Looking pretty good. There's one tool missing that you'll never use but when you need it, it is the most important tool you will ever own by far. That's a fire extinguisher. You're mixing woodworking and welding in the same small space and have your living quarters directly above that. I would highly recommend you make the small investment and mount that bad boy somewhere obvious and close to the entrance of the workshop.
@@schwuzi Agreed, 1 is likely enough, but they run out quick, get 2 and put them on each side of the room. I wonder if you can get one of those fire bomb things where you can throw it in an area and it basically explodes this fire retardent powder :D
The previous owner of my house did this. I moved in thinking I had a sweet basement workshop, but within weeks found that it was constantly damp and later that it flooded several times a year. Same deal as yours - Rock formations that flow spring water. It took years of work to discover and solve all the leaks. I've bailed out thousands of litres of filthy groundwater several times. I had to do full perimeter drainage, concrete retaining walls and a vapour barrier. In the meantime all my machines have suffered surface rust, damaged bearings and other humidity related problems. One of my guitars basically self destructed from warping so much that it ripped the glue joints apart. Unless you get a reliable 50% humidity under there you'll regret it before long.
Also owning an "underground bunker" style workshop I found that painting the walls and ceiling white made a huge difference to the light levels; as bare brickwork and timber tends to absorb a lot of your light.
Hey Michael. I’ve never really commented before, much because you always provide insight and an oppurtunity learn. But this time I feel like I can somehow contribute. Firstly, when you are digging in soil like ground, you will need to compress the loose bits. Your efforts in leveling the floor with gravel and sand will help, but not eradicate the issue you will have with uncompressed ground. This might also affect your trench, and will eventually mess with your floor to the point that it gets annoying. Like a lot of other commenters said, with a moisture on those levels this will for sure eat up all your tools - especially your electronics. This will be costly. A dehumidifier works better than leaving it as it was, but the best thing is always proper ventilation of the area.I suspect the dehumidifier will work overtime trying to cope with a well underneath it, and i would definitely try to install both a inlet and outlet fan. I would strongly advise to use money on a contractor to look at the room, to figure out how you could use plastic and concrete to separate yourself from the ground moisture as well as building walls to separate this room from the rest of the cellar. It is vital that you still let the airflow from the rest of the cellar flow as was intended, or for it to be redirected elsewhere whilst at the same time ensuring adjacent rooms to have their needed ventilation. It is also important to know that a woodshop in a humid area like this, with flooring like this and loads of moisture can quickly turn into mold. This will be bad for you, and you might not even know it is there. Vacuuming the cracks both takes time away from what valuable projects you should be working on, but also leaves the possibility of you forgetting larger amounts of wood to the elements. Water specifically. Water and wood is not a great combination. My last keynote are ground gasses like radon etc… Before you start using this room over longer periods you should check this out. Again, this issue can be helped by properly ventilating the area with mechanical ventilation. But, the best thing is for sure to make this a proper enclosure using proper construction techniques and products specifically made for the purpose of sealing you away from them.
I have a basement workshop with two good sized dehumidifiers set at 60% and both automatically drained. Before that, I found I would get gradual corrosion on hand tools and cast iron surfaces.
So many woodworkers do not appreciate the pressure drop of various fittings. A "T" fitting has the worst pressure drop by far. I replaced by "T" fittings with "Y". I replaced my short radius 90 deg elbows with long radius elbows. I then felt a big increase in suction at the gates. I recommend avoiding "T" fitting if possible. Dave.
Y fittings wouldn’t be too great either as you don’t have a straight through. Since in this case the air only needs to go one way a better type of fitting would be a mix of a straight pipe and an elbow. Not sure if you can buy any like that but also might not be too difficult to make out of two pipes.
I had something similar to your setup once I eventually gave up. 10% of the time I used it for projects the other 90% was fighting rust. Even nuts and bolts in bins would get tiny specs of rust on them. Eventually had to move everything into the garage, in the process of building a conditioned building out back. Hopefully you have better luck than I did!
Be very careful with the fume extraction. When sparks are sucked in, the dust in the system can catch fire very quickly. And flowing dust can even explode!
A nice vapor barrier along the one side - like a sheet of 6 mil plastic- would work nicely to make the dehumidifier's job easier. You could use clearer plastic if you wanted it to keep the visual openness too.
Congrats on the workshop, Michael! Thanks for sharing. The most obvious thing (to me) that you didn't mention is your welding area: Grinder sparks & weld spatter are not going to treat your dust collection bags/house-fire-starter very kindly! I'd want a fire extinguisher near the welding area and another near the door.
Good start, but you will have eternal humidity issues as well as the potential for ground gas exchange (i.e. radon if you have it there). A friend of mine does basement drainage for a living and recently I worked with him on a very similar issue to yours. The proper way to go about this is to do the gravel base as you did, but use deeper trenches and install weeping tile in the drainage trenches to bring the water to a sump, preferably external if possible. Then you need to cover the gravel over with properly sealed and taped 6 mil poly vapour barrier as a minimum, rather than the weed cloth which is permeable. If there is external soil pressure on the foundation (it appears not, foundation is mostly above ground?) then you also need to pour an internal step footing to bear the side load that the removed soil is no longer supporting. Also if the walls are underground at all you need to install dimple membrane tucked under the vapour barrier to allow leakage water to run down the walls and into the drainage trench. Finally you should pour at least a thin "rat slab" of concrete with rebar in it to protect the vapour barrier and tie everything together, and you can then pour pads of self-leveling grout on top for your equipment or do a thick pour and screed it level (or hire it done as concrete is a lot of work especially for those inexperienced with it). However the builders should not have left your house with such a high level of moisture in the basement, all that water should be already intercepted by perimeter drains! We just bought a house in a high water table area for my wife and we were VERY particular that perimeter drains, membrane and vapour barrier were properly done with no potential for leakage. I would not have bought a house with a basement like this as the potential for future issues is high, at least here in Canada. Hopefully things work out but I would have a professional or at least a professional friend look at this basement before you do anything else!
It isn't really a basement though. Basements are really rare to find in Australia in anything built in the past 75+ years. It is basically just a open area under the house due to the house being built on a slope and they generally have pretty good ventilation. You will find these areas either with the brick veneer like TT's or it may just be completely open or even have some sort of wire mesh instead of brick to keep out vermin/pets/kids from going under the house.
Have you considered just excavating the entire room and just pour some concrete for a decent floor? You'd get a much bigger room and a decent environment for your tools. As it stands rust is going to be a huge issue, unless you constantly oil all bare surfaces.
And if you do that, first seal the floor. Concrete is water permeable if the bottom is wet, and he top will be too. Either get a professional, or diy. Look for the term “encapsulated crawl space”. Humidity levels that high will lead to mold. Using an electric dehumidifier is 40-250 times more cost effective than to damp-rid and similar chemicals that form gels. Below 50% humidity dust mites die. Lower than 40% humidity is bad for humans. If you diy, you can get a “froth pack” of spray foam. 200 usd pack makes around 200 board feet of spray foam. Often you see: Ground Wet gravel Dry gravel Spray foam Concrete. Make sure to walk the spray foam up the sides of your walls to give you a continuous barrier.
I saw the thumbnail and immediately thought of Colin Furze... i'm happy to hear that it was an intentional reference in the first few seconds of your video! Cool video :)
We actually have a very similar water management system under our 13C barn conversion (stable conversion), although there is no space under the floor for a workshop there is channels to pass water through. My house used to be a Stable on a farm with a field above it, the water run off heads to us and overflows under the house through the car port and under the farm yard to the pond in the farm house garden, the pond then overflows down to the next farm and through 5 settlement ponds to the river....the river is about 600ft below us and the water is crystal clear so the farm pumps it back up to a mini reservoir in the field above me and that supplies our house with our water supply.
I'm glad you mentioned desiccant and dehumidifiers at the end. I was going to suggest that. You can get reusable desiccant and fill little mesh baggies with it and put one in each tool drawer/bin. I use mesh pencil bags or organza bags to portion them out.
Fascinating Video, you truly made the most out of the Space you got down there. Maybe in the future we get a second part where the Space is completely finished.
Yes, I have seen the same thing. I drill a row of 25mm+ holes in bottom shelves to ventilate floor side to the room side air. That helps a little. Also, paint them with Kilz anti-fungal paint to seal the surfaces.
I really enjoy transformative projects like this. Congratulations on all that you have accomplished! Consider a dehumidifier designed for crawlspaces as that is essentially what you have. You can improve lighting by mounting your ceiling lights to white rectangles roughly the same size as the benches beneath. These could be painted wood, plastic, or maybe even skirting instead. It will be less harsh than reflectors. With humidity that high you'll also want to look at treating the wood above you. Humidity over 55%-60% will propagate mold, which isn't helpful for anything you're doing. Thanks so much for sharing and great job so far!
Excellent. had a similar shop in a basement in our old house, and was going to expand under the house where we had 7-9 ft of head room. Sadly, we sold it and moved but I left the built in benches and electrical expansion. Hope the new owner enjoyed it. Now I am looking to retrofit a garage or even a Home Depot 2 story shed.
As someone who grew up on an aging sandstone ridge in Sydney's south, we also had a number of fresh water springs and general seepage through the stone bedrock. Regular rust prevention and good airflow will help prevent oxidisation of unpainted surfaces. I would suggest some time in the future to get a licensed builder in to install some RSJ's to replace the pillars. Then excavate the rest,wall it, drain it appropriately and pour a slab. You seriously won't regret it. But in the mean time you've figured out some great solutions! (But get some airflow happening definitely..)
Creating a new shop is so exciting with all the future possibilities, and you've done a great job. Congrats! I highly recommend using a pedistal mounted oscillating fan to keep constant air movement. Place off to the side, turn it on low, and leave it on 24/7. It is inexpensive to run, and will reduce mold, condensation, and spider webs.
You could always use some outdoor carpet to lay on top of the fast floor to help with keeping things out of the bottom, would make cleanup still pretty easy, it's like vacuuming a carpet. :) Best of all, if you need to get to the foundation of your fast floor, you can just simply roll up the outdoor carpet.
Ever since I was a kid and we moved into a place with a space under the house like this I always wanted to do something like you did with one when I was older. I find your project really cool and I hope that you can figure out any potential issues you might run into (like run-off with really heavy rainfall). We had a family friend who used his space under his house for storage of computer stuff and general knickknacks but he lost a fair bit of it to a storm which flooded the underhouse area - a simple preventative fix would be to ensure that you don't have anything that cannot get wet sitting on the floor but rather use something like shipping pallets to keep it up a few inches.
Great project 👍 I would Isolate the "roof" to make a more constant temperature at that place, and Make a more constant humidity in the basement. Interesting as always 👍🙂
I'm not going to drag through all the comments to see if this is a duplicate, but congrats! Everyone who's got a walkable crawlspace under the house has dreamed of doing this. My suggestion for improvement is to make use of the space between the rafters, or floor joists, or whatever they're called down under. You can make up all sorts of storage solutions to fit between the overhead supports that would be 16 imperial inches on center here in the States. Simple strapping across 2 adjacent and you have a place to store linear material from lumber to piping to trim. 2 hinge points and you have a cabinet that folds down; 4 hinge points and you have a place to put arms that swing down parallelogram-style to present some flat surface as needed. My basement is 6'2" to my 6' so I have a lot of stuff tucked away overhead.
A couple ideas for you - - Look into french cleat locks. It's relatively easy to pull something down by accident, and if it's one of those small parts racks you're going to be pulling up the floor soon enough. Locks to prevent accidental release are easily made/printed.. - Easy method of finding small parts that fall through your floor - stick a nylon stocking over the end of your vacuum nozzle and suck it up. - Covering the slotted floor with puzzle-edge anti-fatigue mats would also help here, and they're generally pretty cheap.
When I saw the thumbnail, I got worried about digging under the house. -But I see that you're not really digging, just removing what's on the ground. Still ... be very careful, because the walls look like they support the house and if you remove material near the walls, they might sink and the house will sink. It's best to reinforce (downward) in small sections at a time, making sure to have foundation for the brick wall. The brick wall might already have all the foundation it needs; please just make sure... Other concerns ... The moisture will not go away; I believe it needs a better solution in the long run. I'm not only thinking "rust", but also mold (wood, cardboard, paper and the like). If you're going to run a dehumidifier, I recommend running it on solar panels or your TH-cam income might not be able to break even with the electricity bill ... Like Marcel HH mentioned: Dust extraction and ESD can spark fires. ESD from dust extraction can also kill your electronics gadgets. ;) -Make sure you don't have anything flammable in there either. Last thing that came to my mind ... you really want a floor without holes in it. 😉 If you happen to come across a click-floor, that could be a temporary solution. Regarding floor, I'd really go for a concrete solution, but you might not be ready for it yet. All that said, it's always nice to get more space and I'm happy that you can spread your wings! 😄
@@kihestad 😄- I've seen someone - who really knew what he was doing; he worked with reinforcing buildings every day - even though he reinforced this old house, the house cracked where he dug. Those bricks are heavy - the roof as well (not to mention all the things in the house). Cracking didn't happen in one go; it was a slow process that took more than a week. Fortunately this house wasn't damaged any further. He did use equipment for measuring pressure and giving proper upwards counter-pressure while digging, but things can go wrong even for the experts.
@@68HC060 I can absolutely believe that. Having constantly running water in the ground is also a big concern if you ask me. As you say: not just to get rid of the humidity, but even more important: to prevent unhealthy mold. The whole basement really needs a sealed concrete floor with vapor and moisture barrier underneath. For this to work the water now running on top of the ground must be managed, i guess a drainage ditch around house would have been the permanent solution. A tricky task when this is not done before the house was built 😳🤔 but not impossible ☺️
@@kihestad I absolutely agree. Hmm, changing the dehumidifier to a pump might save a lot of money. 😆🤣 -I wonder if the water could be "piped" instead; it's not really a good solution though; the walls would be wet near the floor.
Imagine the rust in that room. Everything is going to rust so quickly. Also be very careful mixing the dust extractors with the welder. Sounds like a bomb about to go off. Air, wood and igniting should like a fun time especially under your house.
A moisture barrier is a must, I’dve installed some of that plastic slot channeling with grating on top at floor level around the whole perimeter of the workshop to catch water before it entered the area at all rather than letting it flow underneath, then piped it out into a drain. Cover that over with the plastic and your flooring then. Then put in a set of supports and a false wall to block the rest of the unused space off from the workshop itself, that would prevent any moisture in the air from entering the space too. And to help prevent the issues with the floor being easy to drop things through, add a top layer of hybrid vinyl floor planks over the existing flooring. You can buy ones that click together for practically nothing, (AU$20-$30 a sqm if you look online) and they don’t require adhesives, they just sit atop existing floor structures, they’re water resistant and are easy to assemble and care for. The existing flooring will help with airflow, and prevent moisture issues, as well as giving you a decent foundation for the new stuff. I really think your biggest concern is getting the space square and sealed, if you do that, it’ll make moisture management and safety easier to pull off.
Looking real good. Hopefully you can keep the humidity in check to a reasonable level. You might end up having 2 dehumidifiers about a 3rd of the way in from each end
Love this man cave! How is ventilation down there? Good ventilation is essential in damp and wet areas and will help reduce moisture in the air. Natural ventilation is good with ducts down on one wall(s) and up on the opposite wall(s), or you could install a bathroom fan or 2 to make forced ventilation if needed, preferably combined with some heating. I'm amazed how quickly moisture can ruin tools, so you will need to combat it. Also, I would consider putting some wooden flooring on top of the plastic flooring to prevent dust buildup, important parts disappear down there as you mentioned, and reducing the moisture even more. Just make sure to first put on a layer or 2 of plastic foil to prevent moisture ruining the wooden floor. If you lay foil on top of the gravel in the rest of the room and connect everything to make a damp barrier you will get all the water running beneath the plastic and then you will get a dry room when combined with ventilation and some heating.
There have been many good ideas listed below. It really depends on how much work you want to put into the place. You could use a waterproof coating on the walls. A shower drain membrane on to of your floor would be durable, act as a vapor barrier, be easier to clean, and prevent you from loosing small parts down the cracks. As mentioned by others, ventilation will make a big difference. For that level of moisture, you may consider a house dehumidifier rather than a portable one.
I put down old carpet off cuts or the office carpet tiles to help with keeping your feet warmer and stopping screws from falling into the gaps of the rubber matting.
Fantastic work! I love it! My recommendation is to look into an Oneida Super Dust Deputy! I have designed several dust collection systems in small workshops with them, and you current dust collector. I 3d print some custom fittings, and it’s amazing suction, and easy to unload a blue plastic drum with your sawdust!
I think you'll eventually need to "encapsulate" the area so things don't rust up real bad. You're close to being incapsulated now so it's not too much more.
Excellent job, that was a lot of work too. My only suggestion would have been to rent a thing called a tamper, it has a large flat head on that vibrates against the floor and packs it all down to get a nice compact floor surface to build on because over time dirt will shift. The only other thing I would suggest would be to get some indoor/outdoor carpeting to lay down over the floor to cover the slots. Also, I wouldn't even bother vacuuming those holes out in fact, it fill them up
Looking great! If you want to lessen the floors flex add some paving sanding to fill the voids. (It generally clumps & sticks together which would help with movement but still allow drainage) I personally would have got some black/grey shadecloth and used some spray adhesive to attach it to the plastic flooring just to give a more "indoor" finished type look...just an idea i would have done that may appeal to you 🤷♂️
Be very careful using a wood dust collector around welding and sparks. One spark gets into that and it's prime fire starting conditions(lots of oxygen, wood dust to burn, and hidden until it becomes a big fire, plus wood dust can be explosive).
Have you considered laying down some "protection" layer over the grid, to keep parts from falling through (and not having to disassemble the floor sections)? Those Ikea floor protector have a decent size-to-price ratio, they're rather thick, and have one side with a rugged surface. There's also surfacing you can buy by the metre, like linoleum, pvc flooring, or even short-pile carpet.
Love it. All I have is a crawl space under my house and I've always dreamed about turning into a real basement, but I know it's totally impractical to do since I'd have to dig 3 to 4' just to make it tall enough to stand up in there. Good job on the project - few things better than a good workspace.
That looks like a nice workshop, I'd keep the humidity lower than 70%, but I think you will be happy with the, and I'm looking forward to see what you are doing in that space!
Love the work, that's a dream space! Try using a layer of shade cloth on top of your flooring to help mitigate screw loss! Still porous enough for liquid and sand but will stop you from losing the things you don't want to lose.
I would highly recommend a roll of linoleum for covering over the floor. Its cheap, easy to lay, clean, and especially to replace. would take away the annoyances of those holes but still keep things modular.
Nice work mate! A couple of tips: change the T-Connectors for the dust extraction, to two 45 degrees a bit apart, so the airflow isn´t choked. And take a look at the YT channel "A Glimpse inside", he has a lot of ideas and tips for the French cleat system! Keep the good work going!
Sorry to be that guy, I only want to support you positively :) I'm finishing up a 4.5m x 3m under house excavation through sandstone, including brick pilon to steel post conversion. It is a dry room for 3d printing in peek/ pek. I also have built a 12m long 2.5m high retaining wall in addition to many other significant renovations. The property is on the bottom of a slope and it also has significant water issues. You've basically done most of the hard work and i want to give you some tips as i have dealt with water issues successfully. You need to concrete the ground to stop the moisture, it will destroy your tools. Dig out as much as you can or is necessary. You need to run a pvc pipe outside of the room to drain the water. Don't have open drains as the space is not ventilated to handle the water/ moisture. Base of the slab, put down geomat everywhere under the house. Run agg lines to a drain, however you see fit. 2 sizes of blue metal 10-25mm about 30-50mm deep the entire underhouse, 2 sizes helps with compaction without affecting drainage. Builders plastic the entire ground including further under the house where there is no slab. Put down some mesh and poor the slab, Done! You will have very little issues with water and you'll be surprised how easy it actually is when you take a deep breath :)
Ventilation will be your key for keeping humidity down. That's not too challenging hopefully! I also use an old offcuts of carpet in my workshop. Low pile cheapy stuff. But it makes life nicer, easier, warmer, quieter and I can easily find screws I drop. Good luck!
Anytime you're mixing dust and hot work (ie welding), fire extinguishers, fire detectors, and fire suppressant systems (fire balls, etc.) are going to be your friend. I'd also consider running some copper wire through any ducting which includes plastic sections or joints to ground it all out - this will eliminate the risk of explosion posed by static build-up (your space may not have enough square footage to pose a significant risk of this, but better safe than sorry). Just finished moving our local makerspace to a new location so all this fire safety is still towards the front of my mind lol.
I just noticed that the weed matting on the sides and the back wall by the welding table is not flame retardant. Make sure you add a flame retardant curtain or such over the flammable plastic
Great video, and great work on turning that space into a workshop, and really good use of space! I'd say try a low speed through the wall fan to move air in or out, that would probably be a way to manage humidity and run more cheaply than the dehumi and silica gel. My half a tiny bedroom workspace has a 120mm 12V computer fan that I can run 24/7 and all it does is drag air out in winter and I flip it around for summer use, that way it manages humidity and temperature. Doesn't seem to be doing much at any instant but the effect over a few days is definitely noticeable. And if I had a bigger space I'd just use an array of them, they're cheap, quiet, designed to run continuously unlike bathroom and kitchen extractors, and you can power a 2x2 or even 3x3 grid of them with a middlingly hefty plugpack. Make insect screens and external louvres to keep rain out. (I only have the one so I used a vent outlet from Bunnings outside and printed an adaptor for the fan inside.)
Humidity is also high in here. I always buy good hand tools. After I use them I always put Spray Grease oil on them. As they do for the house, maybe it's better to make a room inside room. One more thing is 24h air ventilation. That will reduce it. Also, for your cnc, put some spray grease oil on each axises long rods. Good luck man.
Looks great! I have my own workshop in a self build wooden shed in my garden. I had a lot of problems withe the humidity. But now i isolated the roof and walls and made the floor watertight with epdm plastic (used for roofs mostly), and i installed an electric heater with an external thermostate from Ali. Since that i have no more humidty problems. Try to keep the temperature above the dewpoint. (here that is about 12 to 15 degrees i think) Maybe this epdm foil is an option for you too, to close the floor and the wet rock wall? Keep up the good work! Greetings from Holland Timm
As others mention, the damp will corrode your machine tools. Adequate ventilation of this space will be crucial. You may find that you cannot properly ventilate it naturally and may have to mechanically ventilate it. Making this type of space habitable is a huge undertaking. Read about how basements are retro-built under houses. It mostly involves excavating, piling and casting a concrete bin around the walls and floor with an integral membrane and a sump somewhere in the floor to collect water. This sump needs a pump, running, as and when, under control, to remove the water. I'd ask you if the space smelled damp before you started. If it did, I wouldn't have tried to reclaim it. I wish you the best of luck.
I would like to see a curtained welding cubicle like they have at welding schools to prevent those embers from finding anything flammable. Those little lava balls can fly, bounce, and roll like nobodies' business! I have some Kevlar blankets that I use when I have to weld in close quarters, a fireproof blanket fort. That being said, you have done a lot with a little and it has a lot of great features already.
I'm glad you found something that works for you. However, I'm concerned for multiple reasons. The first being humidity. I like that you took precautions to combat it and if this set up was going to be temporary I dont think it would be too bad but that humidity over time will absolute destroy your tools and electronics. Second, that space is a major fire hazard. All that water, plus electric is one source. Your welding bench right next to your dust collection is another. I would highly recommend getting multiple fire extinguishers, and it looks like there's quite a few other comments that recommend this as well. If you're dead set on using this space, it would be a good idea to paint everything a bright color such as white. It'll help bounce the light and brighten up the room, plus brighter colors give the illusion of more space. You may also want to get a quote from a contractor to see if a proper workshop can be built, rather than a make shift one. Proper flooring, drainage, electrical, etc.
Yeah worry would also be about rust with that limestone putting water in there constantly. Steel will rust insanely fast at 80% humidity and iron rusts at 50%. Ideally you are going to want to get the humidity down to 50% if you can but really below 60% is fine. Another thing that can cause rust is the temperature change from day to night as that caused slight condensation on the metal with the temperature change. It might never be enough to look wet but it is enough to rust. You might seriously look at adding a heater to keep the room at a consistent temperature.
This calms my need for tidyness and ocd what great planing and work must have gone into it, it helps others plan and see their space and what jobs one must consider and take when taking the journeys thanks
Many things to solve, but most importantly you did a great job with what you have and that was a lot of hard work! (That you did by yourself! )Respect to you. Well done on this - and please keep going, it’s wonderful to watch. Perhaps one day you can dig it (and cut) it out all the way and do a full Colin with water sealing, steel, concrete ventilation and power etc etc 💪🏻👌👌
As you said by the end of your video, humidity can be a really problem for your machinery. Having that dehumifier running 24x7 will be expensive, but probably the safest day, mainly during winter.
Dehumidifier with a drainage hose will help so you do not have to empty it. Mine empties into a floor drain but you may need to add a pump with a float.
Bear in mind that when the area is first dug open that the flow of water will be more than long after it's not disturbed any more after it's finished as it is and it settles down. As for the floor dust, you can put a surface over the material of the floor that is solid, not a rug which will hold moisture but perhaps some flat sheet material like they put under office chairs which is not too large and removable for cleaning. Also having smaller space is better since hoarding and clutter is not possible without inhibiting & choking the workspace itself, rendering the entire area not usable.
If you want a higher powered dehumidifier use a smaller window unit ac mounted on a standing frame with a hole CAREFULLY drilled in the bottom of the unit and piped into a sealed 5 gallon bucket (or even outside). If you want to use the ac as a window unit later just 3d print a plug for the bottom. It won't cool the space off more actually it might warm it up a little it will use roughly 500 watts (one side heating and the other cooling at the same time). It's basically what a dehumidifier does only on a larger scale and more cost effective. Also if a 500 watt one isn't enough you can upscale to maybe even a 1200 watt. If you build one your equipment WON'T suffer from the humidity.
Wow, thats a lot of hard work, and Im impressed with how you have overcome the problems that this site gives. Ive tried dehumidifiers in humid basements before - without much success. They do extract gallons of water, and no doubt use a load of electricity. I ended up using WD40 on everything metal, then later I used a tool guard spray, cant remember which one but it worked fine on top of the WD40.
I'd put some of those square locking foam pads on top of your floor, they're nice to walk on and if you drop things on them they don't bounce much and they're easy to find. They make them pretty thin also so it won't take much height from your workspace.
such a great video .. thank you for your effort to make quality content - been a follower for more then 2 years, and got and ender3pro working flawless because of you, thank you again !
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Looking pretty good. There's one tool missing that you'll never use but when you need it, it is the most important tool you will ever own by far. That's a fire extinguisher. You're mixing woodworking and welding in the same small space and have your living quarters directly above that. I would highly recommend you make the small investment and mount that bad boy somewhere obvious and close to the entrance of the workshop.
Better yet, get 2 of them. You never know.
@@schwuzi Agreed, 1 is likely enough, but they run out quick, get 2 and put them on each side of the room. I wonder if you can get one of those fire bomb things where you can throw it in an area and it basically explodes this fire retardent powder :D
@@xSensu you can get them on amazon lol i have one in my workshop.
@@schwuzi well you need 2 anyway, 1 water 1 dry chem even a 3rd CO2 can be useful for electrical without damaging surrounding equipment.
I'd even add a first-aid kit.
The previous owner of my house did this. I moved in thinking I had a sweet basement workshop, but within weeks found that it was constantly damp and later that it flooded several times a year. Same deal as yours - Rock formations that flow spring water. It took years of work to discover and solve all the leaks. I've bailed out thousands of litres of filthy groundwater several times. I had to do full perimeter drainage, concrete retaining walls and a vapour barrier. In the meantime all my machines have suffered surface rust, damaged bearings and other humidity related problems. One of my guitars basically self destructed from warping so much that it ripped the glue joints apart. Unless you get a reliable 50% humidity under there you'll regret it before long.
Also owning an "underground bunker" style workshop I found that painting the walls and ceiling white made a huge difference to the light levels; as bare brickwork and timber tends to absorb a lot of your light.
i was just thinking to paint mine one wall black :P
Hey Michael. I’ve never really commented before, much because you always provide insight and an oppurtunity learn. But this time I feel like I can somehow contribute.
Firstly, when you are digging in soil like ground, you will need to compress the loose bits. Your efforts in leveling the floor with gravel and sand will help, but not eradicate the issue you will have with uncompressed ground. This might also affect your trench, and will eventually mess with your floor to the point that it gets annoying.
Like a lot of other commenters said, with a moisture on those levels this will for sure eat up all your tools - especially your electronics. This will be costly. A dehumidifier works better than leaving it as it was, but the best thing is always proper ventilation of the area.I suspect the dehumidifier will work overtime trying to cope with a well underneath it, and i would definitely try to install both a inlet and outlet fan.
I would strongly advise to use money on a contractor to look at the room, to figure out how you could use plastic and concrete to separate yourself from the ground moisture as well as building walls to separate this room from the rest of the cellar. It is vital that you still let the airflow from the rest of the cellar flow as was intended, or for it to be redirected elsewhere whilst at the same time ensuring adjacent rooms to have their needed ventilation.
It is also important to know that a woodshop in a humid area like this, with flooring like this and loads of moisture can quickly turn into mold. This will be bad for you, and you might not even know it is there. Vacuuming the cracks both takes time away from what valuable projects you should be working on, but also leaves the possibility of you forgetting larger amounts of wood to the elements. Water specifically. Water and wood is not a great combination.
My last keynote are ground gasses like radon etc… Before you start using this room over longer periods you should check this out. Again, this issue can be helped by properly ventilating the area with mechanical ventilation. But, the best thing is for sure to make this a proper enclosure using proper construction techniques and products specifically made for the purpose of sealing you away from them.
Nice job! Be careful using the dust extractor while welding, The aerated dust is highly flammable and woodwork factories often get fires that way.
The humidity is going to be brutal on your equipment/supplies.
I have a basement workshop with two good sized dehumidifiers set at 60% and both automatically drained. Before that, I found I would get gradual corrosion on hand tools and cast iron surfaces.
Well, unless you add a dehumidifier
@@TGG141 Or five.
Yup, I just built a garage finally, got tired of all my stuff rusting in the shed. Agressive dehumidification will be essential
Worth regularly oiling all the tools you can.
So many woodworkers do not appreciate the pressure drop of various fittings. A "T" fitting has the worst pressure drop by far. I replaced by "T" fittings with "Y". I replaced my short radius 90 deg elbows with long radius elbows. I then felt a big increase in suction at the gates.
I recommend avoiding "T" fitting if possible.
Dave.
Y fittings wouldn’t be too great either as you don’t have a straight through. Since in this case the air only needs to go one way a better type of fitting would be a mix of a straight pipe and an elbow. Not sure if you can buy any like that but also might not be too difficult to make out of two pipes.
@@conorstewart2214 In this situation it would be best for the pipe to come out at an angle, let's say a "half K" fitting
@@IDiveI11 That is pretty much what I meant, although I meant for the offshoot pipe to be curved rather than straight, to help with airflow.
I had something similar to your setup once I eventually gave up. 10% of the time I used it for projects the other 90% was fighting rust. Even nuts and bolts in bins would get tiny specs of rust on them. Eventually had to move everything into the garage, in the process of building a conditioned building out back. Hopefully you have better luck than I did!
Yeah, that would be my worry, rust on saw, drill and other bare metal tables, unless they are aluminum.
Be very careful with the fume extraction. When sparks are sucked in, the dust in the system can catch fire very quickly. And flowing dust can even explode!
Fascinating Horror and Brick Imorta have done some really good videos on dust explosions.
Plus, be sure to ground the pipes - static electricity can be a problem!
I believe static build up is the concern and that is usually when using PVC and no ground. His system doesn't suffer from those things.
Dust explosion hazards from these units are well known and documented. Enclose the DE unit or place it outside in a safe area
@@steveharper8916 source? Because in my experience, it's over dramatized. You don't need to move it or enclose it. Just ground the thing.
A nice vapor barrier along the one side - like a sheet of 6 mil plastic- would work nicely to make the dehumidifier's job easier. You could use clearer plastic if you wanted it to keep the visual openness too.
Congrats on the workshop, Michael! Thanks for sharing. The most obvious thing (to me) that you didn't mention is your welding area: Grinder sparks & weld spatter are not going to treat your dust collection bags/house-fire-starter very kindly! I'd want a fire extinguisher near the welding area and another near the door.
Good start, but you will have eternal humidity issues as well as the potential for ground gas exchange (i.e. radon if you have it there). A friend of mine does basement drainage for a living and recently I worked with him on a very similar issue to yours. The proper way to go about this is to do the gravel base as you did, but use deeper trenches and install weeping tile in the drainage trenches to bring the water to a sump, preferably external if possible. Then you need to cover the gravel over with properly sealed and taped 6 mil poly vapour barrier as a minimum, rather than the weed cloth which is permeable. If there is external soil pressure on the foundation (it appears not, foundation is mostly above ground?) then you also need to pour an internal step footing to bear the side load that the removed soil is no longer supporting. Also if the walls are underground at all you need to install dimple membrane tucked under the vapour barrier to allow leakage water to run down the walls and into the drainage trench. Finally you should pour at least a thin "rat slab" of concrete with rebar in it to protect the vapour barrier and tie everything together, and you can then pour pads of self-leveling grout on top for your equipment or do a thick pour and screed it level (or hire it done as concrete is a lot of work especially for those inexperienced with it).
However the builders should not have left your house with such a high level of moisture in the basement, all that water should be already intercepted by perimeter drains! We just bought a house in a high water table area for my wife and we were VERY particular that perimeter drains, membrane and vapour barrier were properly done with no potential for leakage. I would not have bought a house with a basement like this as the potential for future issues is high, at least here in Canada. Hopefully things work out but I would have a professional or at least a professional friend look at this basement before you do anything else!
this is the way
It isn't really a basement though. Basements are really rare to find in Australia in anything built in the past 75+ years. It is basically just a open area under the house due to the house being built on a slope and they generally have pretty good ventilation. You will find these areas either with the brick veneer like TT's or it may just be completely open or even have some sort of wire mesh instead of brick to keep out vermin/pets/kids from going under the house.
Have you considered just excavating the entire room and just pour some concrete for a decent floor? You'd get a much bigger room and a decent environment for your tools. As it stands rust is going to be a huge issue, unless you constantly oil all bare surfaces.
And if you do that, first seal the floor. Concrete is water permeable if the bottom is wet, and he top will be too.
Either get a professional, or diy.
Look for the term “encapsulated crawl space”.
Humidity levels that high will lead to mold. Using an electric dehumidifier is 40-250 times more cost effective than to damp-rid and similar chemicals that form gels. Below 50% humidity dust mites die. Lower than 40% humidity is bad for humans.
If you diy, you can get a “froth pack” of spray foam. 200 usd pack makes around 200 board feet of spray foam. Often you see:
Ground
Wet gravel
Dry gravel
Spray foam
Concrete.
Make sure to walk the spray foam up the sides of your walls to give you a continuous barrier.
I love this! I love the poetry of previously dead space used for neglected lawn equipment becoming a functional creative space. So inspiring!
Mr. Furze would be proud man. Nicely done. Ever since I saw Colin do this I've had an itch to give it a go!!!!
A new meaning of 'a digger', well done lad.
Building a workshop underneath home is every man's dream.😮
A true man cave
...that turns into a nightmare
I saw the thumbnail and immediately thought of Colin Furze... i'm happy to hear that it was an intentional reference in the first few seconds of your video! Cool video :)
Brilliant! I wish I lived in an area where I was able to do something like this. Finding working space is the bane of my existence.
Imagine dropping something in that floor. I love this so much!!!
ROFLMAO😆
You're right to be proud of your hard work! I'm really impressed by your efforts and the end result 💯💯💯
Looks nice! One tip- you shouldn’t use the table saw with the blade tilted toward the fence; doing so increases the risk of kickback.
We actually have a very similar water management system under our 13C barn conversion (stable conversion), although there is no space under the floor for a workshop there is channels to pass water through. My house used to be a Stable on a farm with a field above it, the water run off heads to us and overflows under the house through the car port and under the farm yard to the pond in the farm house garden, the pond then overflows down to the next farm and through 5 settlement ponds to the river....the river is about 600ft below us and the water is crystal clear so the farm pumps it back up to a mini reservoir in the field above me and that supplies our house with our water supply.
Don't ever move away. You have the best of what everyone else is trying to figure out.
French cleats are so handy, they are so modular and I LOVE them
I'm wicked excited for this. I've been in the process of creating a similar workshop in my garage
I'm glad you mentioned desiccant and dehumidifiers at the end. I was going to suggest that. You can get reusable desiccant and fill little mesh baggies with it and put one in each tool drawer/bin. I use mesh pencil bags or organza bags to portion them out.
Fantastic effort, you should be proud. That's a neat and unique cozy space.
Fascinating Video, you truly made the most out of the Space you got down there.
Maybe in the future we get a second part where the Space is completely finished.
Wow! Looks awesome! I hope you keep us updated with the humidity management, I'm really interested in that!
I've found that MDF will mould very easily so worth checking underneath the lower levels of the shelving.
Yes, I have seen the same thing. I drill a row of 25mm+ holes in bottom shelves to ventilate floor side to the room side air. That helps a little. Also, paint them with Kilz anti-fungal paint to seal the surfaces.
I really enjoy transformative projects like this. Congratulations on all that you have accomplished! Consider a dehumidifier designed for crawlspaces as that is essentially what you have. You can improve lighting by mounting your ceiling lights to white rectangles roughly the same size as the benches beneath. These could be painted wood, plastic, or maybe even skirting instead. It will be less harsh than reflectors.
With humidity that high you'll also want to look at treating the wood above you. Humidity over 55%-60% will propagate mold, which isn't helpful for anything you're doing.
Thanks so much for sharing and great job so far!
the whole video I was thinking "wait till you drop a small screw..." and then at the end I was rewarded.
Excellent. had a similar shop in a basement in our old house, and was going to expand under the house where we had 7-9 ft of head room. Sadly, we sold it and moved but I left the built in benches and electrical expansion. Hope the new owner enjoyed it.
Now I am looking to retrofit a garage or even a Home Depot 2 story shed.
That's a lot of dedication for space but seems to have been worth it good luck with moisture that's a never ending battle
As someone who grew up on an aging sandstone ridge in Sydney's south, we also had a number of fresh water springs and general seepage through the stone bedrock.
Regular rust prevention and good airflow will help prevent oxidisation of unpainted surfaces.
I would suggest some time in the future to get a licensed builder in to install some RSJ's to replace the pillars. Then excavate the rest,wall it, drain it appropriately and pour a slab. You seriously won't regret it.
But in the mean time you've figured out some great solutions! (But get some airflow happening definitely..)
Great job man! Glad you are making it work for you wherever you go. Kaizen life!
Creating a new shop is so exciting with all the future possibilities, and you've done a great job. Congrats! I highly recommend using a pedistal mounted oscillating fan to keep constant air movement. Place off to the side, turn it on low, and leave it on 24/7. It is inexpensive to run, and will reduce mold, condensation, and spider webs.
That’s a good looking space, after you’ve done a TON of work! Keep us updated on how it is going!
You could always use some outdoor carpet to lay on top of the fast floor to help with keeping things out of the bottom, would make cleanup still pretty easy, it's like vacuuming a carpet. :) Best of all, if you need to get to the foundation of your fast floor, you can just simply roll up the outdoor carpet.
Wow, that builder built that house with so much massive space under it and couldn't be bothered to excavate it. Crazy
Well done! I really like your motiviation!
Ever since I was a kid and we moved into a place with a space under the house like this I always wanted to do something like you did with one when I was older. I find your project really cool and I hope that you can figure out any potential issues you might run into (like run-off with really heavy rainfall). We had a family friend who used his space under his house for storage of computer stuff and general knickknacks but he lost a fair bit of it to a storm which flooded the underhouse area - a simple preventative fix would be to ensure that you don't have anything that cannot get wet sitting on the floor but rather use something like shipping pallets to keep it up a few inches.
Great project 👍
I would Isolate the "roof" to make a more constant temperature at that place, and Make a more constant humidity in the basement.
Interesting as always 👍🙂
Love the efficient usage of that great space :)
I'm not going to drag through all the comments to see if this is a duplicate, but congrats! Everyone who's got a walkable crawlspace under the house has dreamed of doing this. My suggestion for improvement is to make use of the space between the rafters, or floor joists, or whatever they're called down under. You can make up all sorts of storage solutions to fit between the overhead supports that would be 16 imperial inches on center here in the States. Simple strapping across 2 adjacent and you have a place to store linear material from lumber to piping to trim. 2 hinge points and you have a cabinet that folds down; 4 hinge points and you have a place to put arms that swing down parallelogram-style to present some flat surface as needed. My basement is 6'2" to my 6' so I have a lot of stuff tucked away overhead.
A couple ideas for you -
- Look into french cleat locks. It's relatively easy to pull something down by accident, and if it's one of those small parts racks you're going to be pulling up the floor soon enough. Locks to prevent accidental release are easily made/printed..
- Easy method of finding small parts that fall through your floor - stick a nylon stocking over the end of your vacuum nozzle and suck it up.
- Covering the slotted floor with puzzle-edge anti-fatigue mats would also help here, and they're generally pretty cheap.
When I saw the thumbnail, I got worried about digging under the house.
-But I see that you're not really digging, just removing what's on the ground.
Still ... be very careful, because the walls look like they support the house and if you remove material near the walls, they might sink and the house will sink.
It's best to reinforce (downward) in small sections at a time, making sure to have foundation for the brick wall.
The brick wall might already have all the foundation it needs; please just make sure...
Other concerns ... The moisture will not go away; I believe it needs a better solution in the long run.
I'm not only thinking "rust", but also mold (wood, cardboard, paper and the like).
If you're going to run a dehumidifier, I recommend running it on solar panels or your TH-cam income might not be able to break even with the electricity bill ...
Like Marcel HH mentioned: Dust extraction and ESD can spark fires. ESD from dust extraction can also kill your electronics gadgets. ;)
-Make sure you don't have anything flammable in there either.
Last thing that came to my mind ... you really want a floor without holes in it. 😉
If you happen to come across a click-floor, that could be a temporary solution.
Regarding floor, I'd really go for a concrete solution, but you might not be ready for it yet.
All that said, it's always nice to get more space and I'm happy that you can spread your wings! 😄
This comment summarize most of my thoughts (and more) after seeing the video, well put @HiSpy ☺️
@@kihestad 😄- I've seen someone - who really knew what he was doing; he worked with reinforcing buildings every day - even though he reinforced this old house, the house cracked where he dug. Those bricks are heavy - the roof as well (not to mention all the things in the house).
Cracking didn't happen in one go; it was a slow process that took more than a week.
Fortunately this house wasn't damaged any further.
He did use equipment for measuring pressure and giving proper upwards counter-pressure while digging, but things can go wrong even for the experts.
@@68HC060 I can absolutely believe that. Having constantly running water in the ground is also a big concern if you ask me. As you say: not just to get rid of the humidity, but even more important: to prevent unhealthy mold. The whole basement really needs a sealed concrete floor with vapor and moisture barrier underneath. For this to work the water now running on top of the ground must be managed, i guess a drainage ditch around house would have been the permanent solution. A tricky task when this is not done before the house was built 😳🤔 but not impossible ☺️
@@kihestad I absolutely agree. Hmm, changing the dehumidifier to a pump might save a lot of money. 😆🤣
-I wonder if the water could be "piped" instead; it's not really a good solution though; the walls would be wet near the floor.
Well done Michael!
Imagine the rust in that room. Everything is going to rust so quickly.
Also be very careful mixing the dust extractors with the welder. Sounds like a bomb about to go off. Air, wood and igniting should like a fun time especially under your house.
A moisture barrier is a must, I’dve installed some of that plastic slot channeling with grating on top at floor level around the whole perimeter of the workshop to catch water before it entered the area at all rather than letting it flow underneath, then piped it out into a drain. Cover that over with the plastic and your flooring then.
Then put in a set of supports and a false wall to block the rest of the unused space off from the workshop itself, that would prevent any moisture in the air from entering the space too.
And to help prevent the issues with the floor being easy to drop things through, add a top layer of hybrid vinyl floor planks over the existing flooring. You can buy ones that click together for practically nothing, (AU$20-$30 a sqm if you look online) and they don’t require adhesives, they just sit atop existing floor structures, they’re water resistant and are easy to assemble and care for. The existing flooring will help with airflow, and prevent moisture issues, as well as giving you a decent foundation for the new stuff.
I really think your biggest concern is getting the space square and sealed, if you do that, it’ll make moisture management and safety easier to pull off.
Looking real good. Hopefully you can keep the humidity in check to a reasonable level. You might end up having 2 dehumidifiers about a 3rd of the way in from each end
Love this man cave!
How is ventilation down there? Good ventilation is essential in damp and wet areas and will help reduce moisture in the air. Natural ventilation is good with ducts down on one wall(s) and up on the opposite wall(s), or you could install a bathroom fan or 2 to make forced ventilation if needed, preferably combined with some heating. I'm amazed how quickly moisture can ruin tools, so you will need to combat it.
Also, I would consider putting some wooden flooring on top of the plastic flooring to prevent dust buildup, important parts disappear down there as you mentioned, and reducing the moisture even more. Just make sure to first put on a layer or 2 of plastic foil to prevent moisture ruining the wooden floor. If you lay foil on top of the gravel in the rest of the room and connect everything to make a damp barrier you will get all the water running beneath the plastic and then you will get a dry room when combined with ventilation and some heating.
There have been many good ideas listed below. It really depends on how much work you want to put into the place. You could use a waterproof coating on the walls. A shower drain membrane on to of your floor would be durable, act as a vapor barrier, be easier to clean, and prevent you from loosing small parts down the cracks. As mentioned by others, ventilation will make a big difference. For that level of moisture, you may consider a house dehumidifier rather than a portable one.
Man I love that bevel system. May have to do something similar in my tiny workshop
I put down old carpet off cuts or the office carpet tiles to help with keeping your feet warmer and stopping screws from falling into the gaps of the rubber matting.
Excited for how this develops and the content from it.
Fantastic work! I love it! My recommendation is to look into an Oneida Super Dust Deputy! I have designed several dust collection systems in small workshops with them, and you current dust collector. I 3d print some custom fittings, and it’s amazing suction, and easy to unload a blue plastic drum with your sawdust!
I think you'll eventually need to "encapsulate" the area so things don't rust up real bad. You're close to being incapsulated now so it's not too much more.
Excellent job, that was a lot of work too. My only suggestion would have been to rent a thing called a tamper, it has a large flat head on that vibrates against the floor and packs it all down to get a nice compact floor surface to build on because over time dirt will shift. The only other thing I would suggest would be to get some indoor/outdoor carpeting to lay down over the floor to cover the slots. Also, I wouldn't even bother vacuuming those holes out in fact, it fill them up
Looking great! If you want to lessen the floors flex add some paving sanding to fill the voids.
(It generally clumps & sticks together which would help with movement but still allow drainage)
I personally would have got some black/grey shadecloth and used some spray adhesive to attach it to the plastic flooring just to give a more "indoor" finished type look...just an idea i would have done that may appeal to you 🤷♂️
Be very careful using a wood dust collector around welding and sparks. One spark gets into that and it's prime fire starting conditions(lots of oxygen, wood dust to burn, and hidden until it becomes a big fire, plus wood dust can be explosive).
Great Effort, top mission
Have you considered laying down some "protection" layer over the grid, to keep parts from falling through (and not having to disassemble the floor sections)? Those Ikea floor protector have a decent size-to-price ratio, they're rather thick, and have one side with a rugged surface. There's also surfacing you can buy by the metre, like linoleum, pvc flooring, or even short-pile carpet.
what a great working base!!!!!
Looks like a good solution for what you had to work with.
Love it. All I have is a crawl space under my house and I've always dreamed about turning into a real basement, but I know it's totally impractical to do since I'd have to dig 3 to 4' just to make it tall enough to stand up in there. Good job on the project - few things better than a good workspace.
Congratulations. Looks great.
That looks like a nice workshop, I'd keep the humidity lower than 70%, but I think you will be happy with the, and I'm looking forward to see what you are doing in that space!
Love the work, that's a dream space! Try using a layer of shade cloth on top of your flooring to help mitigate screw loss! Still porous enough for liquid and sand but will stop you from losing the things you don't want to lose.
I would highly recommend a roll of linoleum for covering over the floor. Its cheap, easy to lay, clean, and especially to replace. would take away the annoyances of those holes but still keep things modular.
Nice work mate! A couple of tips: change the T-Connectors for the dust extraction, to two 45 degrees a bit apart, so the airflow isn´t choked. And take a look at the YT channel "A Glimpse inside", he has a lot of ideas and tips for the French cleat system! Keep the good work going!
Sorry to be that guy, I only want to support you positively :) I'm finishing up a 4.5m x 3m under house excavation through sandstone, including brick pilon to steel post conversion. It is a dry room for 3d printing in peek/ pek. I also have built a 12m long 2.5m high retaining wall in addition to many other significant renovations. The property is on the bottom of a slope and it also has significant water issues. You've basically done most of the hard work and i want to give you some tips as i have dealt with water issues successfully.
You need to concrete the ground to stop the moisture, it will destroy your tools. Dig out as much as you can or is necessary. You need to run a pvc pipe outside of the room to drain the water. Don't have open drains as the space is not ventilated to handle the water/ moisture. Base of the slab, put down geomat everywhere under the house. Run agg lines to a drain, however you see fit. 2 sizes of blue metal 10-25mm about 30-50mm deep the entire underhouse, 2 sizes helps with compaction without affecting drainage. Builders plastic the entire ground including further under the house where there is no slab. Put down some mesh and poor the slab, Done! You will have very little issues with water and you'll be surprised how easy it actually is when you take a deep breath :)
Nice job! I wish my crawl space was that big.
Ventilation will be your key for keeping humidity down. That's not too challenging hopefully! I also use an old offcuts of carpet in my workshop. Low pile cheapy stuff. But it makes life nicer, easier, warmer, quieter and I can easily find screws I drop.
Good luck!
Anytime you're mixing dust and hot work (ie welding), fire extinguishers, fire detectors, and fire suppressant systems (fire balls, etc.) are going to be your friend. I'd also consider running some copper wire through any ducting which includes plastic sections or joints to ground it all out - this will eliminate the risk of explosion posed by static build-up (your space may not have enough square footage to pose a significant risk of this, but better safe than sorry). Just finished moving our local makerspace to a new location so all this fire safety is still towards the front of my mind lol.
I just noticed that the weed matting on the sides and the back wall by the welding table is not flame retardant. Make sure you add a flame retardant curtain or such over the flammable plastic
Really well done and great ideas
Oooh I’m also digging an underground workshop! That’s at least 5 of us now :)
Dude that's a dream setup !!
That turned out very nice
Great video, and great work on turning that space into a workshop, and really good use of space!
I'd say try a low speed through the wall fan to move air in or out, that would probably be a way to manage humidity and run more cheaply than the dehumi and silica gel. My half a tiny bedroom workspace has a 120mm 12V computer fan that I can run 24/7 and all it does is drag air out in winter and I flip it around for summer use, that way it manages humidity and temperature. Doesn't seem to be doing much at any instant but the effect over a few days is definitely noticeable. And if I had a bigger space I'd just use an array of them, they're cheap, quiet, designed to run continuously unlike bathroom and kitchen extractors, and you can power a 2x2 or even 3x3 grid of them with a middlingly hefty plugpack. Make insect screens and external louvres to keep rain out. (I only have the one so I used a vent outlet from Bunnings outside and printed an adaptor for the fan inside.)
Humidity is also high in here. I always buy good hand tools. After I use them I always put Spray Grease oil on them. As they do for the house, maybe it's better to make a room inside room. One more thing is 24h air ventilation. That will reduce it. Also, for your cnc, put some spray grease oil on each axises long rods. Good luck man.
Looks great! I have my own workshop in a self build wooden shed in my garden. I had a lot of problems withe the humidity. But now i isolated the roof and walls and made the floor watertight with epdm plastic (used for roofs mostly), and i installed an electric heater with an external thermostate from Ali. Since that i have no more humidty problems. Try to keep the temperature above the dewpoint. (here that is about 12 to 15 degrees i think)
Maybe this epdm foil is an option for you too, to close the floor and the wet rock wall?
Keep up the good work! Greetings from Holland
Timm
As others mention, the damp will corrode your machine tools. Adequate ventilation of this space will be crucial. You may find that you cannot properly ventilate it naturally and may have to mechanically ventilate it.
Making this type of space habitable is a huge undertaking. Read about how basements are retro-built under houses. It mostly involves excavating, piling and casting a concrete bin around the walls and floor with an integral membrane and a sump somewhere in the floor to collect water. This sump needs a pump, running, as and when, under control, to remove the water.
I'd ask you if the space smelled damp before you started. If it did, I wouldn't have tried to reclaim it.
I wish you the best of luck.
Great job, looks awesome!
I would like to see a curtained welding cubicle like they have at welding schools to prevent those embers from finding anything flammable. Those little lava balls can fly, bounce, and roll like nobodies' business! I have some Kevlar blankets that I use when I have to weld in close quarters, a fireproof blanket fort. That being said, you have done a lot with a little and it has a lot of great features already.
Wow, a true man cave. Very nice
I'm glad you found something that works for you. However, I'm concerned for multiple reasons. The first being humidity. I like that you took precautions to combat it and if this set up was going to be temporary I dont think it would be too bad but that humidity over time will absolute destroy your tools and electronics. Second, that space is a major fire hazard. All that water, plus electric is one source. Your welding bench right next to your dust collection is another. I would highly recommend getting multiple fire extinguishers, and it looks like there's quite a few other comments that recommend this as well.
If you're dead set on using this space, it would be a good idea to paint everything a bright color such as white. It'll help bounce the light and brighten up the room, plus brighter colors give the illusion of more space.
You may also want to get a quote from a contractor to see if a proper workshop can be built, rather than a make shift one. Proper flooring, drainage, electrical, etc.
Yeah worry would also be about rust with that limestone putting water in there constantly. Steel will rust insanely fast at 80% humidity and iron rusts at 50%. Ideally you are going to want to get the humidity down to 50% if you can but really below 60% is fine. Another thing that can cause rust is the temperature change from day to night as that caused slight condensation on the metal with the temperature change. It might never be enough to look wet but it is enough to rust. You might seriously look at adding a heater to keep the room at a consistent temperature.
This calms my need for tidyness and ocd what great planing and work must have gone into it, it helps others plan and see their space and what jobs one must consider and take when taking the journeys thanks
Many things to solve, but most importantly you did a great job with what you have and that was a lot of hard work! (That you did by yourself! )Respect to you. Well done on this - and please keep going, it’s wonderful to watch. Perhaps one day you can dig it (and cut) it out all the way and do a full Colin with water sealing, steel, concrete ventilation and power etc etc 💪🏻👌👌
Cool idea for sure. congrats
As you said by the end of your video, humidity can be a really problem for your machinery. Having that dehumifier running 24x7 will be expensive, but probably the safest day, mainly during winter.
Very Cool ! I would love to have a place that size to work on projects !
Dehumidifier with a drainage hose will help so you do not have to empty it. Mine empties into a floor drain but you may need to add a pump with a float.
Bear in mind that when the area is first dug open that the flow of water will be more than long after it's not disturbed any more after it's finished as it is and it settles down. As for the floor dust, you can put a surface over the material of the floor that is solid, not a rug which will hold moisture but perhaps some flat sheet material like they put under office chairs which is not too large and removable for cleaning. Also having smaller space is better since hoarding and clutter is not possible without inhibiting & choking the workspace itself, rendering the entire area not usable.
If you want a higher powered dehumidifier use a smaller window unit ac mounted on a standing frame with a hole CAREFULLY drilled in the bottom of the unit and piped into a sealed 5 gallon bucket (or even outside). If you want to use the ac as a window unit later just 3d print a plug for the bottom. It won't cool the space off more actually it might warm it up a little it will use roughly 500 watts (one side heating and the other cooling at the same time). It's basically what a dehumidifier does only on a larger scale and more cost effective. Also if a 500 watt one isn't enough you can upscale to maybe even a 1200 watt. If you build one your equipment WON'T suffer from the humidity.
Wow, thats a lot of hard work, and Im impressed with how you have overcome the problems that this site gives. Ive tried dehumidifiers in humid basements before - without much success. They do extract gallons of water, and no doubt use a load of electricity. I ended up using WD40 on everything metal, then later I used a tool guard spray, cant remember which one but it worked fine on top of the WD40.
I'd put some of those square locking foam pads on top of your floor, they're nice to walk on and if you drop things on them they don't bounce much and they're easy to find. They make them pretty thin also so it won't take much height from your workspace.
such a great video .. thank you for your effort to make quality content - been a follower for more then 2 years, and got and ender3pro working flawless because of you, thank you again !