On Sat, 13 Nov 2004 21:42:21 -0000, "Mary Fisher"
wrote:
You must either be joking or have an unusual garage/workshop.
Not at all. It's a single leaf brick built large garage with pitched
roof, felted and tiled.
Yes, but what does it contain?
Woodworking and other machinery, tools, materials etc.
I decided that if I was going to use the space properly then it needed
to be dry, raised to a reasonable temperature for comfortable working.
Costed out in terms of running costs, I reckoned that I could recover
the cost of the materials in about three years. It looks on track to
achieve that. Plus I don't have issues with extreme variations in
temperature and humidity, so it makes dealing with materials easier as
well.
Oh, so it's fairly new. After ten or more years, when you've built up a
comprehensive range of machinery, tools, materials and other necessaries you
might remember this conversation :-)
Oh I have. The garage is about 20 years old so there had been
plenty of time to accumulate useless junk. Much of this went into a
skip.
Our hasn't had a car in it for many years. The walls, when they're not
concealed by large and heavy machinery or benches, are covered with
shelves
and cupboards. It would be nigh on impossible to get all that stuff out to
insulate - although when we built it we used blocks with a good insulating
integrity.
I simply bit the bullet, threw out a load of stuff that was unneeded
anyway and stacked the rest. It was worth the effort.
You can't throw out things you use - I'm not talking about stuff saved
'against the day'. All that was skipped when the garage/workshop was built.
I'm talking about welding equipment, a forge, a milling/lathe machine, a
sander, a planer ... I could go on (I usually do!) but I shan't.
Obviously not, and I have a number of large things of this ilk.
I'm really talking about scraps of wood, stuff left over from
projects, tins of paint and so on.
When the door is shut there are no draughts. It's not an old,
falling apart wooden garage, rotting in the corners. It's solid with
double
glazed windows (which have shelves across them) and the solid, thick
wooden
roof is clad internally and felted externally.
That's not too bad, probably. You could quite easily reduce the
heat loss by a half to two thirds.
I doubt it, without rebuilding and we're too old for that.
All you need to do is to create a stud frame inside the walls, fit
insulation and attach ply to it. Very easy job.
But when you're working with no heat from say 9 to 7, with a break for
lunch
(which is what he likes to do) in today's temperature it gets cold. Worse,
the materials and tools he works with are cold.
I think that that's the point. It's a miserable experience having
to do that and demotivating into the bargain.
When the temperature isn't as low as it has been today he's fine. I'm the
one who's concerned. He's not miserable and he's well motivated. When he's
not he comes inside - he doesn't HAVE to do what he does, when it stops
being fun he stops.
As I do.
That's fair enough if he's happy.
In fact in the past, when conditions have been bad, he's done things in the
house. One Christmas day the dining room was converted to a welding shed,
another Christmas a friend brought round a car engine and put it on the
dining table for stripping. I learned to accept this sort of situation the
first time he brought his motor bike through the front door and into the
sitting room - it couldn't get round the corner into the dining room. That
was more than thirty years ago. We'd always done push bike maintenance in
the house when it was cold. We don't believe in suffering.
It's all part of Life's Rich Tapestry ...
Indeed.
Before doing that, to reach a reasonable temperature of say 18 degrees
...
That's far higher than he'd need.
It depends on what you want and what you're doing.
He's tough. We don't have 18 degrees in the house.
I don't really
want to dress up in anoraks and thick woolies because they get in the
way.
LOL! I can't remember when we last had an anorak in the house and then it
belonged to a teenage son. The youngest is now 36 ...
Thick woollies aren't necessary. But you need bare hands for the delicate
work Spouse sometimes does and that's where the problem is. Metal especially
but even wood can draw out the heat from fingers.
Exactly, and that's the point. I ordered a coverall for woodworking
recently, the idea being that it stays in the workshop and dust isn't
brought into the house. However, I tried it on and it was clear that
it was going to be restrictive around the arms etc. so it went back.
I like the other Andy's suggestion and shall put it to Spouse over dinner
tonight, when he's well fed, wined and warmed.
I guess that you have to look at what your needs are.
Quite.
Personally, I
don't want to be restricted to just keeping warm in one place. I
want to be able to easily use the whole space and have a low running
cost to do so.
Hmm. You're demonstrating again that you either have a large workshop or it
hasn't yet been filled with the necessary equipment for the diverse jobs you
do.
It's fairly carefully planned to maximise the space, and almost
everything, including a woodworking machine weighing a tonne is mobile
to allow flexibility.
The working space in Spouse's workshop/garage is very small so he stays
in one place all the time..
I told him about Andy Dingley's suggestions, he's going to look into it.
For that scenario it may well be workable, and better than what he
has.
Mary
--
..andy
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