SpongeBob's New Home

[mhughes01]

(05-15-2014 20:18)cmillsap Wrote:  David,

I'm a little cornfused (sic) after looking at the pics and drawings. Why are you changing ingress and egress from the end to the side of the building? Is there a good reason for not continuing the existing roof slope direction over 16' high walls? I'm not clear on how high the existing exterior walls are but it looks like they are already high enough to allow the H3-45 to clear. It appears you already have a paved drive that could be converted to the floor. Granted, it wouldn't be a drive through but you wouldn't have to install new driveways and it would be less expensive to build. Really, ceiling clearance doesn't need to be all that great. Think about it, how often you would need to access the top of the bus to do maintenance anyway.

Here are a couple of pics showing my bus under a 16' ceiling although the H3-45 will be about a foot taller. As you know, this is new construction and a little tight on the width as it is only 16' wide (15' less walls).

I am adding 2" of reinforced concrete to the 4" depth of the driveway portion where the bus will be rolling over to enter and exit the garage.


Chuck

I can't quite align David's Future-state drawing with the current state photos to make sense of where things are as the existing two sliding doors aren't shown, and there are no end views of the current building on the drawing.

Re the pit. If I recall, mine is around 5' 5" at its deepest, and has a slight slope to the sump end. It is optimized for me for both head clearance and reach to suspension components. I have had a couple of feet of water in it in wet years when The sump has been unplugged for one reason or another. (I've yet to run wire through the pre-installed conduits into the pit).

I plug it in, and a half an hour later the water is gone. My building is up on a couple of feet of solid fill as well, making the ground water that much lower, and it is highly variable where we live. Some years, a fence post hole dug on Saturday will be full on Sunday, other years, not a drop in it in two weeks.

I've yet to install my stairs, so just use a step ladder when the pit is needed. It's not the full length of our bus either. I didn't know I was buying a 43' Bird when I built it, and I thought about making it longer, but glad I didn't as I like to park my baler at the far end of it, and that is hard to back up perfectly straight for more than about 30'. I had optimized it for the wheel base of our old Empress pusher plus a bit to get in and out. I mainly built it for family cars and the farm tractors, and it's nice to have a non pit area at either end. I always worry about driving over the 2x6 boards that cover it with anything (those will be replaced by something much better some day - it's in the "job jar"). Certainly I never get near them with anything heavier than me, or maybe a quad or Harley if I'm pressed for space to maneuver (my shop needs a serious cleaning).

Practically speaking, if I am changing oil, I back the ass end over it, if I'm doing front end stuff as well, I have to turn it around. If I was doing it again, now owning the bird, I might build a 50' pit. You never know how handy they are until you have one,mor what a pain in the butt they are to maneuver around either! We actually park our bus on the other side (non pit) side of the shop, but at some point, when I get the mezzanine up, the Bird will live over the pit.