Ballpark DIY cost to finish out 30x60 shop?

A home we're interested in has a 30x60 pole barn, we've not viewed it yet and all I know is it has concrete floors & electricity - but no insulation & not otherwise finished. It appears to have 10' walls, which would probably put the peak around 16'.

What would be the ballpark cost in materials to insulate it, put in some type of HVAC, and build a 16x20 "clean" work area inside? All DIY - or at least as much as reasonably possible.

My gut says $5k-$7k, but I don't have any real knowledge or experience to base that on.

Are you looking at bare insulation outside of the clean room, or drywall, or osb? How many sheets to cover the inside. For super duper rough costs, how many 2x4's does it take to build a 16x20 room? How much drywall to cover the inside. Draw it out. Make a list. Got to HD and write down prices. When you say HVAC, are you looking at a house size AC unit? Will the power in the building support that?
How do you want to insulate? Hang batts or blow stuff in behind the wall covering? What's the best way to insulate an existing pole building anyway?

In reply to mazdeuce:

All things I'm trying to figure out. At this point they're just rough figures to consider in addition to the purchase price of the property.

I'd like to insulate the whole building - not worried about drywall or finishing it, I just want to be able to keep it cool enough in summer to be bearable to work, and honestly I could probably get by with a salamander in winter.

For the room I'd probably want separate heat & a/c - maybe just an all-in-one wall-mount unit? - so I didn't have to cool the whole building.

$5-7k isn't going to get you very much. I think you could probably do the clean room for about that much, unless you were going REALLY bare bones, but if you're going to make that a real room with real walls, drywall, insulation, a door (those are important) and maybe a window or two, and some benches inside, that's going to pretty much eat your whole budget.

For comparison, my shop is 60 x 40 with a 10 x 16 office in one corner. The office was built about to the level of the Little Rascals treehouse and it was a near $2500 project, and that was using a lot of recycled materials.

My mains shop isn't really insulated very well, either and it's perfectly bearable in Florida summers with a couple good fans. In the winter I wear a hoodie and throw up a couple space heaters to fight off those chilly 50º nights. A wall shaker in the office keeps it whatever temp you need.

Also, how's the electrical? All the comfort in the world doesn't mater if your juice isn't up to snuff. How much service do you need? Compressors? Welders? Electrical would probably be my first priority budget-wise. get functional, then use that function to make upgrading easier.

In reply to JG Pasterjak:

Good to know the heat is bearable - I was anticipating the interior temp to be ~130 degrees around 4pm in late-July. I suppose the fact the roof is that tall would mean most of the really hot air would be way above head-height.

We've only driven by the property so far, so I have no idea how many amps the shop is on. We hope to get inside the place today & get more details. I know when I priced getting separate electric service into my garage in IL that was about $2k with me finishing all the interior wiring. I'd definitely need to set it up with 220v, and then upgrade my compressor & welder as they're both 110v. With the ceiling height, a lift seems possible too, but all that can be added in time.

At one point I'd priced out building a similarly sized studio inside our place in IL. Of course that was going to be double-walled, with 2x layers of drywall inside & out, and a floating floor. Materials were just under $4k. I have no idea how building materials have trended in the last couple years, but I expect a basic room approximately the same size it would only require about 1/2 the materials - then compensate for whatever the current pricing is.

You can spend $10k a year for multiple years getting a shop set up. Having built the Grosh, I'm able to consume about that much in raw materials doing things myself. In theory that should reduce as I finish things, but something else always pops up.

A good many lumber yards have estimating software for materials. Call them up and ask for a sales person, probably be happy to help, and take your money.

mazdeuce wrote: Are you looking at bare insulation outside of the clean room, or drywall, or osb? How many sheets to cover the inside. For super duper rough costs, how many 2x4's does it take to build a 16x20 room? How much drywall to cover the inside. Draw it out. Make a list. Got to HD and write down prices. When you say HVAC, are you looking at a house size AC unit? Will the power in the building support that? How do you want to insulate? Hang batts or blow stuff in behind the wall covering? What's the best way to insulate an existing pole building anyway?

Basically this. Although Googling an online estimator may also give you some rough numbers. Being a pole barn, you may need to frame out the walls to put in batten insulation as well as a place to secure receptacles.

Don't underestimate how important insulation is even in the summer. After insulating my ex's 26x28 garage as well as installing insulated garage doors (west facing), it was noticeably cooler. The garage doors used to turn into big radiant heaters with the sun beating on them - they were literally hot to touch (no - unfortunately, this did NOT work in the Winter...). It was the difference between a cheap window-rattler pissing in the wind and actually making a difference. Heat was a difference matter, but we had other issues.

Being in Illinois, you may want to drop the ceiling a bit to reduce the heating load which will require additional framing, but should also add some additional attic storage space. If you have natural gas on the property, look into running that to the garage.

HVAC will probably be your biggest expense, but you can do most other things before that, and use small plug-in stuff in your 10x20 space.

The last thing I can really add is after building a 8x16 shed (100% DIY labor; that still isn't quite finished), assume it will cost about 2x whatever you estimate.

Right now white steel panels are @2.50 per linear foot at 3' wide, so an easy math buck/sqft after you buy screws. For that building you have 140' of wall 10' tall, so 1400 sqft of wall is going to take a minimum of $1.4k to cover, with the inside of the roof sucking up another 2.5-3k if you decide to cover them. Tin walls allow you to use any insulation without being a fire starter, attach to whatever the outer skin attaches to, and is typically the cleanest and least expensive option I've found.

Around here spray foam is generally $2-4/ sqft for a couple inches thick and they generally find that after a couple of inches the increase in price doesn't get you much better insulation. So, spray form the ceiling and leave it raw for @12k. That leaves you a full open rafters area for lifts and that much more volume to heat and cool. If you give up on the height and run a ceiling at the height of the top of the walls in order to span the 30' you are going to need engineered I-trusses to attach the tin to, at @$40/ea, so on 2' centers you are looking for at least $4500 there with $2500 for the tin

Fiberglass batt is way earlier than blow in with horizontal purlins, and that is going to suck up an easy $.50/ sqft depending on thickness and sales.

So, tin lined with batt behind it for walls and a spray foam ceiling and you are @18k rough for the materials and tin lined with a flat ceiling is probably $13k rough as minimums.

You can get estimates for the room wherever, but since you can get the materials for a one car garage for @$2.5k that is probably a decently safe cap.

If you don't want to pay for the HVAC guy to do your installation the easiest answer for the HVAC is a package ac unit like a lot of businesses have on their roofs. You can often find them used and if so the price could vary widely.

In reply to Ian F:

Just to clarify - we're moving from IL to MS, SWMBO has been down here since August at her new gig & we're just now getting serious about house hunting. So keeping the new shop cool enough to be bearable in summer will be more of a concern than heating it in winter.

In reply to oldopelguy:

Good info. I'd not really considered any type of interior wall covering for the most part. I figured I could put something up behind the workbenches, but I'd be ok leaving the rest exposed - as long as whatever insulation I use doesn't add a significant fire hazard.

What about electric and plumbing?

Consider 3 phase if you need to upgrade the electrical service. Bigger cheaper motor on the compressor, harder to turn down that cheap lathe/mill that pops up.

We looked at the property today - and 3 others, one of which we had an offer accepted on.

The original building in question - while way larger than it appeared...there was a separate 2-car garage attached to the back of the pole barn, as well as a 2-car "carport" that was simply lacking a door from being a proper garage, and an RV/boat-sized carport on the other side. Unfortunately the house, while perfectly functional, was a complete letdown. The stagnant ditch next to the house wasn't exactly a selling point either.

No worries, while the house we made the offer on doesn't have a monster garage, it does have a 24'x30' garage, and separate 12'x24' workshop. It's within walking distance of SWMBO's work, the beach, and a couple of the bigger casinos too.

In reply to petegossett:

Look into the spray in foam solutions, it's honestly going to be your cheapest option for that size.

petegossett wrote: No worries, while the house we made the offer on doesn't have a monster garage, it does have a 24'x30' garage, and separate 12'x24' workshop. It's within walking distance of SWMBO's work, the beach, and a couple of the bigger casinos too.

Sounds like you found a good one. A lot better than my 12'x20' garage.

So now you have a garage AND a workshop? Sounds like it's working out OK.

In reply to mazdeuce:

Thanks! Hopefully everything works out - I know how much can go wrong between now & closing.