This Shop 'Could Not Be Better'

Outside Hazelton, Idaho, near the Snake River and the Utah line, Russell Patterson put up a shop. Not a small shop. At 12,500 square feet, it's a farming space that does not fail to live up to any of his expectations. That's what Patterson says. "We are so happy with it," he says of the shop built in 2014. "If you were to ask me if there is something to change, I would tell you no, there isn't." Patterson and his wife, Lisa, farm in the south-central part of the state. It's an agricultural epicenter blessed by the waters of the Snake River, Union Pacific railroad and four lanes of Interstate 84 from Portland, Oregon, down to Ogden, Utah, and its intersection with Interstate 80, one of the nation's main arteries of commerce. The Snake and deep waters of the Snake River Plain Aquifer irrigate 3 million acres of land growing potatoes and sugar beets, barley (Idaho is the largest producer of barley in the U.S.), corn, winter wheat, alfalfa, other small grains and dry, edible beans. The county is home to large dairies of a scale that has made Idaho the nation's No. 3 producer of milk.

Patterson's shop supports the machinery he and one tenant deploy to produce potatoes, sugar beets, alfalfa and barley. It has work-flexible spaces, a traffic-friendly site plan and ample supporting infrastructure -- three keys to a well-functioning and modern shop.

Plans for the Patterson shop took shape with the aid of scouting trips to other shops. "We were looking for great ideas, and in short, we pickpocketed all the best ideas," he says.

The result was a nearly square building, 100 x 125 feet, with an interior wash bay. Outside the shop, the building's footprint includes a 35- x 150-foot lean-to. Along the exterior of the back wall is a 50- x 125-foot, three-sided storage maintenance space (with an open face). The outside spaces are highly useful maintenance areas but at substantially less cost per square foot than the main building.

"The square design is purposely functional. It is easy space to move equipment around," Patterson says. A 16- x 42-foot-wide Schweiss bifold door, along with two additional overhead doors, gives the shop an ideal traffic pattern (the ability to move equipment through it without having to move equipment torn down for repair). "I thought we would rarely use [the bifold door], but it turned out to be one of the best things we did. We use it all the time."

Here are the three design elements of note, each key to Patterson's shop.

WORKSPACE

At 12,500 square feet of covered and conditioned space, plus nearly as much additional covered space outside, the shop spaces offer great flexibility in servicing and maintaining equipment.

-- The shop's concrete floor is finished with a hardened enamel compound that makes for quick cleanups and is resistant to stains and the friction created by heavy wheel traffic.

-- An inside wash bay is the result of a keen eye for design. The question, Patterson says, was how to build a wash area to accommodate his largest pieces of equipment -- semitrucks with large potato trailers, for example -- without taking up a large chunk of the shop for space that would be used intermittently. He solved the challenge this way. Space dedicated to the wash bay is 40 x 50 feet, or 2,000 square feet. "But, with a lot of our equipment, that is not quite big enough," Patterson says. "So, we put a 16- x 30-foot overhead door in the back of the wash bay. With that door open, we can pull the bigger machinery all the way into the shop and close the outside door." With that back door open, the wash bay temporarily extends back another 50 feet into the shop's interior. It is smart, flexible use of space, while the bay also gives Patterson's crew another warm, enclosed maintenance space in winter to wash, paint and detail equipment.

-- Access to the shop is by way of the bifold door (with a row of three large windows for light and a view to the outside). There is also a pair of 16 x 30 overhead doors, with two rows of glass inserts each, that open to the front and onto a large outside lot. One overhead opens to the main shop area. The second provides access to the wash bay.

-- An interesting feature is the shop's steel service, or man doors. They are 4 feet wide, 12 inches wider than a typical service door. "The wide [service] doors give you plenty of area to pass things through," Patterson says.

-- Patterson's shop is well-insulated -- R-40 in the ceiling and R-20 on the sides. "Sometimes insulation is the cheaper part of your shop when you go to pay your heating and fuel," Patterson says. On hot days, the shop is generally 15° to 20°F cooler than outside. On winter days, the opposite is true. It's 15° to 20°F warmer inside. The shop consumes about 1,000 gallons of propane during the winter, firing radiant heaters heating the shop in three zones.

-- It's impossible to miss the 24-foot-wide overhead Rite-Hite Fan centered over the main shop area. It circulates a crazy amount of air. "It is one of the most spectacular pieces of the shop," Patterson says. "When we put it on high speed, it sounds like a Huey helicopter taking off." He does not lie.

-- A steel, red, powder-coated staircase rises up to a well-sized and modern office. The office floor is hickory. A large desk of knotty alder was built locally, and it has a rounded front overhang that gives guests room to work with the Pattersons at the same desk. Directly outside the shop is a small break area with kitchen appliances -- space for a meal or meetings. An interesting idea about that office: As workers were about to cut a hole through the side of the building for a heating and air-conditioning unit, Patterson had a thought. Why punch a hole through the side of a new building? Instead, he had the heating and air-conditioning unit installed into the wall facing the inside of the shop. Because it's inside the shop, the unit is more operationally efficient to heat and cool the office.

SITE PLAN

This building site is the center of support for the Patterson operation. It has well-designed vehicle lanes that allow the wide turns of big equipment and trucks, and logistics support facilities -- fuel tanks, for example -- to fuel and keep operations moving.

-- Patterson put his large shop down into an area that includes a 112,000-gallon fuel storage area on one side and a steel, ribbed Quonset-style potato shed on the other. Traffic maneuvers with ease around those structures, flat storage areas and the shop -- much of it on concrete. For example, the area between the fuel storage facility and shop includes a concrete pad that's 50 x 120 feet.

-- Outside the front of the shop is a large, 50- x 200-foot concrete pad that wraps around and under the lean-to for another 85 feet. Patterson uses that area as another wash pad in addition to providing another covered maintenance area. Beyond the concrete is an even larger, 200- x 200-foot service area with a crushed stone surface. The yard runs out onto County South Road.

INFRASTRUCTURE

Walls define a shop's sheltered spaces. But, it's the infrastructure that makes it work.

-- Patterson chose LEDs to light the inside spaces, as well as the lean-to and three-sided storage maintenance spaces outside. The LEDs are efficient, have a long life and put a clean, white light on workspaces (plus Idaho Power provided an incentive).

-- The Patterson shop is well-powered. The entire shop is wired with 240-volt, three-phase, 220, single-phase and 110-volt service. The outside covered spaces have outlets for power tools, engine heaters and the like.

-- A transformer supplies Patterson's bigger power needs. "We have a lot of machinery that runs off 480 [volts]. So, instead of making one more run [of wire] for 480, we have a transformer on wheels. We plug it into our 220, three-phase, and it steps up [the power] to 480, three-phase for the places we need it."

-- Compressed air runs around the shop in a loop. "That way you don't have any dead ends," Patterson says. "Any air tool always has plenty of pressure." Every compressed air connection has both 1/4-inch and 1/2-inch couplers to accommodate air tools of various sizes. Drains remove any water that accumulates.

-- The shop encloses a decently sized tools and parts storage area. It's secured by a locked, 6- x 8-foot overhead door. The opening is plenty large to receive parts, chemicals and petroleum products by the pallet-load.

**

-- Watch a video about this shop at https://www.dtnpf.com/…

-- Follow Dan on social platform X @DMillerPF

[PF_1024]

(c) Copyright 2024 DTN, LLC. All rights reserved.