Workshop

Anything mechanical eventually needs fixing, and doing it outdoors on uneven ground with the tools scattered is how a small repair turns into a replacement. A workshop is a building set aside for that work. It keeps the tools together somewhere dry and lit, and gives the person a level floor and room to move around whatever is being repaired. On a working holding it tends to become the headquarters, where everything that is not growing gets done.

Its size is set by the largest machine that might need repair, plus room to walk around it and lay parts out. That also sets the doorway: a shop a tractor cannot enter is only a tool store. A second door is a fire requirement rather than a convenience. The floor is concrete rather than earth, because an oiled mechanism cannot be stripped and rebuilt cleanly on dirt and alignment work needs a flat surface. The usual fit-out is a heavy bench fixed to the wall, about 1 m (3 ft) high and at least 3 m (10 ft) long, with a large vice, electric light, a circuit for power tools, water, and a beam overhead strong enough to lift an engine.

It needs a vehicle route able to deliver the machines it repairs and a supply of electricity. Fire is the danger that matters, and it arrives four ways: welding near stored fuel, dust and cobwebs on lights and wiring, old or overloaded wiring, and flammables kept beside anything hot. Welding indoors needs far more air than a small closed building holds - about 280 cubic metres (10000 cubic feet) per welder under a 5 m (16 ft) ceiling, or mechanical extraction instead. Fuel and chemicals belong in a separate ventilated store at least 15 m (50 ft) away on a floor kerbed to hold a spill. Upkeep is housekeeping: sweeping, clearing cobwebs off fittings, and keeping extinguishers or dry sand to hand.