Shop/Kiln/Sawmill Shed Design

[Nova]

I have seen a few threads on multipurpose buildings but I am not plugging the right words into the search engine so I am looking here for input.  I started out planning to build a DH kiln on a slab with an adjacent slab for the sawmill and, because of cash flow, building a workshop in the basement of the house with the intent of down the road building a roof over the milling slab and building a freestanding workshop to reclaim the basement.  As I have been processing this thru the old noodle I have begun to think that combining the three items under a single set of trusses may be better as long as I can swing the extra up front cost of doing this all at once.  I am looking at a combined shop/kiln in the 28' x 24' range.  To visualize this place the 12' x 17' kiln in one corner of the shop then place the 15' x 24' sawmill slab along side the 24' side next to the kiln with a 24' clear span on the open end to load and unload the mill for a total footprint of 43' x 24'.  I know some people say design your shop for the size you think you need then double it and it will still be too small but with the number of things we have on the go as well as building the house this is going to stretch us financially.  Before I get too far down the road with this line of thinking (read spending money) any advice on the design/size/work flow relationships between these three functions?  Any comments on having a kiln inside a workshop particularly regarding fire hazard either from the kiln or from the shop?

Nova

[scsmith42]

Nova, I would suggest separating your kiln from the rest of your workshop, for a couple of reasons.  First, a very practical way to start drying lumber is to build a solar kiln.  There are a number of designs available for these; they are very economical to build and especially to operate.  If your drying business takes off, then you can look at building an additional DH kiln down the road.

If you dry oak in a DH kiln, it can produce a corrosive byproduct (I think that it's tannic acid).  You do not want to be venting this inside your shop!

I concur with the logic about doubleing the estimated size of your shop!  RE combining it with your milling slab, why don't you build a free standing workshop and do a lean-to on one side for your mill?  You don't need a cement slab for the mill, so this should save you some bucks, and by separating the two you will keep the sawdust out of the workshop.

As far as the relationship between the buildings, you will want plenty of maneuvering room for unloading your logs and storing them for easy feed into the mill.  You will want easy access to remove the slabs and waste material from your mill, and depending upon the number of Bd Ft that you dry at at time, you will want an easy way to load/unload your kiln.  If you're looking at small production, then you can do it by hand.  If not, think of using a tractor or loader with forks, and design your layout so that you can stack/sticker off of one end of your mill, and easily pick up the pile with the loader forks to place through a large opening in the side of your kiln.  Use of a loader with a side door on the kiln will save you the $ needed to build a kiln cart and track system.

Good luck.

Scott

[oakiemac]

You didn't say how many bf you plan to dry but if you put in a 3000bf (Nyle L200) kiln then you will need plenty of room to maneauver the lumber around. Sound like it might be real tight inside one building. It is possible to do this but 3000bf is a lot of lumber that needs to be stored once dried.
Try to get as big a building as you can. A couple of years ago I put up a 32X24' building that is now way too small. I thought I couldn't afford the bigger size but I can't afford the too small size either.

[isawlogs]

 I put up my shop two summers ago . 22 X 36 with a carport attached to it that is 18 X 36 , If anything I would suggest is to make a carport for the mill . I put truss on the carport and put rafters on the building 2 foot knee walls and this is storage space . I made every stick for this on my mill , built my own trusses and put it up at a very low cost

Here is a pic of the building ... 

[Nova]

Scott - I am looking at a DH instead of solar because of the longer winters and cooler springs here.  There is not a lot of oak on my property but that is not to say that I will not dry it for someone else but in any event I would think venting the kiln when it is overtemperature would be to the outside vice into the shop and the kiln will be a separate room even though it is inside the same exterior walls as the shop.  Side loading doors sound like the ticket if they eliminate kiln carts and placing the kiln on the opposite side from my initial design will allow this.  I have a tractor on the way and I am looking for forks for it.

Oakie - I am looking at the Nyle L200 and the dimensions I put in for the kiln are those recommended by Nyle.  Are you suggesting it should be bigger than they recommend?  If using a side loading option as Scott suggests would that not improve accessibilty?  I know too small for the shop is a problem, but even a building this size is going to be a stretch on the cash flow and I can expand it later.  Otherwise, it is back to putting the workshop in the basement.  Most of the wood on the front end will be for our house so storage will be less of a concern until it is finished.

Marcel - Your building is what I was thinking of originally but with the trusses/rafters running the other direction.  I like the very low cost  .

Thanks guys, keep the info coming.

[Deadwood]

Hey Nova, I am currently working on the same sort of thing as you, only I have a baby on the way so my budget is probably a lot smaller than yours. In any case, I am building a very modest workshop and solar kiln. We have three sawmills and they all have their own seperate buildings so that is not of concern to me.

Still I think you might like my design. Basically in enables me to work full 16 foot boards in a 24 foor by building by placing a set of feed rolls on the back of my shop. While building my feedrolls I thought I would add a storage shed for my lumber and then realized since it faced due south, I can have a solar kiln as well.

Mine is much smaller than the 3000 board feet you are talking about, but you could scale my design up. Where my snowmobile is, you could have a sawmill there possably?

Just throwing out some of my ideas. Just keep in mind that I am a woodworker first, and a sawyer/ logger second so that is the reason my shop is what it is. Also remember I am on a sever budget. As it stands right now, I got about 3 grand into the structure. Not bad in my opinion. I'll get some pictures soon.

[Deadwood]

Okay, I'm back and with pictures. As I said, I am still working on this project and for your needs it would have to be scaled up, but surprisingly, the "work flow" from where I store my lumber, onto the feed rolls, into my shop all works quite effortlessly. More importantly, on a budget.

For what it is worth, here are some pictures of this shop in the process of being built still.


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The above photo shows the general size and layout design of my shop.


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This shows the general layout inside my shop. Note the far window that is just before my Radial Arm Saw. This is important for the next picture.


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These are my feed rolls. You can barely make out a PVC Roller in the photo. There are 5 of them spaced so that boards can be loaded via tractor forks or by hand. Unfortately I live on a 6% slope so that is why the rolls are off the ground that much (they are level with my shop bench)


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While I need to install roofing material still, this phot shows how my shop is situated. All in all for its small size, I think it will let me do things with relative ease.

[Reddog]

Nice Deadwood i like the look.

[Nova]

Deadwood, I like your design.  We live on the same latitude as you do (44 - 45 degrees north), although maybe a little closer to the ocean.  I am still thinking DH is the way to go but how do you find the solar kiln works over the winter months compared to the rest of the year?  I really like your board conveyer feed line concept.  For comparison to what I am thinking of putting in the shop, what are your shop's dimensions?

More food for thought, thanks.

[beenthere]

Deadwood
What species did you build with, and what are the details of the pvc pipe rollers?

Nice design.

A bit curious about the 'cabinet' around the table saw too. 

[Deadwood]

Well the dimensions are pretty small. The Main Shop size is 24 feet long by 12 feet wide by 14 feet high at the highest point and 8 feet at the lowest point. The Snowmobile bump out is 12 feet long, by 8 feet wide by 10 feet high. The feed rolls are 16 feet long and the solar kiln is 4 feet wide by 16 feet long.

The idea here was to have windows above the snowmobile shed so that light would go into my shop. Because of where I live (winter) and I plan to heat my shop 24/7 I decided to lower my ceiling height in my main shop to 10 feet to keep from heating so much of a high space. This ruled out windows above my snowmobile shed. In fact to gain shop space I used very few windows figuring it would be more costly to heat, and woodworking always requires artificial light anyway. By the way, the ladder in the snowmobile shed goes up to a small, but handy attic cold-tolerable storage.

The solar kiln is not finished yet, in fact it does not even have a roof yet as I was just working on it last week so I have no idea how quickly it will dry lumber. In fact I was about to turn to the milling/ drying section on here for help in this dept. My basic idea was to insulate the framing, paint the interior black, install acrlic sheeting and then use a attic fan monitored by temp switch. I am not really looking for anything commercial so a speedy dry time is not my main focus.

The building is made up of white custom sawn white and red spruce. I orginally bought the framing from a building supplier and to make the most out of that expensive framing lumber, actually built the building 4 feet on center.

As for the "table saw", well I don't think you are looking at my tablesaw as that is in the background and pretty basic. The white peg board unit in the foreground is my Router Center. It is comprised of four routers. The right and left routers hold matching stile and rail bits, while a router up front will hold a vertical router table (when I get time to build it), and finally on top, and out of the way of the left, right and front routers I have a small router table. I use a round over bit a lot, and so this last one allows me to do roundovers on projects without having to disturb any of the other routers. It sounds complicated, but it really is just laziness. With 4 routers available, I do not need to change bits nearly as much as I did before. And yes, this is an exclusive Deadwood Design.

One more thing, I have a conveyor sump in my shop as well. I have yet to build my conveyor, but when I do, I will be able to sweep my sawdust through a trap door right onto a waiting conveyor. I am a wicked clean freak, but again, a lazy one! And yes that is another Deadwood exclusive.

Here is a link to my website in case you want to see more details of my shop as it was being built. The pics are a bit dated, but for what it is worth, I am pretty proud of this small, functional, and very economical shop. A lot of thought went into it's layout.

Vegas Shop

[OneWithWood]

Nova,
Check out this thread
https://forestryforum.com/board/index.php?topic=1400.0
This has been a long project and it is finally nearing completion.  I need to update the thread with recent pics and I will hopefully in the next week or so.  Somewhere in the thread is a drawing of the shop layout. 

[Nova]

Thanks OWW, that was one of the threads I was hoping to find with the search function and I couldn't remember you were the one building it.  30 x 72 is too much for now but maybe I can build the first half and suffer until time/cash allows for the second half or would that be third half because 30 x 72 will still be too small... :D.

Nova

[Norwiscutter]

I am getting real fed up with my current space issues and I have at least three times as much space as you are thinking of building.  I know that we are all different and therefore have different interpritations concerning space requirements, but I still think that your planed building is to small. If your budget is stretched to the point that you say it is, I question whether the Nyle kiln is an absolute necessity at this point of the project.  I also think that your mill might not mind sitting outside for a while until you can come up with the money to build it a home. If you must build something small now, at least make it 30 feet wide. Nothing gets cramped quicker than a 24ft wide building when you have a 1000 ft of lumber to move around. 

[SAW MILLER]

    So...Deadwood,Do the PVC rollers have shafts and bearings?And are they made from pipe? ??? ???

[isawlogs]

 Would it be possible to get a pic of the roller set-up ,  I like the system ...  cheap and effective  ;D

[Nova]

Norwiscutter, thanks for the insights.  I do know bigger is better and truthfully I could build it, all it would take is more debt  >:(.   I know from your posts some of the work that you are doing so I see the 'voice of experience' speaking and this is what I was looking for when I started this topic.  The end result of this process my wife and I are going thru may be - shop back in the basement, mill outside and stand alone kiln, but I want to pull from the experience of others who have already made these mistakes choices before I make my own  ;D.

Speaking of experience, I have zero when it comes to drying wood and several comments have suggested solar / not DH.  I see four ways that I could approach obtaining dry wood - 1) buy it from a building center; 2) pay someone else to dry it; 3) solar kiln and 4) DH kiln.  My answers so far - 1) this is why I bought a mill so I could produce my own wood; 2) going rate is 30 - 60 cents a BF depending on species/thickness and this I would rather put toward my own kiln; 3) solar - definitely cheaper but more variables than I want to deal with when I have a timeline for obtaining the dried product (please feel free to comment on this assumption) and 4) DH - more expensive to set up and to run, but, less variables and works year round.  I solicit your comments.

So far two votes for shop 30 feet wide.  Anyone with a shop that is narrow and long vice square, if so, would you do it again? Deadwood, your shop fits this description, what would you change now if you had to work with the same budget and do it again?  Like Marcel, I would like to see more pics of your roller system.

Nova

[TexasTimbers]

Okay I'll give you comments - remember you asked for them!  ;D YYour shop is way too big becasue you are going into debt to build it! You should ESCHEW DEBT AT ALL COSTS!

You are goijg  to be learning a trade/hobby/living? that has a LONG learning curve and you have this ball and chain around your neck that you will be sorry for.

My opinion is that you should not build a shop at all. You shouldn't build anything except a cheap shed over your mill and start cutting wood to pay for your shop, even if you think you can't do it, because if you can't, in the end, you'll be in debt for the rest of your life supporting your very expensive hobby.  . You will have a debt free shop much sooner than it will take to pay it off and less worry less stress. I know as I made the debt mistake before. It ain't worth it. Patience. Patience and hard work is the answer to a large debt free shop.

My 2¢

[solodan]

I have plans to build a solar kiln myself this summer, so I have done a bit of research on them. Actually, they do work at night,  at this time you let the cool air from the north enter your kiln. Ultimately you don't want contiuous drying, you want to bring the MC down and then back up just a bit. This is the reason air dried lumber comes out so nice. If you live at 44 degrees north, then you face your kiln roof south at 54 degrees. I would also build a wooden floor with a crawl space and not a slab, better ventelation and a slab holds moisture for several years. I also am a big fan of a wooden floor in a shop, in my opinion it is just so much more useful than a concrete floor. You can also mill the floor joists and decking yourself. If you just can't live without the DH kiln, then find an old trailer or conex box to put your kiln in, you can buy or rent them pretty cheap, and you can side them and put a gable roof/ storage area on them at any time.

[Deadwood]

I'm super busy right now, but just as soon as I get some time I'll get the pictures for you. I just did not want you guys thinking I was blowing you off...just busy.

As for my size shop, well I started with the assumption that my shop would be too small no matter how big it was. Therefore I wanted to make it as effecient as possible per square foot. There are trade-off's of course.

I am working in my shop now. A preganant wife and her mood swings is driving me there 24/7  :D  so I have found a few things I would change. The width is too small. If I had went with a 14 foot by 24 foot main shop, it would have given me more clearance around the router center and tablesaw in the middle of my shop floor. It is a bit cramped from side to side.

The other thing I would change would be the concrete floor. I poured it thinking I had thought of everything. Outlets in the floor. Conduit for future wiring. A sump for my sawdust conveyor down the road. Tubing for radiant floor heating if I ever chose to go that rout. But I forgot one thing. I should have put in ducting for dust collection. It would have been so much cleaner and out of the way to use gravity to my advantage instead of running a tube all the way around my shop. Considering too how costly concrete is, I would have saved money and been able to modify my floor needs if zI had went with a wood structure.

[Nova]

Goodluck with the wife and the baby Deadwood, if this is your first you have a lot of new changes to look forward to.  As you have already said, there are trade offs and ultimately I will have to make my decisions and live with the results.  I am thinking about placing the shop machinery on mobile bases to park in behind the kiln out of the main shop floor when not needed for the task at hand and wheel back out when batching a particular type of job.  To attempt to reduce material handling I am thinking of having electrical and dust collection in the middle of the shop (to allow for enough room to feed material into the machines) and simply turning the machines 180 degrees to send the wood the other direction for the next step in processing and so on.  I may be able to artificially expand the size of the shop by placing double doors on either end of the long axis of the shop as well.  Although far from ideal, I am thinking this is one way to handle reduced shop size on the front end. The original plans have the main part of the shop only a few feet wider than yours once the kiln is figured into the footprint.  I hadn't considered a wooden floor, but I will now.  Thanks (you to solodan).

Kevjay one of the things I do for our church is counsel people who are in debt on establishing new budgets and putting plans in place to get, and keep them, out of debt.  I hear you loud and clear on the evils of borrowing from the future to pay for today, however (isn't there always a however ;D?) if I am going to process the wood for the house from log to finished product then I need a place to do this hence the decision basement shop vs freestanding shop, one of them has to happen.  Unfortunately, there will be debt, the question is how much and are my wife and I willing to take that much on.  Oh...you are right, I did ask for comments ;) and so far I have found each one helpful, even yours ;D!

Solodan, I have read about solar kilns as well.  Based on what I have read I don't have enough confidence to rely on them for the timeline I want to maintain over the winter and I do not know anyone who has one that I could visit to pick their brain about them.  In the absence of better knowledge on the solar kiln, I will default to the DH.  Someone with solar kiln experience care to chime in to educate me?

Nova

[solodan]

Yeah I hear you on the DH.
Don't overlook the Conex box or Truck box idea though for the kiln. They can be had pretty cheap and are a turn key structure when they arrive. You can always move them if need be. I saw a barn built a couple of years ago by some engineer that put two storage boxes about fifteen feet  apart and then spanned the gable roof between the two. He had a dirt floor area between the two boxes and a large loft above it all. After he sided the whole thing with pecky cedar, the thing just looked like one big barn. It went up real quick, cause all he had to do was put up the trusses across the boxes and roof it. The boxes were the structure. I'll try and get a picture of it , I have some work to do on a house in the meadow acroos the river from it.

[Nova]

Solodan, funny you should mention spanning two containers with trusses, that was my first thought back a number of months ago but there are only a few vendors in my area and they aren't cheap.  An insulated 40 footer runs (tax in) between $6500 and $7500 Canadian (about $5600 to 6500 US) plus delivery  .  The 20 footers aren't much better and they are nearly impossible to get if you are a small fry like me.  If I could pick them up for $2500 each, I'd consider it because, as you say, they are almost turn key. :(

Nova

[scsmith42]

Nova, how far are you from Philly?  I purchased two 20' insulated containers for $900.00 each a couple of years ago.  They have a BIG lot of surplus insulated containers.  I moved mine on a 20' flat deck gooseneck trailer; it wasn't that heavy.

Scott

[Nova]

Scott, do you have a contact number for the vendor so I can find what the current price is?  It is about 1600 kms or just shy of 1000 miles one way to Philadelphia from where I live.  I am not set up to haul the containers myself and truthfully, I let this idea die there the last time I thought about it (I remember seeing you mention this in a previous post).  Then there is the border... >:(.  My interactions with Canada Customs haven't always been pleasant and usually it results in me walking away poorer.  If the price is still reasonable and I can find a long haul trucker willing to drag it back and Customs is not too outrageous and ...  In case things don't work out I will still proceed with the kiln/shop idea. 

PM me with the number if you still have it.