I have a 24'x30' outbuilding w/10' side-walls. 2x6 construction and well insulated. Averages $80/Mo to keep it mid-50's in the winter and 72-74 in the summer, all electric heat. There's no water/plumbing in the building so between electric heat and AC, the humidity stays very low. I have 0 rust issues.
The bill can get a little ugly in Jan/Feb but it evens out Mar-June and Sept-Nov when neither the heat nor the AC run much at all.
I've got 40yr old primers that still light stuff consistently and am drawing out of an 8# keg of WW760 that's one of the foil-lined cardboard cylinders again w/no ill effects.
This was all prompted by looking @ dad's neighbor's shop when it burned down 12yrs ago. I know where he kept his reloading components in the shop and there was absolutely NOTHING left of that corner of the building, NOTHING for roughly an 8' semi-circle. At the time, in my own home, my reloading stuff was in my office/spare bedroom. My loading/component storage bench was directly under my newborn daughter's crib. My new building was up and my loading moved outside by the end of that summer.
The house I grew up in dad's "reloading room" was the unfinished utility room with the nat'l gas furnace and gas water heater. At any given time there was 20#-40# of smokeless powder in that room along with a fair amount of loaded ammo. Never a problem. Dad's neighbor's shop that burned down had nothing to do with any reloading components, he had a piece of slag jump and burn through an oxygen/acetylene line. Big boom, lots of fire, he was lucky to survive it. I don't generally worry about reloading components burning up, but, more the "What if they did?"
My shop is a nice escape from TV and the computer. It's a fun place to bring the kids out and get away from that stuff as well. My kids love drilling holes in scrap wood chunks just to drill holes. Same for using an impact driver to sink screws into them. I love the fact that my 8 and 12 yr olds can determine what bit they need for a given fastener and then swap bits in the impact driver to make it functional. They think that an air-blower on the end of the compressor line is great fun as well. When they're done it's a simple sweep and shop-vac cleanup then put the tools away. Nothing there to steal their attention beyond learning life-skills.
Last edited by horse1; 04/25/21.
