Page 2 of 2 FirstFirst 12
Results 11 to 19 of 19

Thread: A Hangar Design Thread

  1. #11
    FlyingRon's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2011
    Location
    NC26 (Catawba, NC)
    Posts
    2,627
    Quote Originally Posted by Frank Giger View Post
    I find all the requirements hilarious when I look at what I'm renting out at the County airport.

    Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining one little bit - but they are just metal frames with banging sheeting bolted to them with even louder banging sliding doors at the slightest breeze. And they cautioned me against running my air compressor at the same time as other equipment as it will pop the circuit breaker for the whole row of hangars.
    I'm happy my t-hangar at CJR has a 30A breaker for each unit.

  2. #12
    Eric Page's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2011
    Location
    Toledo, WA
    Posts
    316
    Thanks to all who've answered so far. I'll reply to a few specifically:

    Quote Originally Posted by Byron J. Covey View Post
    Do a search for workshops.
    Excellent idea that hadn't occurred to me. I'll do that.

    Quote Originally Posted by WLIU View Post
    The first thing you need to do is see what the building codes are for your locale. Look at "barns".
    You're right, I need to check building codes. This is in a rural neighborhood that has a through-the-fence agreement with a county airport. There are several sizable hangars already built that no one would mistake for barns, so I don't believe building codes will be an issue, but I'll check.

    Quote Originally Posted by Wilfred View Post
    ...most building codes require concrete floors
    I'm definitely planning a concrete floor, as this will be a workshop for building at least one airplane.

    Quote Originally Posted by FlyingRon View Post
    The floor is polished concrete with hydronic heat.
    Beautiful place, Ron. Congrats! I would love to include hydronic heat, but I have nightmares about the cost. Do you recall what it added to your construction bill? Did you have someone design the system for you? What's the heat source? Where did you get the manifolds, pumps, etc.? Did you have PEX embedded in the slab? Is there insulation under the slab? Is the system controlled by a thermostat based on air temp, or slab temp?

    Quote Originally Posted by Mike M View Post
    Don't even say the WORD hangar. {...} And for darn sure don't pave the "ramp"...
    Hmm, I hadn't thought of this. As FlyingRon pointed out in a later post, I'm not too sure there's any disguising its purpose as a hangar when the building inspector comes by, but your point is a valid one. I don't need or want a bunch of cost-drivers intended for commercial buildings. As for paving, sadly, I have no choice; it's required by neighborhood covenants.

    Quote Originally Posted by Kim View Post
    Not sure how hard the ground freezes where you are...
    As far as I know, floating slabs are pretty common here for this kind of building. We do get frost on the roof sometimes, but western WA isn't known for hard freezes like in MN, so heaving isn't a problem here. That said, I think most houses here are built on foundation footings/walls with a crawlspace, not slabs, so maybe I'm wrong...

    Again, many thanks to all contributors; you've given me much to think about. If anyone else has anything to add, please chime in!
    Eric Page
    Building: Kitfox 5 Safari | Rotax 912iS | Dynon HDX
    Member: EAA Lifetime, AOPA, ALPA
    ATP: AMEL | Comm: ASEL, Glider | ATCS: CTO
    Map of Landings

  3. #13

    Join Date
    Jun 2012
    Location
    Missouri
    Posts
    44
    Lots of good information so far. I recently built a 50x50 hangar in a small rural Missouri town. They are all basically pole barn or steel frame barn type buildings. I simply went to the local lumber company, and they had software to design the building and order the material from a local steel company. The cost of the building materials in 2012 was $9800. I was fortunate there was a family at church that was out of work, and two of the boys had worked for a pole barn company in the past. I saved quite a bit by contracting the work out to them. I also had an Amish barn crew option as well, but they were booked up for quite some time. Total cost of building (materials and labor) in 2012 was $29K. My door was a folding door that cost approximately $4K. The one mistake I made was to not put a significant footer under the door. In hard winters, I have had some trouble with frost heave at the door. A common mistake is to not put a vapor barrier under the floor. Make sure you do or you will have condensation issues on your floor. If I had to do it over again, I would make my own door. At our local airpark, most of the residents have welded their own frames and use the pivot raising type door with concrete counter weight. I contracted out for electrical service to the hangar at approximately $1K. I wired the inside myself, with new commercial grade LED 48 inch lights and outlets along one side of the hangar.

    Reference radiant heat, I have it in my shop at home, and a house I built in the mountains of WV. I installed it in both places. My shop is 50x30 and the total cost of installation was approximately $1.5K. The PEX is tie wrapped to the wire mesh. I use a commercial grade gas fired hot water heater to provide the hot water. I work in a tee shirt all winter long. There is an excellent company in the Spokane area that will be very helpful in design etc. Google BlueRidgeCompany radiant heating and it will pop up. If you do this, you will need to insulate under the floor and the hangar as well. Even if you don't heat or insulate the hangar, you will definitely want to insulate the ceiling/roof. This will keep condensation from forming and falling on you.

    Email or PM if you have any questions.

    Best,
    Jerry

  4. #14
    FlyingRon's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2011
    Location
    NC26 (Catawba, NC)
    Posts
    2,627
    The hydronic heat is shared between the hangar and the rest of the house. The design was provided by the heating contractor (not sure it cost me anything). My neighbor however, did a system himself (I helped a little). You can see this company for the information (this is who he bought his stuff from) http://www.radiantcompany.com/.

    It's not hard. You put a reflective barrier down (it's just thick fabric, and boy I can tell you standing on it on a hot day and then stepping off it, it is doing something!) then the rebar mesh and you just loop the tubing tied to the mesh and then your concrete guy comes in and pours the slab. You can just just about anything to heat the water and about the only other thing is a circulating pump. I could show you my seven zoned circulating system (odd I don't have a picture of that) but it's not overly complex. Thermostat turns on the pump, water goes around. If any of the seven pumps are turned on, so does the heat pump to heat the water.

  5. #15
    Anymouse's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2011
    Location
    2A2
    Posts
    267
    Recently (like a bit more than a year ago) built a house/hangar. Two things are for sure; 1.) You can always use more space (bigger hangar) and, 2.) You can never have a big enough door.

    I did the insulation thing and most of my neighbors are envious. At least the ones that decided to cut cost by not insulating are. The spray on type is what I would recommend.

    As I mentioned above, the size of the door can never be too big. When I was shopping airpark homes, I was astounded by how many people restricted their market by installing tiny doors on big hangars. Just because the size works for you, it doesn't necessarily mean it will work for the guy that would otherwise had bought your hangar a few years down the line.

    I'd recommend a walk through door as well.

    BTW... Schweiss has a nifty database of aircraft sizes to help you figure out the door size you'll need...

    https://www.bifold.com/airplane-size-chart.php
    https://www.bifold.com/floatplanes.php
    Someday I'll come up with something profound to put here.

  6. #16
    FlyingRon's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2011
    Location
    NC26 (Catawba, NC)
    Posts
    2,627
    I would definitely insulate even if I didn't have heat. My hangar is spray foamed (and rigid on the door) but by garage is not. I curse myself every time I work in the garage in the summer.

  7. #17
    Derswede's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2015
    Location
    Central NC
    Posts
    39
    We built two 40x60 hangers. Family job (that is why I had kids!! My fathers comment when the folks saw a couple of teenagers hanging steel). poured floor with vapor barrier, lots of rebar, and one corner (for the vertical mill) with 16" of concrete and four steel posts driven 5' into the ground. Steel framed, roof trusses with 1' x 18' high vertical I beams in place of a built up truss (more wingspan room, gave us over 2' more space). Insulated, worked well, doors were wood frames, covered in a heavy plastic both sides to give a bit of air gap for insulation. On the bottom, a roller supported the far end of the door, and let it open/close easier. With both Monocoupes and the Waco ARE inside, it did get tight, but it worked. The doors were an experiment, but after the first year, my dad said, "it works", so we left it as it was. Lasted for 5+ years after my fathers death, they disassembled the hangers a few years later, still in good shape, and they built a pair of 100x100 hangers for the new FBO. Our hangers were barns to the inspector, and that was per his comment. (site was on the airport, my dad did not complain about that, insurance was much cheaper). Check with the locals, many times there will be one inspector that the contractors prefer, as he has common sense.

    When they cleared the property for the new hangers, the guy on the big Cat dozer complained about how hard it was to get that foundation broken up and moved. Never a crack in the concrete. Not bad for a family built hanger.

    Derswede

  8. #18
    Eric Page's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2011
    Location
    Toledo, WA
    Posts
    316
    Thanks very much for the additional info, especially for the door and radiant heat links. All of that will be very useful!
    Eric Page
    Building: Kitfox 5 Safari | Rotax 912iS | Dynon HDX
    Member: EAA Lifetime, AOPA, ALPA
    ATP: AMEL | Comm: ASEL, Glider | ATCS: CTO
    Map of Landings

  9. #19
    Does anyone have contact info for Byron J. Covey? I note he posted as a Guest. Reason: I'm looking to build a cinder block and truss hangar (potentially using the Horton Stack Doors) and would love to get some pictures of his and further info. Anyone else have a cinder block and truss hangar? Thx. Brad.

Tags for this Thread

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •