Building a Shop - Construction Permit Complete

For a project that started in December of 2024, I am surprised it took so long for the shop to reach "complete" for it's initial build permit. Today, I'll review some highlights and touch on a Hapy adventure.

 

The Doors

shop permitted

I had an entire post about the doors (See Building a Shop - Doors) where I detailed almost buying the wrong size big door. Then, we got things right. That big door faces north. Next to it, our contractor guy Ray installed a basic HomeDepot-special 36" (1 meter) wide person door. That door is the only door with an external-facing lock. Moving around to the west side, we have a 10-foot (3.3m) wide opening. In the Ghost of GoRo post, I mentioned the west-facing barn doors that Ray built. I will give them more detail below. The southern opening also got a barn-door style install, though the actual doors are a little different.

 

Ray's Custom Doors

barn doors by seating area

I'll start with the west-facing big barn doors. First, we sourced an external barn door rail system (~$300US) capable of supporting a few hundred pounds. The opening had a double header, so most of the rail was mounted to that, through the exterior skin. In order to create sufficient space for a door to hang, the rail install includes a small block of 2x4 between the rail and the outer skin at each bolt-point. The header only spanned the opening, so on either side, from the inside, Ray added a 2x4 on the inside for the mounting to attach to. The south-facing smaller doors had a similar barn rail system installed. We followed the pattern of using 2x4 blocks to create the offset, and using 2x4 planks inside for the mount to attach to. Unlike the west-facing door, the south-facing did not have a double header, so the entire rail needed the 2x4's installed.

southern doors

With the rails in, Ray shifted to construction of the doors. All 4 doors were framed with Sun-wood. This is exterior-qualified wood, but lighter than cedar and not chem-y like pressure treated. Because the west-facing doors are bigger, they were assembled with brackets to hold them square. And, they had angled planks added for strength against twisting or flexing. The south-facing doors were joined with biscuits, and did not have the angled planks added. Once the frames were ready and test fit, the west-side doors had siding attached so they match the building. The southern doors were skinned with clear plexiglass. This will allow the little bit of winter light we get from the southern sky to leak into the shop.

Once the doors were assembled, Ray re-hung them, and installed interior grab handles to operate them. On both sets of doors, we added guides into the concrete so the doors would not move away from the building while in place or traveling. Last, I added a lock to each door so they could not be opened from the outside. I need to prime and paint the south-facing doors, but they are operational as-is.

 

Inspected

southern doors

When I had the building inspected in August of 2025, the inspector asked for 2 things: install the doors and add a landing for the person-door. With the doors now complete, and the landing added in September (See Building a Shop - Steel Building Erected), I was ready for an inspection. So, on Monday I ordered the inspection. The inspector checked the boxes on Tuesday and now I have an officially completed building (per drawings, spec's and inspections). What does this really mean? Well, in terms of the permit and inspections, it means I get to pay taxes on the land improvement, and my home owner's insurance just went up. It also means that anything contained within that shop is now covered under my home-owner's insurance and if something catastrophic happens to the building, I'm covered insurance-wise.

 

What does this mean in terms of my personal use of it? Very little, frankly. I needed the doors so I could lock it. Once lockable, I can start storing tools out there, so I can work on a car in the shop and not walk the 40 meters from the shop to my tools in the garage and then the 40 meters back again. I have already repaired 3 cars in that shop with a 4th (Astra needs her alternator replaced) heading in on Friday. having a lockable shop means I can do that work that much faster because my tools will be right there.

 

Retrospective

where we began

Being an advocate of both Agile and Continuous Process Improvement (CPI), I believe that some kind of look-back when a project reaches its end is healthy and helps you and others make better decisions in the future. So, with that in mind, what did I learn that I haven't already mentioned?

 

     Permits: I covered most of the discoveries along the way in the linked permits post. Get Clean Water Services involved early and make sure you manage both erosion during the construction as well as any mud getting tracked into the street. Either can got your job flagged and then things get much harder.

 

    Survey: The "106" inspection is all about proper placement of the building relative to your plan and the property lines. If you don't know where your lines are and can't figure it out, you will need a survey, or you may not pass the first inspection. I split this inspection into 2 visits, with the first being informal wholly focused on the site location. This was Vai-the-concrete-guy's idea and he was 100% right.

 

excavated

    Bidding: get lots of bids. I had 3 and had I gone with one of them, it would have cost me ~$5k more for the flatwork. Part of every conversation about the flatwork included a conversation about the excavation. For every bid, the excavation was a meaningful amount, even though it's not terribly time consuming, especially for out project. This might be something we could have done ourselves, but the schedule worked out better having Vai do it all. Last, make sure every bidder fully understands all of the parts of the plan. Vai had a brain-fade about the carve-outs for the lift and had I not asked about it after they ran the compactor, there could have been an issue. This served as a reminder that without a designated general contractor, YOU are the GC.

 

    Inspections: While Clean Water Services did verify that the erosion control measures were in place, and made sure that the storm outflow was planned for, the adherence to that plan was not in any inspection.Does this mean it isn't needed? No, nor does it mean that it won't be part of your project, it just wasn't part of mine and I managed the storm water with french drains once I was unable to attach gutters. So, I have a rock pit in my yard without purpose. The inspector can be your friend. Case-in-point, I would not have even known about an "Ufer" if the inspector had not mentioned it and then approved it. I now have a passing-electrical ground because of the inspector.

 

cleared and framed for concrete

    Concrete: I asked the concrete contractor specifically what, if anything, I needed to do once the concrete was poured. He said "nothing", and I got surface cracks because it did not cure uniformly. The correct answer is "try to keep the surface wet with a garden hose for a couple of days". Then, the top does not dry too fast relative to the concrete beneath. 

 

    Oregon Carports: these folks were great from start to finish. They were easy to work with, the plans were spot-on for the permits and inspections and the installers were fast and nice guys. It would have been nice to know that a gutter could not be installed without retro-fitting, but at this point we have weathered a full wet season easily.

 

    Driveway: When I planned the shop, I knew that the ground sloped downhill south to north but I did not account for the west-to-east down slope. Topology matters. After the steel building was up, I had over 1/3m (an American foot) drop off at the southeast corner. This led to many hours of hauling and spreading rock. Since my labor is free, this did not factor into final costs, but it may factor into your plans.

 

    Overhead Doors of Portland: Similar to Oregon Carports, the overhead guys were great to work with. They found us a door that just smashes for less than half of what I would have paid for new. They stopped by late last week to install a header board over the door and install the weather seals. Both after my check had long cleared. We will be using these guys again.

steel skeleton

 

    Ray: Ray is a star. He has been a contractor building things since he was a teenager. Now, he's getting near retirement and is not taking on any new customers. So, those of us lucky to have worked with him in the past are blessed to still have him, at least for a little while. One of Ray's greatest strengths is looking at a project without filters. He can imagine what you are looking to do and make it happen. He built the barn doors, yes, but he also built our kitchen with salvaged cabinets. 

 

Timeline

For history's sake, and in response to my "how did this take so long?" question above, here's the time line for the build, start to end. There was a break in the action over the winter Oct2025-Mar2026 while we financially recovered a little bit from the costs incurred so far. We needed to get onto Ray's calendar and figure out the doors a bit too.

 

2024-August: Boo and I decide to build a shop and figure out about where we want it

2024-December: steel building ordered from Oregon Carports

2025-January: permit started with Washington County (WC) ($700)

2025-March: Clean Water Services (CWS) involvement in plan

2025-April: permit accepted, initial payment of ~$1k

2025-May: self-performed survey, soliciting concrete bids; locating and placing "straw wattle"

2025-June: CWS inspection, excavation, WC site inspection, concrete poured, WC "106" inspection 

2025-July: steel building installed on foundation

2025-August: french drain install around foundation, WC "199" inspection fail

2025-September: rock and gravel of drain, north-side access

2025-October: move 4 cars before rains hit

-- work suspended to save some money -- 

2026-March: west-side barn doors, north-side person door installed

2026-April: north-side overhead door installed

2026-May: south-side barn doors installed, WC "199" inspection pass

 

Costs

Similar to the timeline, I'll detail the costs as I can find them. Of course these were all in as-of-that-day US$. With TrumpTarrifs and trumpflation, your numbers may vary widely from these.

        0: Advise from WashCo, inspectors and Clean Water Services

  1800: Permits with Washington County

23000: steel building from Oregon Carports

15500: excavation, framing, concrete pouring, incl $500 for the concrete pump rental

  7500: north-facing big door from Overhead Door of Portland, incl install and opener

  4800: all other doors, incl hardware, custom build, installs

    800: french drain materials, gravel

    500: large rocks for storm outflow

53900: TOTAL

 

From these numbers, I conclude that when you think about building a shop, the cost of the building itself could be less than half the overall costs. I paid more for permits than I did for rock and gravel, which is also interesting. The 4 doors cost almost half of what the overall building cost too. I could have had fewer openings, or installed a solid overhead door to lower costs, but I'm glad I didn't. Also it is worth noting that this shop has no electrical yet. I expect that will be a 5-figure as well since I will need a trench to run power, a panel, and then lots of cabling contained in conduit. Eek. I do not expect that work to take place any time soon. Instead, I will operate with a long extension cord from the house for as long as I can manage.

 

Hapy Shifting

In my last post, I celebrated Hapy shifting so well. That turned out to be premature. The next day, I lost the ability to put Hapy into gear and had to limp home in rush hour from around the corner.. in 3rd gear. One hot clutch later I was back in front of the garage and there he sat for a few days until I could get a look at him. Of all the things that could come apart, I did not expect the bolt going through the pin in the shift linkage at the front of the transaxle. In the image on the right, it's the screw in sub-component "P". I expected the grub-screw ("R" in the image) to have fallen out because I could not remember if I had run the bailing wire through or not. Turned out I did, and the grub screw was doing fine.

 

shifter diagram

I pulled the pin out and rummaged through my drawers of fasteners and found a 11mm bolt that fit. After around 20 minutes of wrestling, which consists of slightly moving the shifter in the cab, getting back under the bus, test fitting and repeating until you can muscle the pin through the hard plastic bits in the cage AND through the end of the linkage running from the front. This time, I put blue thread-lock on the bolt added a washer and sent it into the pin. I torqued it down as best I could considering my body position and the lack of something firm to grab on the opposite end. I used a pair of pliers to hold it.

 

Hapy is back to shifting normally again.

 

Wrap Up

After Ray finished the doors and I had locks on them all, I sat in one of the rear seats from C's new mini-van / stealth-camper we set in the shop as a seating area. I took a moment to just absorb. We so often will not take those minutes, choosing instead to rush off to the next thing. I sat for a few minutes, radio playing softly in the background and simply looked around at my shop. I really can't believe it. After so many years of lying in puddles, sliding on my back on wood chips or just outside in the rain, I cannot imagine what it will be like to work inside, on a hard dry surface come winter. Even now, as we head into summer, I will be working in the shade, on cool concrete, not hot tarmac. Of course, between then and now, I have a great deal of stuff to move and organize, but as of today, the shop is open and I can't wait to get out there.

Thanks, as always, for following along-