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Steel Framed barn anyone?
I have a steel framed barn building. It is not as tall as the one that you are talking about, but I do have storage above 8 ft interior rooms. I think the roof peak is about 16 ft. My barn is 30X40 and is insulated in the enclosed areas.
I am getting ready to put in another building that will have a 14' tall door and will be about 18' at the roof peak. It will be 40 X 60 steel construction. This building will not have any interior columns and the current 30X40 does not have any either.
My last custom machine shop building that I built, I did with conventional construction to match my house on the same lot. It had 15' tall interior walls and was fully drywalled inside with heating and AC. It was VERY expensive compared to the steel buildings. ($60 per square foot) It had a hoist/trolley built into the structure, but it was not worth the extra cost.
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Steel Framed barn anyone?
I would recommend looking into the steel building kits that are readily available. (Butler, General Steel, etc) The parts will be cut to size and all you have to do is bolt the building together. I believe that a simple 40 X 60 kit with a couple of overhead doors was only about $15K. That includes all structural metal, covering panels, doors and so forth. You do not have to shop for trusses or special parts. There are Internet sites where you can custom design and order your building kit.
The concrete pad and labor are the major additional costs, but those costs are insignificantly different and lower with the kit compared to building out of lengths of pipe and angle.
I like the idea about the pipe for running cords and hose. I have chosen to make drops from the ceiling, but those sometimes interfere with the forklift.
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Steel Framed barn anyone?
I think that the problem with the compressed air that Murf was referring to is that the dewpoint of the water vapor in the compressed air is higher than the dewpoint of the air that was compressed. What that means is that in many (most) cases, compressing air will cause liquid water to settle out in the bottom of the storage tank and in the distribution lines. This happens when the dewpoint of the compressed air is higher than the room temperature.
Plastic lines will help with rusting in the lines, but won't directly solve the condensation problem that can damage pneumatic tools.
I use a drain valve on my storage tank that vents the water everytime that the compressor motor operates. It bleeds as such a slow rate (5 CFH) that there is virtually no compressed air capacity lost. I also use a refrigerated air dryer (compressed air dehumidifier) between the compressor and the distribution lines. Most people will probably not need to go with the refrigerated dryer, but the automatic drain is really worth doing. If you can keep your reservoir of compressed air drained of most water, it will help a lot in the rest of your system.
Taking air taps off the TOP of the distribution pipes and adding drip legs will take care of most moisture problems in a normal system.
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Steel Framed barn anyone?
Where I live, there is only one type of special PVC pipe that is rated for compressed air service. I believe that it has a special green color to distinguish it from ordinary PVC. It also has its own high strength fittings.
PEX should work, but I don't think that it is approved for used with compressed air (only water) here. For short runs we can use the nylon or PE hose with compression fittings, but it is rated for several hundred PSI. Losses are high with small PE and Nylon tubing, so you must keep the lengths short.
I go with copper, because it is virtually the same price as the special code rated PVC and was only a little bit harder to install.
I have seen people use regular 1/2 PVC to set up air lines, but I can tell you that it is a very bad idea. Even though it may be rated for several hundred PSI, some plastics like normal PVC fracture, splinter and release the pressurized contents violently and may propel splinters of plastic at dangerous velocities. I also have my doubts about some of the quality of fittings at some local home supply stores. In a recent water system I installed, 100% of the female adapters that I used on PVC eventually failed. I had to replace all of them with male adapters which work and metallic female pipe couplings. The consequences are higher for pipe failure with compressed air, so the ratings in the code are much more rigorous.
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