In 2009 I had a 50' wide by 40' deep custom designed Conner Homes brand barn built with part of the width enclosing a bay for my boat, with that area having insulation at the interior wall where the boat bay joins the 'garage' section, (2, 40' deep bays}. The ceiling in the boat bay is 14' height, and the bay roll up door is 12' high and 12' wide. It does not currently have an electric opener, but could at any time. I put in a floor drain that breaks to daylight at a small stream outside the building, and also installed a shower pad and utility sink at the back corner adjacent to the electric/mechanical room. The pad for the shower was poured and has non-slip tile. It is for use to clean off the dog or cat! as needed, etc.
Inside the first garage bay via a 3.0' man door from the boat bay is a concrete floor with radiant heat throughout the entire shop floor, which connects to a Buderus gas boiler that heats the garage bays, but not the boat bay. The boiler also heats the upstairs apartment with a side exterior stairway, so to not take up valuable interior floor space.
The rear of the barn, 50' wide, has a ramped driveway apron and man door entry at grade, in case future need for wheelchair access were ever warranted. There is a bay door 9' x9' on a chaindrive opener. The man door allows entry to a back shop where I keep old stereo equipment and other stuff I may want to work with/on. Th is area is insulated, but NOT heated, unless I fire up the Renai, (sp?) propane heater. As one passes through the work area, another man door allows entry into the apartment area, which can be isolated by separate key locks from the outside stairwell entry at one end of the kitchen. The rest of the area over the shop/garage is living room, bathroom, and bedroom. Above the back workshop area is a hatchway to the attic storage area. Adjacent to the workshop is a slanted roof storage area that is over the boat bay, and runs the depth of the building.
I forgot to mention I designed a boat lift system into the ceiling of the boat bay, which allows me to use two hand operated chain hoists. I had nylon slings and two steel 'beams' made to create a 'cradle' for the boat to sit in when I haul it off its trailer to service either boat or trailer or both.
To anchor the chain hoists to the two, entire span of the width of the ceiling, glue-lams I had a crane fabrication company make me to screw eye/swivel end bolts that I drilled through the glue-lams to attach the chain hoists to.
This system took some careful calculations to get everything right/safe/and working properly. BTW, electric hoists were way too much money! I have 2, 2 ton capacity hoists, and they move quickly by hand, no big delay in hoist time or lowering.
Back to the barn garage/shop bays. I also included, next to the elect/machanical room a second room which houses a 3/4 bath with utility sink, stall shower and toilet. This is very handy, and at times it I'm really dirty from working on stuff I will shower there before entry into 'her' castle!:confused3:
So mech/elect room, then alongside, bath, then at end of that wall which is at the back of the two bays with entry on the front side of the barn, is a section where I have a skid mounted 330 gallon diesel tank, with spray foam insulation on the outside, since the foam guy was spraying other area of the barn walls, etc. It is vented to outside and runs off 110V outlet. The upstairs apartment has radiant heat attached to the underside of the ceiling joists in the barn bays. I use Flourex lights which are very bright, almost instant on lighting, supplemented by task lighting from Home Depot's 4' LED shop lights, which can be interconnected up to 9 units. I have numerous 4' height duplex outlets and some ceiling mount quads too. So far, no mounted air line reels etc., because I don't use air that much and have several pancake compressors for point of use. I did install Swiss Trax brand floor tiles over the concrete floors, in all bays except the boat bay. They are excellent, expensive, and CAN"T be used where tractor chains with bars on the chains are in use. I solved that issue by buying a bunch of rubber mats with holes in them for drainage of snow, etc. to put over the Swiss Trax in the area of the tractor's rear tires. They provide a comfortable floor surface, excellent drainage to the floor drains in the center of each bay, and can be removed fairly easily if need to clean under some area arises. I can use a leaf blower to get rid of wind blown leaves in the Fall.
Recently I contracted my local solar guy who installed 30 PV collectors on my roof and tied into my house's main panel in conjunction with a 16kW German made Sonnen battery storage system, to allow for near grid free electric use. This entire system ties in with my 20kW propane generator to work as a self sufficient supply of electric to my entire property. First is PV solar generation, which is fed into a DC to AC inverter, then backfed through my utility providers meter for credits on my account, amounting to 5.3 cents OVER what I would otherwise pay, IF I were to buy those kWs from them. Then the same kWs I have generated at my collectors go to the storage batteries for consumption when I have electric demand at the house/barn and sheds 1.0 and 2.0.
As the battery storage drains down to a preset low limit the batteries seek power and look to the PV, then the g grid and finally to my propane generator.
If the grid is down due to storm or whatever, there is no PV available, and the batteries are drained, then the system trips a relay and the generator provides power to the house, and eventually to the storage system if the grid is down for an extended timeframe. An essential loads panel is used to feed the barn, when there is
enough PV or stored kWs in the battery system. This is the ONLY drawback to the batteries. They have a 16kW rating for STORAGE, but cannot deal with my existing 20 kW generator, and my hot tub large mp draw because the OUTPUT capacity is only 8kW, which I did not know until AFTER the solar guy and electrician were already way into the hookup. This part was a complete NIGHTMARE and took weeks of going back and forth with all parties to find an eventual resolution, at HUGE expense to me in the process.
Am I glad I did the entire project - jury's out, it's too soon to tell. BUT I did get a 30% tax credit off any taxes I owe, so a $60,000 initial investment NOT including the electric hookup costs, ends up costing me $40,000+++
Enough for now, hope it's of use to you in your planning. Feel free to ask any question you might have.
Next installment, Shed 2.0, for implements and other overage that won't fit, no matter how big you build, you will ALWAYS need more space!:thumbsup::confused3:
