(Topic ID: 148092)
Nashville, TN
I have thought about this as well and figured it would be about 20k also. as soon as I get some other projects completed I will probably make this happen.
That's how Tim Arnold got started with the PBHoF.
If you start your own museum that would be cool. My inlaws live in Eustis 
faz
MrBellMan has a stick-built one, about 20 x 20 I think. He loves it. I'm tempted to get a smaller one, maybe 200 sq ft.
I'm eye-balling pre-fab ones from this company:
I've been doodling floor plans for the past couple weeks for a building to hold around 50 pins and a workshop. A bit of a pipe dream, but there aren't really many houses around here large enough to fit a decent collection at a reasonable price. So I was thinking a smaller, cheaper house and then possibly building a large workshop and game room.
I was thinking both a heated floor for the concrete slab, HVAC, and plenty of insulation. Two stories--tall enough down the center of the roof to be normal ceiling height with either a gable or grambrel roof. I figure if most of the cost goes into the slab and roof, I might as well just make it a bit taller for a big jump in floor space. The only problem with that is then needing some sort of lift between floors. Another pinsider did this, though:
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/pinball-life-elevator#post-337288
Then I was also thinking I might be able to do something like the sanctum does with having it open once a week for folks since my area has nothing for pinball. But, that's a bit of a pipe dream and a lot to take on myself and probably won't happen without a fair amount of help.
Quoted from PiperPinball:Building it now! 41 x 25
Your garage looks bigger than a lot of houses around here.
Quoted from DefaultGen:Your garage looks bigger than a lot of houses around here.
We plan to line the back wall (41 feet long) with pins. Garage/game room > about 1600 sqft total. However, eta for completion will be Sept 2016 for the entire house/garage/game room.
Toronto, ON
I wouldn't recommend an out building. If it's part of the house it's less work to go to the workshop. I have a small detached garage I use for my workshop and I have to dedicate time to go out to it vs. stepping in once in a while to noodle about, which would be better.
The Hot Rod Grille Garage is 30' x 45' (4-car garage size) and was custom-built to house my gameroom, hot rod cars, petroliana (gasoliine and oil collectibles) and sign collection It has a separate 200 amp electrical service, 3 1/2 ton heat pump for heat/cool, restroom facilities and a fully-operational 1940's Bastian-Blessing soda fountain. The building features 10' and 12' ceiling heights to allow for a hydraulic lift to store and work on the cars. Walls are 6" thick to allow additional insulation. No windows for security reasons and to help eliminate UV light fade on the garage contents. 24 hour monitored security with video recording and multiple sensors for intrusion and fire. The garage features a full dance club sound and lighting system for a great party atmosphere anytime! The garage has hosted everything from pinball meetings for the West Virginia Pinball Player's Club, car club meetings, 80th birthday parties for my in-laws, Christmas parties, to just having friends drop by for a game of pinball and a root beer float. The best part of having the garage is getting to share it with friends!
Christmas_tree_pic_2_(resized).jpg
Good thread. I am planning to have one some day. I have looked at some properties that have something already that could be modded. Or, enough room to build one.
Just recently I have been starting to put together plans for the "ideal" setup. I would like a setup that includes workshop and game room.
I quickly found out that your building is greatly influenced by what you want to do. You start out with the idea of a "pole barn". But then you soon find that there are also post and beam barns, steel buildings, and traditionally built structures (like piper's).
The pole barn is cheapest. But in its strict form, it doesn't even have a floor. Just dirt. Good for parking loan mowers, but not for a game room. So you need a strcuture with a floor.
You might get by with just the walls for a garage or shop. But if you have pinballs and such and you want to enjoy it in all seasons, then you have to consider heating and cooling. Now you add HVAC. And insulation.
Of course, you will need electrical appropriate for everything in there. A panel and all the wiring and outlets.
Now, you think you would like a wet bar. That means plumbing. Cold and hot water and the drain. Then you figure, it would be nice to have a bathroom out there. Well, you have the plumbing, but once you add a bathroom then maybe the permitting and taxation is going to change, now that you are creating something that might be considered a "living structure". Especially if you wall off a small room, like for an office. It might be designated as a potential bedroom, then you will have more regulations such as smoke detectors, fire egress, etc. I have read about some people who build out the basic building and get everything signed off, then go in afterward and make such additions "off the books". This doesn't seem like a great idea to me. The guvmint has a knack for finding such things. Especially since they are admitting to it on the Internet.
I'm still researching all this. My goal is to draw out the "perfect" arrangement and then see if I can get it to come to life some day.
The building will be placed on a 5 acre property, which I live on. The building will be for agriculture. Believe it or not, I don't even need a licensed electrician to install the electrical. It's like a greenhouse. Unless I install plumbing, i don't need much to get it installed.
The electrical requirements vary quite a bit by state, and probably municipality as well. Here, strictly speaking, any electrical work at all requires a permit. In some places I have heard that homeowners are not allowed to do any electrical work at all, a licensed electrician is mandatory for all work.
This is trivial because I would have a licensed electrical contractor to perform that task. Don't want a nasty new garage. But, I know you don't need a licensed electrician when you are constructing a greenhouse in Florida.
I calculated the pad at about 6 to 8 dollars a square foot. Using those numbers, I figure about $7k should be enough to build the pad. The building itself is $10K. The other $3k would be for electrical.
I own a mini front end loader (kubota 520) so preparing the pad area won't be a problem. Clean fill dirt is free out here.
Insulating the walls and installing the HVAC should cost around $2K. I'll do that at a later date.
Sunshine
Quoted from jwilson:I wouldn't recommend an out building.
When I read the headline,I assumed attached to the house,not free standing.
to the Op. If acreage is not a problem,maybe extend off the house?
It just seems so much more secure all round to me for housing those classics.
Quoted from chalkup8:When I read the headline,I assumed attached to the house,not free standing.
to the Op. If acreage is not a problem,maybe extend off the house?
It just seems so much more secure all round to me for housing those classics.
I've seen someone's house where they built a separate addition and simply connected it to the main house with a hallway with doors on each end. The hallway is chilly in the winter, but you don't actually have to go outside to pass between buildings.
Quoted from dsuperbee:Really wish I had the room to do it. Current house is just too small
My solution is to win the lottery, buy an old mansion in midtown, and raise the house up so I can have a full size basement....
Or we could go in on that deconsecrated church by McKinley Park and open the Chapel of the Eternal Silverball....
hi all-I have posted a few times before on this..i have a 26x34 pole barn for our pins,ho trains,model building,building cars..much better than inside house..noise kept away from people sleeping just for a start.we use have seating for 26 people in booths.grandkids use booths for play time and coloring.we have heat and ac..easy to get pins in and out.we are inside this place more than house.....think about parking,moving pins in and out,point speakers away from neighbors.dont skimp on power.we use rubber mats as easy to clean up spilled drinks and we only serve bottles so they bounce off these mats when dropped...we keep vintage camper on other side of building for guests who party to hard so no dead pin heads..this dream for me since high school and I still feel lucky and grateful to own
Quoted from ForceFlow:I was thinking both a heated floor for the concrete slab, HVAC, and plenty of insulation. Two stories--tall enough down the center of the roof to be normal ceiling height with either a gable or grambrel roof. I figure if most of the cost goes into the slab and roof, I might as well just make it a bit taller for a big jump in floor space. The only problem with that is then needing some sort of lift between floors. Another pinsider did this, though:
I assume you live in an area with a cold winter climate. If you plan to have parties with a large number of pins turned on during winter months, I would caution you to carefully consider your heating options before going with a heated slab.
Here's why:
I have a similar setup to what you've described. It's two stories, heated slab on both levels and extremely well insulated. Arcade upstairs, bar down. I love it. And I love heated slabs.... In most situations. However, the problem I ran into during our first winter with this setup was our ability to control the heat during large gatherings with all the pins on for extended periods of time. The heat generated from all those games being on, and the people themselves, combined with all that heat stored in the slab, we just couldn't keep things comfortable in there. Even with all the windows open to try to pull down the temperature.
During a regular get together with some buddies and just the games we're playing on, everything worked just fine. But when everything was fired up, and the place was full it was like a friggin' sauna.
So this winter, I'm testing running the in-floor on the lower level only. Upstairs we're heating with the heat pump (which was originally installed solely for summertime A/C needs) and have the in-floor shut down. It's working beautifully. When there's going to be a larger gathering with all the games on, I shut the upstairs heat off completely a couple hours prior to people showing up. When the games come on, I put the heat pump in cooling mode and set it to 20 Celsius. Everything stays comfortable on both levels now even when the place is full and everything is on.
Food for thought.
Dude! Your garage/game room is epic! We plan to build something similar after the framing is done. But we are going 3 stories. The 2nd floor will be the bar/movie room. The 3rd floor (35 feet tall) will be the Observatory.
-Dan
Quoted from Tribonian:Or we could go in on that deconsecrated church by McKinley Park and open the Chapel of the Eternal Silverball....
I wonder what the asking price is for that?!?
Quoted from Electrocute:Thinking about it. A 25' x 36' metal garage. Concrete slab, building and electrical would about $20k. I would install the HVAC. This would give me all the space I need. Very preliminary. Acreage is not a problem.
image_(resized).jpg
Build a bit bigger then you think you need, taller then you think you need and as close to the house as possible and connect with a breezway. Have fun.
I flagged out a 24 x 36 area and it's smaller than I imagined but I also need to consider the cost of climate control. In Florida, humidity is a real issue.
Quoted from DefaultGen:Your garage looks bigger than a lot of houses around here.
41x25 is larger than my condo.
Quoted from Electrocute:I flagged out a 24 x 36 area and it's smaller than I imagined but I also need to consider the cost of climate control. In Florida, humidity is a real issue.
Well if ya insulate it good enough it shouldn't be that much of a problem should it? How much rain do you get in your part of Florida?
Put it this way. In Florida an AC unit's condensate line puts out about 1 gallon per ton a day in the summer month. The 24 x 36 garage would require good insulation and a 3 ton unit. That's 3 gallons of water being removed from the garage every day. It would be a split system(more efficient) I figure my electrical bill would increase by about $150. Anyone storing machines in a non climate controlled environment are slowly killing their machines. Especially if it's in a very humid environment like Florida.
Still dreaming but in about 4 years when I retire, me and the wife are planning on buying in either FLA or GA. I always wanted a separate building set up for a bar, pool table, pins, jukebox, home theatre, fire place, my drums, and some of my bikes. Always wanted a log cabin type of set up with a porch out front, bathroom, kitchen area, a loft for friends to sleep over, a main door and a garage door for easy in and out, and of course an outlet every 4 feet!!
Quoted from jwilson:I wouldn't recommend an out building. If it's part of the house it's less work to go to the workshop. I have a small detached garage I use for my workshop and I have to dedicate time to go out to it vs. stepping in once in a while to noodle about, which would be better.
I agree. My old house, I had half the pins inside the house and half in a detached garage. I never went out there, it was cold at night, you got wet when it was raining, etc etc.
I would highly recommend attaching it to the house if possible.
rd
Quoted from Electrocute:Put it this way. In Florida an AC unit's condensate line puts out about 1 gallon per ton a day in the summer month. The 24 x 36 garage would require good insulation and a 3 ton unit. That's 3 gallons of water being removed from the garage every day. It would be a split system(more efficient) I figure my electrical bill would increase by about $150. Anyone storing machines in a non climate controlled environment are slowly killing their machines. Especially if it's in a very humid environment like Florida.
How about putting up solar panels to help with the electricity?
Quoted from seshpilot:Man this hobby just keeps getting more and more expensive.
Well ya can't take it with ya. 
It would take about 2 acres of solar panels and $100k in infrastructure to make it stand alone. That's just a guess.
For now it's just my basement and I'm tired of selling games not for lack of money (Not that I'm rich by any means) but purely for lack of space. Honestly I'm tired of not making noise cause I'm right under everyone's ass!
Quoted from dsuperbee:I wonder what the asking price is for that?!?
Only $795k
http://www.loopnet.com/Listing/18478748/3240-B-Street-Sacramento-CA/
Quoted from MustangPaul:ONLY? You could buy 16 of my houses for that....and my house is no shack at 2300 sq ft total.
Only was tongue in cheek but it's actually a pretty good price for the area.
Reply
Wanna join the discussion? Please sign in to reply to this topic.
Hey there! Welcome to Pinside!
Donate to PinsideGreat to see you're enjoying Pinside! Did you know Pinside is able to run without any 3rd-party banners or ads, thanks to the support from our visitors? Please consider a donation to Pinside and get anext to your username to show for it! Or better yet, subscribe to Pinside+!
