Help with furnace access

How about a diagram showing all the walls and doors/access points.  Not knowing more I would suggest just mirroring the layout right to left.

Jan

Jan

The tracks on the right are against the wall.  The bottom of the diagram is also a wall.

How about a swing out bridge? Hinged on the inside radius point of the layout?

The other option is a lift out section.

Good morning Al

Where is the doorway to the furnace room? and which way does the door open? Need to have room to replace the water heater and furnace. Is there anything in the empty space on the left? How wide is the peninsula table? Right now I could see putting the whole peninsula on wheels and just roll it out of the way, or hinged to swing away from wall. I have a swinging gate access that works great.

J Daddy types faster then me

Clem

Mianne Benchwork can provide you with a powered lift-up section for access. I can provide pictures and a short video of mine.

Al,

Remove the furnace, those winter scenes will become more realistic.

 Dave

(you have a nice area to work with, keep at least one O-72 run, regardless)

Take a look at a Jim Barrett hinged "Drop Section" [DVD #11] in a curve with multiple tracks.

Smaller example shown below in 072/084 curves on my little attic layout.

You can figure the average life expectancy of a water heater lasting about 10 years.

The average life of a furnace is about 20 years.

So if any of these are getting up there, you can figure on replacing them soon.

But also figure on the poor service man that might have to come and service these  during their lifetime, make sure there is plenty of room for access.

I know, I am a plumbing/hvac service man and seen things built around or near these items and no way of working on them!

Yardmaster My current water heater is 21!

Dave eliminating the furnace is a great idea.  After all we are in Florida all winter.

Touche

 Dave

Not a bad idea. All those other water pipes in your house will make the plumber rich.

Gerry

There is some old technology that would allow for removal of the furnace.  My home has electric baseboard heat installed mid-70's.  There was another system where electric cable heat was installed in ceilings.  I did one installation like this.  Both systems were economical installs at the time.  Note that there is no A/C.  Late 90's I installed a Heat Pump, but the electric baseboard heat is still functional.   If the heat pump decides not to work there is a built-in back-up system as long as there is electricity.  Third back-up is a wood burning stove. 

I Shudder to even consider the cost of electric heat here in NH.

No WAY.

But I do agree on the lifetime of the items. I replaced a Water Heater and a Furnace in the last 4 years.

Both exceeded their expected span by about 4 or 5 years then died when needed...

When they die like that it costs more to get replacements quickly and restricts choices.

How about the drop down bridge incorporated with dolly wheels on the legs of the section near the doors?

Or just skip the bridge completely and make a portion of the two tracks in that short section somewhat easy to remove so on the those rare occasions when you need it you can separate the table and roll the section in the way of the doors out of the way.

Think of it in time and efficiency if you could separate the benchwork within a reasonable amount of time on those rare occasions you should be alright.

Because the section is two level I don't think drop down would work in the space I have.  Based on all the comments I think I will build it as a rollaway section.  We will see how that works in actual practice

Thanks everybody

Al

Al...I don't know what type of tabletop you plan on but maybe this would work:

With the rollers attached to the leg supports maybe the whole area would be movable.

Mark

When using casters or dolly wheels be sure all the legs are tied together with stringers so all the legs move in unison. Generally I try to put the stringers as low on the legs as possible 2" from the bottom of the wood if your using casters or wheels with spindles that require you to drill a hole at the bottom of the legs the screws supporting the stringers won't get in the way. The stringers also make great supports for shelving.

Here are some pictures of the benchwork for  our 8' X 5' display it sits a top 14 ball casters. We use ball casters because it rolls over carpeting so there wasn't any need for brakes, these type of wheels seem to work better on carpeting than anything else. If the display were set up on a hard floor we most likely would have used dolly wheels some of which would have brakes. The first picture shows the bench upside down on a table while being stained.

Build the section red 36"l x 24"W curve as a Tom Tee style lift out.