They sell white board in 4x8 sheets at HD/Lowes for $30ish, maybe less, I haven't bought in a while. It's thin and breaks easily until you get it tacked up. Works great.
They sell white board in 4x8 sheets at HD/Lowes for $30ish, maybe less, I haven't bought in a while. It's thin and breaks easily until you get it tacked up. Works great.
+1 on the lights and white walls. If you're really worried about it being too bright, consider putting the lights on a dimmer.
If it's a bare roof, insulate the ceiling. The sun heats the shingles and plywood, and if you're staring at the underside of the plywood when you look up, then the blackbody radiation of that plywood is sending IR straight down at you. A radiant barrier is cheap and easy and makes a big difference, a ceiling with insulation in it is even better. Consider recessed lights in that ceiling to improve vertical clearance.
I have a Liftmaster wall-mount garage door opener in my new garage. They're a bit more expensive than traditional openers, but it frees up a ton of space that would otherwise be in the way of an engine hoist. It's also much quieter than other openers because it directly drives the torsion spring rod.
One thing I plan to do is get a piece of scrap shower wall to use as a whiteboard. It's very large so I can write things down for all three vehicles plus the kids can draw murals on it when I'm not using it.
When it comes to white board, I've made use of leftover magnetic sheeting from McMaster-Carr that was magnet on one side and semi-glossy white on the other. Dry-erase markers work great (both the marking part and the dry erasing part) plus they can be cut to various sizes and you can stick them anywhere (heh heh). I can slap the magnet onto a fender or whatever so I can make whatever notes I need and then just roll it up and take it with me to the store or slap it on the cabinets or tool chest.
I'm vary envious of the new garage light from Big Ass Fans. https://www.haikuhome.com/haiku-garage-series-light It's $400 and doesn't appear to have any outlets in it which are two downsides.
That light is overpriced for the output
kb58 wrote:JBasham wrote: ... if you want a battery version, the new Dewalt 20V is the real deal, hands down...Not trying to hijack this thread, but is it? It lists as "1500 in-lbs", or 125 ft-lbs, which seems kinda "meh" for getting off lug nuts tightened by the tire monkeys in the shops. I guess for more normal torque levels on your own car it's probably perfect.
700 foot-pounds constant, 1,200 foot-pounds breakaway. Part number DCF899B.
There may be another Dewalt 20v you're looking at.
In reply to Knurled:
I've updated my garage with two LED fluorescent style shop lights. Got them on sale at bimart for 38$ a piece. I wired them into the light switch in the garage. Now they can be way up on the ceiling and not need a cord to turn on. It's brighter than the sun in there. Total cost? 76$. Time? Took ten minutes. That's changing the ceiling light to an outlet and mounting them.
I love this idea!
In fact I went to the home despot tonight looking for said material but came up empty handed. I'll keep looking though...
mazdeuce wrote: They sell white board in 4x8 sheets at HD/Lowes for $30ish, maybe less, I haven't bought in a while. It's thin and breaks easily until you get it tacked up. Works great.
My new shop is lined walls and ceiling with white tin and it's great for light. Unfortunately, it's so tight that just a little welding can smoke me out. My next shop improvement is going to be a vent hood of some sort.
EvanB wrote:paranoid_android74 wrote:Mine is in a different room, I just close the door and it is much quieter.SkinnyG wrote: Retractable air line on the ceiling is good (I love air).Did you come up with a nifty way to cut down on the noise of the compressor? I rarely run mine because it is LOUD.
In the house garage, the compressor (I love air) is in its own insulated extension out the back of the garage, a pilot switch inside the garage so I can kill it easily (the switch lights when powered up). The new shop will eventually have its own separate enclosure outside, and a quieter compressor.
I will second all of these suggestions. Lots of lighting is really important, check out the lighting section on garagejournal, there are some sticky threads with information about cheap LED bulbs and housings that should be higher quality than the Costco ones without costing much.
I bought into the Milwaukee cordless power tool lineup, don't have air yet, don't know if I ever will. The heavy-duty half inch impact is a beast, & I also have a few cordless lights, a drill, a small impact, a sawzall, a vacuum & a right angle drill. Once you have a few batteries and chargers, you just seem to keep finding good deals on used bare tools that you can take advantage of.
Getting things up on the wall definitely helps a lot, so racks for tires, old kitchen cabinets or what-have-you, etc make a big difference.
Finally, I'm in Wisconsin where it's too cold in winter to do anything and I have terrible circulation so I'm really limited with touching metal, so I have insulated and added a gas heater but I also own this place. I will say that insulating the garage doors and the walls made a huge difference before I even got the heater in there. It was normal cold, and then it dropped to around 0 degrees Fahrenheit, and my garage was about 30 degrees all day. It's a pretty impressive temperature differential, and this is a detached garage.
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