Neat project made from salvage
 

Here are a few pictures of a project my friend has been working on for about a year.

He bought a little old house at the end of a country road, right on the water. He's going to be doing a substancial renovation & addition, but first he needed a workshop.

The really cool thing about the shop is that it is made of ~75% salvage & used materials. He started by buying all the rough cut lumber from a guy out in the sticks, for $600. I helped load it and truck it to his place... 3 trips in the pouring rain. He got the aluminum roofing from a guy who was taking a barn down. He got the windows & doors out of the classifieds. He got plywood sheathing from a company that had used it to board up buildings during construction. He bought the underground power line from a building that was demolished. The stainless chimney & cap was even bought used for $100.

The whole shop cost $4500 to build.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1191241930.jpg


http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1191241944.jpg


http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1191241958.jpg

It turned out pretty incredible... I'd be happy if my HOUSE was trimmed as nicely.

Neat experiment with used materials too. It took him a lot longer as he hunted for bargains, but he had a fun time chasing deals. Anyone else have any projects that incorporated salvage materials?

Neat project - congrats on that!

I dunno about the aesthetic choice of a giant chrome exhaust flue punching out the side of a wood-paneled wall though.

Yeah he struggled with that. He really wanted a nice stone chimney, but he needs to be able to move the building in a few years. Once his additions are complete, he's going to move the shop closer to the water.

Really nice, can we see some shots of the inside? What are the dimensions?

Given his goals though - the choice makes more sense. Nice job overall though, all things considered.

How about a pair of solar collectors made with beer cans?

The two units are feeding hot air into about 2 tons of rock ballast I installed twenty years ago when I built the sunroom on the front of the house. (I finished the collectors three weeks ago. Does that qualify me as a procrastinator?)
I picked up the cans at the local recycling depot, drilled out the ends with a hole saw and glued them together to make tubes. In fact, the hardwood frame holding the curved lucite covers are sawn from hardwood salvaged from the frame of an old love seat. Does that give me extra points?

Anyway, the set-up heats air to about 40 degrees C (I see temps between 20 at start-up around 9 AM a high of 60 or so by 12:30 and I shut it down around suppertime. I have managed to heat the rock ballast to around 20.5 degrees C so far. The warmth from that heats the sunroom at night.
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1191244708.jpg

Les

I think it's ~18 x 22

No pics of the inside, it isn't done yet anyway. He's putting down 1" styrofoam insulation then 3/4" plywood on the floor, so everything's shuffled around.

Any woodworkers would get a kick out of his tool collection; lots of antique planes, beautiful old General stationary tools, and even a 120 yr old hand cranked mortise & tenon drill for post & beam construction. For an intercom to the house, he's got two 80 yr old hand crank telephones.

Holy $chit Les, we have to talk. I've been thinking about building some of those panels for my south facing wall. I saw some other plans that used aluminum dryer vent hose, some guy in NS had a complete DIY guide but I can't find it.

Been looking at this style too:
http://www.builditsolar.com/Projects/SpaceHeating/solar_barn_project.htm

Jake,

These were a blatant rip-off of a unit called Cansolair, made in Nfld and marketed in NB by a firm in Sackville, I think. I think I mentioned in May I was building them, (maybe not). The Cansolair units are steel shells with styrofoam backs. Mine are 1/4 in ply sides, 1 inch styrofoam backs, with Lucite covers held, as mentioned above, by a hardwood molding I ripped out on the table saw. I sized them to fit the space by the windows. They would be more efficient as one large unit. I made the unit in 2 halves so they could flank the picture window. All plumbing was achieved using 4 inch PVC. I used a hot air in-pipe booster fan to move the air. One of them is connected to the other with insulated cross tubes between the upper and lower pleniums, the one on your right in the pic mates to two pipes peircing the wall and connected to the piping running into my rock ballast. A couple of digital indoor/outdoor thermometers with strategically placed probes allow me to monitor plenium temp and the temp of air returning from the ballast. I managed to get a 3 degree C rise in about two weeks.
PM me if you need more details. There are no 'plans' These evolved as I went along. I used aluminum cans for two reasons: price and they have thinner walls. I think that gives faster heat transfer.

Les

Very nice job on the shop. The great thing about many old materials is they are often better. My father in law just bought a 100 year old house that he intends to tear down, but he's pretty certain it has good old oak floors. If so, they're getting planed down and going in my house.:)

Very nice! Need to do the solar collector myself.

Jake, I really like the design of his shop. Were these from store bought plans or did he design it himself?

Designed it himself on napkins & bits of paper. Only area where he got advice from a pro was designing the trusses so he could use them for storage.