love to watch someone's dream become a reality. Congrats. I'm green with envy.


Photography is another hobby of mine, so I have to use my investment in photography equipment to justify the purchases, LOL.
I do plan on doing a thread as I go along. It will go up fast, because I am planning on framing it as a pole structure. I will have crews put it up due to its size. 30x50 feet would give me a 30 x 24 garage and a 30 x 26 workshop.

The dimensions for the workshop will be double checked by playing with layouts on Grizzly's website. I will also look at putting the air compressor on the garage side with a feed to the workshop. I can use the air compressor in the garage as well as the workshop.

I really hope I can start building it in the next year! I am getting estimates now as a head start. :yes:


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## IdaCurt (Jan 5, 2010)

My shop floor is 3/4" osb t&g that I finished with a tinted water base floor finish and I really like it.The finish is very hard,looks/feels warm,easy to sweep and I even mop it once in a while.

I had thought about hardwood flooring but reality set in and I rather spend the money on tools although it would have been nice.


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## mwhals (Apr 13, 2010)

IdaCurt said:


> My shop floor is 3/4" osb t&g that I finished with a tinted water base floor finish and I really like it.The finish is very hard,looks/feels warm,easy to sweep and I even mop it once in a while.
> 
> I had thought about hardwood flooring but reality set in and I rather spend the money on tools although it would have been nice.


Is it over concrete like mine would? If so, did you not put a spacer or vapor barrier under it?

I wonder if a vapor barrier is necessary on top of the concrete if there is one under the concrete? I would put the second vapor barrier in anyway.

I see that some people use dricore under the floor. I am not sure how expensive that gets.

The flooring you used is more what I was thinking. I never had an intension to put hardwood floors in the workshop.

Mark


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## mwhals (Apr 13, 2010)

mwhals said:


> I see that some people use dricore under the floor. I am not sure how expensive that gets.


Forget dricore! It would be $1451 plus tax to get enough panels to cover a 30' x 26' shop floor as an underlayment!


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## chrisrosenb (Sep 8, 2008)

I built my shop in 1991. The original building is 32' X 50'. It is built on sloping ground with a 6' difference in elevation from one end to the other. The cost of the fill to level the floor for concrete was very high. The cost of building it over a crawlspace was about half the cost of a concrete floor. Since a wood floor is much nicer to work over, I decided to built the shop over a full crawl space. I used 2 layers of 3/4" T&G OSB for the flooring & applied 3 coats of polyurethane. It has held up very well. It still has the original finish on the floor. In 2003 I added a 24' X 36" addition to the north side & built it the same way.

Picture of the shop shortly after moving into it in 1991.










The same view today.










Picture of the floor in front of the overhead door today.


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## IdaCurt (Jan 5, 2010)

mwhals said:


> Is it over concrete like mine would? If so, did you not put a spacer or vapor barrier under it?
> 
> I wonder if a vapor barrier is necessary on top of the concrete if there is one under the concrete? I would put the second vapor barrier in anyway.
> 
> ...


 
No its over joist.


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## mdntrdr (Dec 22, 2009)

If you have a good moisture barrier under the slab you don't need one above.


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## mwhals (Apr 13, 2010)

chrisrosenb said:


> I built my shop in 1991. The original building is 32' X 50'. It is built on sloping ground with a 6' difference in elevation from one end to the other. The cost of the fill to level the floor for concrete was very high. The cost of building it over a crawlspace was about half the cost of a concrete floor. Since a wood floor is much nicer to work over, I decided to built the shop over a full crawl space. I used 2 layers of 3/4" T&G OSB for the flooring & applied 3 coats of polyurethane. It has held up very well. It still has the original finish on the floor. In 2003 I added a 24' X 36" addition to the north side & built it the same way.
> 
> Picture of the shop shortly after moving into it in 1991.
> 
> ...


Nice setup, but half of my building is going to be a three car garage, so I need to do Concrete. I would love to do a wood floor and forget the concrete, but it isn't feasible since I need the garage too. I wonder if I can build the garage with concrete and then put a crawl space under the other half of the building for a workshop? I would then put a ramp from the workshop to the garage so I can still wheel stuff in and out of it. Anything heavy would still be better wheeled in at the same elevation, which makes all of being concrete better.

Any advice? It is a fairly level area in which I am putting the building. I would like to build it at the lowest costs, which would be me doing it myself.

Mark


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## BORKBOB (Feb 9, 2009)

Hey Mark,

I'm currently building a pole barn shop/garage. We hope to raise trusses tomorrow, weather willing. 

I'm on a tight budget so I had the site professionally prepared...removed top soil and put down a base of #2 stone covered with gravel. This is about 8" deep. My shop portion will be wood floored using treated 2x4 sleepers with 1.5" foam between. Everything will be covered with a 6 mil vapor barrier before installing 3/4" OSB T&G for the floor. 

The garage floor will remain gravel for now. We will probably only park cars in it for really bad wiinter weather. It will be used for yard/garden storage and some lumber storage.


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## smitty1967 (Feb 24, 2008)

mwhals said:


> I think I will just leave it concrete, so I have a level transition from the garage to to the workshop to eliminate a step.


yes, smart move Mark...I was going to suggest you would be unhappy with this transition, and unless you wanted to adjust your wall height, which would affect ceiling height, which would be impacted by everything you buy coming in 8 ft. lengths, etc etc, installing a raised floor on a new concrete slab might be more trouble than its worth. 

A power troweled-finish and some of the new latest-greatest epoxy finishes are nice, but for me, there's something to be said for bare concrete in the place where you'll be making your new creations. It sort of adds flavor, you know?

regards,
smitty


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## mwhals (Apr 13, 2010)

smitty1967 said:


> yes, smart move Mark...I was going to suggest you would be unhappy with this transition, and unless you wanted to adjust your wall height, which would affect ceiling height, which would be impacted by everything you buy coming in 8 ft. lengths, etc etc, installing a raised floor on a new concrete slab might be more trouble than its worth.
> 
> A power troweled-finish and some of the new latest-greatest epoxy finishes are nice, but for me, there's something to be said for bare concrete in the place where you'll be making your new creations. It sort of adds flavor, you know?
> 
> ...


I agree. If I make my assembly tables large enough, I won't have the problems with my knees I had doing some prom construction recently. I build 4' x 10' frames (37 of them) for the school's prom and had to do it on the garage floor due to lack of table top space. It gets hard on the knees and joints after several hours of being on the garage floor.


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## chrisrosenb (Sep 8, 2008)

mwhals said:


> Nice setup, but half of my building is going to be a three car garage, so I need to do Concrete. I would love to do a wood floor and forget the concrete, but it isn't feasible since I need the garage too. I wonder if I can build the garage with concrete and then put a crawl space under the other half of the building for a workshop? I would then put a ramp from the workshop to the garage so I can still wheel stuff in and out of it. Anything heavy would still be better wheeled in at the same elevation, which makes all of being concrete better.
> 
> Any advice? It is a fairly level area in which I am putting the building. I would like to build it at the lowest costs, which would be me doing it myself.
> 
> Mark


I have worked on homes that had the concrete garage floor level with the wood house floor.


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## mwhals (Apr 13, 2010)

chrisrosenb said:


> I have worked on homes that had the concrete garage floor level with the wood house floor.


If I did that, I would want an adequate crawl space that I could easily run wires for a table saw floor outlet or any future needs. That would require digging deeper and putting in a footer and block wall. The wood framing would then be sitting below ground level to allow the floor to be at garage level, unless I elevated the garage level resulting in more costs.

The only feasible way I could do it is to pour the whole building as a concrete slab, but make the garage 6" concrete and the shop 4 3/8" thick. The wood floor would be 7/8" of dricore and 3/4" of T&G OSB, which would bring it to the garage concrete level. Any thoughts on this idea? The big problem with this is that If I decide to enlarge the workshop and shrink the garage later, then I will have a concrete floor and wood floor for the shop.

Mark


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## chrisrosenb (Sep 8, 2008)

Part of the floor framing on my shop floor is below ground level. I solved that by leaving a brick ledge on the foundation in those areas & laying 4" block & brick to protect the wood.


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## jim douglas (Feb 8, 2010)

If your pouring concrete anyway & insulating below it why not add some pex piping and have radiant heat in the floor as well. It's a great heat source & they have come along way with inexpensive heaters. A frind of mine uses a hot water heater to heat his in-floor.
jim


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## mwhals (Apr 13, 2010)

jim douglas said:


> If your pouring concrete anyway & insulating below it why not add some pex piping and have radiant heat in the floor as well. It's a great heat source & they have come along way with inexpensive heaters. A frind of mine uses a hot water heater to heat his in-floor.
> jim


There will not be a water source in this building. Our home is on 7.3 acres and has a aerator septic tank due to no sewer. The building can't go on the side of the house with the septic tank due to the associated field. The other end of the house is where the building would go so it will not be a problem with our septic system and it can be tied into the existing driveway (since it will have a garage too).

To put water in this building would require installing a septic system, which I don't want. To run it to our existing septic tank would result in having to dig a piping trench over 300 yards to get to the septic tank.

As a result, there is no plans for radiant heat in the floor.

Thanks for the suggestion though.

Mark


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## woodnthings (Jan 24, 2009)

....
[B said:


> As a result, there is no plans for radiant heat in the floor.[/B]
> 
> Thanks for the suggestion though. Mark


Pex tubing in the floor and an electric or wood fired heater does not require a water source in the shop since it's self contained.
You only get one shot at the tubing before you pour, and depending on your heating requirements a warm floor just radiates upward and a slab of concrete will stay warm for several days without heat in a power failure.
I wish I had done it in my house which is on a slab 30 years ago.
Just my opinion.:thumbsup: bill


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