#4-Recycledshop

Recycled Garage Door Panel Shop - Machine Shop

This was the second permanent building to be built, replacing a substantial temporary storage building that burned down. This shop structure is an example of resourcefulness and building with recycled materials. In November 1998 our east side neighbor was having a contractor build an addition to their mountain cabin, and there would be 3 extra yards of premixed concrete available. A quick calculation yielded the footprint for this building: 3 yards of concrete would fill a space formed with 2x4’s 16’ x 16’ (256 square feet). Tom had about 4 days of preparation time (unlike the pump house, which was an hour). The site was cleared and a few yards of road base were brought in and compacted. The 2x4 forms were constructed. Six mil. plastic and 1” rigid foam with a grid of rebar was installed along with radiant heat pipe. It was a cold winter day when the concrete arrived, so the hard trowel finishing went on with floodlights until 10 PM when Tom finally said, “Good enough.”
A friend is a delivery truck driver for Raynor Garage Door Company. He has access to loads of door panels damaged from shipping and new installation replacements, along with 2x4’s and Masonite panels used for packing, all destined for the landfill. Glen is resourceful and doesn’t like to see things go to waste, so he calls when he is in Las Cruces with a load of these materials for us to pick up. This saves him valuable time and supplies us with useful materials. Except for the roof, all the walls and structure were built with these materials.
Conventional 2x4 stud walls were built and wrapped with 30 lb felt. Then the metal door panels were screwed to the studs with #8x3” Deck Mate screws. Careful attention was paid to sorting the panels and arranging the seams to shed water. 3 recycled windows and an entry door salvaged from the fire were installed, and 2 small 12”x12” windows were custom built.
After the storage loft was built overhead, the inside was finished with standard fiberglass insulation and drywall (after all, it’s just a “shop”). The insulation and drywall, 2”x8” roof joists, metal R-panel roofing, trim and gutters were the only items purchased new. Tom is a firm believer in not scrimping on roofs. This whole building was built for about $2,000 and 2 months labor.