Home Workshop Design Considerations

Features to consider for your Home Workshop Design or what do you need for your "Man Cave" ?

Ok, Let’s talk shop, or home workshop, toy box or even the most recently declared “Man Cave”.

The home workshop can be everything from a spare room, corner of the garage, an 8x6 shed to an elaborate full up fabrication and assembly mega shop.  If you feel you need an area to work, there are many things to consider:

First – What do you intend to do? Do you intend to make small items like bird houses and toys, or are your visions much larger projects like automobiles or large sculptures?  Your home workshop design and costs depend on these answers.

Remember, space costs money. The larger your projects, the more space they require.  Also, with larger projects, you need larger access doors and larger material handling equipment and larger this, and larger that.  You get the idea.

Do you plan on using your garage?  Although most homes are built with garages, if your significant other is like mine, they don’t want to enter the garage only to find that their new car is covered with a layer of sawdust or metal shavings (I’ve been guilty of both).  Plan some features in your home workshop design to accomodate these concerns.

Do your home developments Covenants & Restrictions (CC&R's or Deed Restrictions) allow you to park outside your garage or in the street at all?  Many dictate no working on vehicles in the driveway.  I’ve seen it!   So, although birdhouses are usually small projects, if you have to construct a small building to do the work, your start-up cost may be a showstopper.

Second – What types of materials will you be working with?  Wood, metal, plastic, glass, paint or gardening materials all require different environments to use them safely and produce the best results.

I, myself, build muscle cars and 4x4s.  I don’t assemble engines in the same space that I grind and sand on the body or frame, nor do I paint where I do anything else.  If you’ve ever painted something in the same space that you sanded it, you understand what I mean.  Oh yes, mine is an expensive hobby, but for me, it’s very rewarding.   It also keeps me out of trouble (or so say’s my spouse).

Material consideration is critical to the arrangement and equipment requirements of a shop.  Consider whether it produces, dust, shavings, heat, fumes or fluids.  What size materials will you have to handle? Are the tools used to work on the material loud?  Will your home workshop design be able to handle these issues?

Does your hobby require that your shop be separated from your house?  Do you need a special type of work bench (metal or wood surface);  does the floor need to be sealed, covered or even fatigue matted?   Do you need special lighting (sealed, florescent, or heat producing), ventilation, filters, storage or even special fire extinguishing materials?

Yes, fire extinguishing!  At the very least you should have a home extinguisher in your shop to handle the basics.  My brother is a Fireman and I have great respect for their professional abilities, but I’d rather not have to call them.  The explanation usually starts with “But I didn’t think it would ….?”  So consider what can happen, and how you will control it.

The third thing to consider is power.   I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard friends say that they didn’t put enough outlets in their new shop, or they didn’t put in a 220 Volt outlet for their “Whatever Tool”.   This is easier if your building a home with a shop, you simply supply your architect with your power needs and where you want the Whatever Tool to set, and it’s built in.  If you have the room and resources, consider your own power source i.e., propane generator, solar or fuel cell technologies.

However, if you’re adding on to or changing an existing structure, the addition of power outlets or power types can be from the very difficult to the impossible, depending on when and where your home was built.  And we all know, cost is directly related to the degree of difficulty.  Cost rises as difficulty goes up.  So keep this in mind when planning your shop.

Make a list of the tools you intend to use, and their power requirements.  You might want to include a “Future Tools” list.  Are there tools that you don’t currently own but would like to have in the future?   It is less expensive to have them installed when the electricians are doing the others than bringing the electricians back at a later date. 

Planning, Planning, Planning, it can save costs and frustration.

Also, make a list of what I call “Support Equipment”.  These are the lighting, air supply equipment, lines and drops, water supply, fluids handling equipment, vacuum systems, supply and exhaust fans, lifts, cranes etc… and their respective power requirements.  Support equipment is even more important to me now than before.

A few years back, my wife and I moved from California to Florida. For most of you this means nothing, however for me, some of the things I had failed to take in to consideration hindered and at times stopped me from working on my projects.  Being from Northern California I did not need to consider air-conditioning my shop however, if you’re not conditioned to the heat and humidity in Florida, it’s a must!  Without the ability to control my shop environment I could not work for very long without tiring, and bare sheet metal gets surface rust almost immediately.   Things I did not consider!

Just to make it somewhat bearable I had to purchase large circulation fan which, when on, produced a noise level equal to an Air Force C130 (even with the front and back doors open).  But that’s not all!

Having to keep the doors open for circulation allowed the local wildlife to freely pass through my shop. By the way, just like the song states “I don’t like spiders or snakes”, and Florida has plenty of both.

Now to something not considered by most home shop planners, “Monuments”.   Large professional shops have pieces of equipment that weigh up to several tons so hard mounting is a requirement however; most home shops are filled with portable equipment.

Consider multiple-use work surfaces and work areas.  Design workbenches that have multiple work surfaces if you’re working with more than one type of material.  Plan tool usage areas where portable equipment can be easily moved into and out of for optimum use.  Or line up tools against one wall so that they use a common long work surface with one long material placement fence so you can work with longer materials.

I could go on for quite a while about all the separate things to consider when planning your shop area, and by now you’re saying “Gee, I just wanted to start a little hobby, but after reading this, I’m not sure I want to!”

Remember, our goal is to aid you in planning a shop for your hobbies, or build your new shop to support your current hobby.  We want you to enjoy your shop and make certain it is "livable" without regretting that you didn’t consider “X” when planning for it.