New Building Construction

[Victorian Signs]

Well after 20 yrs in the sign business, I am living the dream, presently in the process of building a 60' x 170'
sign studio, my office areas/showroom are 43' x 60', as always, I have valued any and all responds that come from the hard working folks @ signs101, I am looking for any ideas, or suggestions, on maybe how to set up my new showroom, to showcase my business, and products, again..........

Thanks In Advance.........Bob

 

[Craig Sjoquist]

wow never did dream this big hand lettering

 

[Z SIGNS]

Congrats to you.That's a nice size space and you got something to show for 20 years work.Set up your showroom to display the work that got you there.

 

[SignManiac]

There are a couple of previous threads on showrooms. I put up some photos of my recent setup. Very nice building you have there. What kind of signs do you make? That would best determine what yours should reflect.

 

[rjssigns]

If I were building a new shop I would have a "filthy room" completely sealed off from everything else. All cutting, routering, grinding, anything that makes dust, a mess, or smells would be in that room. It would have its own HVAC with make up air too.

I would also have a real, up to code paint booth.

Biggest thing though would be some type of fire suppression.

 

[SightLine]

Spend a few extra and install the most energy efficient things you can now. It can pay off in the long run. We recently moved/bought our new place. I'm in the long process of updating things to try and reduce our energy costs. The electric bill here is more than the rent was in our old place.... Current project is upgrading the lights in the install area of the shop. Right now there are about 30 8 foot T12 (2 8' bulbs each) fixtures on the ceiling. They are constantly giving problems (several need ballasts - will work but kills bulbs in a week). Bulbs and ballasts for those are getting more expensive every day and they are horribly inefficient. As one dies now, even just a bulb out, I'm yanking the old ballast and converting the dual 8' setup to dual 4' T5HO. Savings of about 50w per fixture, double the bulb life, and much easier to handle 4' bulbs. Actually T5 is closer to about 45" and are incredibly skinny, even thinner than T8.

There are a few viable LED options out now as well but they are still pretty pricey. I have been swapping the outside floods to 30w LED fixtures though. Not quite as bright as the old mercury vapor fixtures but plenty enough. Also recently replaced the two ancient 2.5ton air units with much newer 14 seer 3 ton units - still need to eventually replace the big 10 ton unit.

Check with your local state and utilities. They will likely have some incentives and/or rebates you can take advantage of for new more expensive energy efficient things that will reduce the cost. Our electric is paying $25 of the cost per fixture on the old T12 ones I'm retrofitting to T5.

 

[FireSprint.com]

If I were building a new shop I would have a "filthy room" completely sealed off from everything else. All cutting, routering, grinding, anything that makes dust, a mess, or smells would be in that room. It would have its own HVAC with make up air too.

This is awesome

Very nice building!

 

[Gino]

Nice start.

How about a drawing of the insides, where windows are going, bathrooms, light sources and such ?? The equipment you have will determine where certain things go and what you might need. Will you have room for a second floor or at least a loft around certain areas ?? Do you need any 3 phase ?? Will you in the future ?? Instead of using valuable floor space, we built a loft on two sides of our vinyl room. The loft juts out 8' and goes down 70' along our front wall, then turns the corner to continue for another 35'. It's wasted space up there, so why not use it ?? Besides, it has given us more space down below, but we're still fumbling around down here. In the back room we have a small area of about 12' by 40' which also turn a corner for another 35'. We were just talking about adding a loft in the garage for things we rarely use, but can't get rid of that aren't too heavy. We have right around 10,200 in our building, just about like yours, except we also have a basement where we store signs and displays for customers and charge them a nominal fee. The basement alone... brings in an additional $450 a month between the few customers with things down there.

So, think about space from top to bottom and be careful in placing certain things.
​

 

[SignManiac]

Another space saver is steel storage racks. I have several that are 12'h. and a fork lift to put heavy loads up high. Most valuable thing I have is a big commercial paint booth. I couldn't do what I do without it. My messy tool section is on the opposite end away from the paint booth.

 

[Victorian Signs]

New-Building-Construction

Well folks, here is my interior layout, I do have about 3200 sq.ft of upper level storage, scirrors trusses, so walking is a breeze, will have (4) zones of radient floor heat, natural gas, 3-phase electric, and finally a nice showroom to display floor, wall, ceiling graphics, as well of display units, I am keeping the dust from the CNC Routers separate, but with overhead door for easy transport, coming and going, again, any thoughts are greatly appreciated...........

 

[OldPaint]

with 170 foot long building, and as you have with the showroom/offices on one end.......makes for a lot of walking. i see this drawing an rendering from the builder............have him do one with showroom/offices in the middle, and a 10 foot connecting hall way to each side at the back of the office/showroom space. you loose 10ft of showroom/office but workflow is better.