Over the last 20 years I have put up 3. A.E. Headen Site Huts and extended one of them only about 5 years ago. They angle steel frame with a galvanised corrugated cladding. Pre fabricated sections. Apart from the wind blowing the rain in, sometimes, they are good strong sheds and bolt together. The ones I have are all 40 ft by 20 ft.
I want to put up another for storage and now I find that A.E. Headen have gone out of business. Can anyone recommend another manufacturer, with a similar product range and not too far from Norfolk.
As a follow up, as no one has replied, I may have to go into the shed building business myself. I have the old sheds as a pattern. What tools can I buy to help me build big sheds? Does anyone know of good ones? I may start to sell them, but I need to make one fairly quickly. The angle iron can be cut quickly with an abrasive wheel cutter, I also understand that you can get hole punches for making bolt holes, an electric drill would take ages. I plan to build a base first with
4 or 5 inches of concrete and then using this to fix down pins to make templates for the various sections, i.e rectangular wall panels in angle with galvanised sheet rivetted to them. Doors, etc.
The purlins can be cut and welded on the floor. Then, what about painting, - spray or brush? and what sort of paint. Can anyone think of any other points or tools that would make it easier. I think stick welding will be OK. I can do that - especially with thick angle iron. What gauge Galvanised/Corrugated would I need and how can it be cut, without resorting to tin snips? I have an old tractor with a long pole fixed to the front end loader arms for lifting sections into place. Do I have everything I need?
Any advice from someone who has done it would be very helpful.
Cut yes, not sure about quickly though. Same with the corrugated sheet, I'd be putting real effort in to design the sheds to use whole sheets and lengths as far as poss.
To do that in angle iron would take a heck of a powerful punch. Do you know what one will cost? I dont.
A pillar drill plus proper engineering shop bits should do it straightforwardly. I expect youd need to cool the bits, but thats not hard. If youre using angle iron, ideally it could be designed so that no iron needs drilling. The currugated sheet should yield to a small punch.
I guess monolithic concrete would be the ideal, if not necessary.
brush leaves brush marks, looks rather unprofessional. Spray will go everywhere and get you stoned or dead if you dont have decent ventilation, but looks great. Spraying outdoors works but you can only really do it when there is very little wind, otherwise the panels will end up with assorted debris stuck all over them. I'm guessing a spraying shelter might work, allowing airflow but blocking any real wind. Polythene would be the cheapest shelter to get running with. Dont overlook the edges when spraying - brushing edges and holes first can help ensure good life.
Car spray paints are good stuff, both acrylic and whatsitcalled. Household gloss can be sprayed too, but it fades and is easily damaged, being quite soft - a bodgers choice. Presumably no paint is always an option, if not the most desirable one.
Re car paints you can sometimes get job lots of odds and ends of car paints, and mix them to satisfactory colours. Your sheds needn't be all green. Whatever you do with car type paint ensure you're using a suitable undercoat/primer, it is possible to go wrong.
One last trick, if you mix the 2 main car paint types (theyre immiscible) and shake regularly while coating, the paints separate into globules on the work and you get a nice patterned effect, like a randomised version of honeycomb. Pick 2 close colours and it can look very good, eg green and blue.
I assume you know you need to get all the glassy junk off that arc welding deposits, to avoid corrosion. Thus arc welding is the most-work option, but also the cheap option.
Depending on how good you want to make it you could also consider solar heat gain and noise issues. Underseal deals with noise well, and a light colour roof reduces solar gain. A very thin layer of roof insulation would help with both. All potential selling points, maybe could be offered as options.
how much impact force do you want it to survive? If it were mine I'd get a few pieces and try them, charge at them and see :) At own bodily risk though.
tin snips, angle grinder, saw, nibbler, or plasma cutter. Not forgetting the thin wheel metal cut blades. And not forgetting the just maybe of using 2 cutters at once. I'm told diamond blades are no good on steel, they dissolve into the metal. I assume guillotining is out with corrugated, unless you can get a matching profile lump of metal made to cut against, and everything survives the uneven cutting and cut-off profile crushing process.
I would imagine a handheld powered 2-wheel rotary cutter would be a good tool, but dont even know if they are around. Are there any metal fab's trade mags?
ISTR there's a toxicity problem with welding and melt cutting zinc coated steel.
Sounds like it. There is windows of course. Corrugated plastic sheets in the roof presumably.
If youre erecting I doubt turning up in a tractor and hoping for access is going to work well. Might want to look at a portable means to lift stuff into place. Something like a powered stabilised prop. Plus maybe an access tower if youre building high ones, and at least 2 people to lift the big bits into place - assuming youre not using a structure with internal vertical support pillars.
Then there's the question of liability if something goes wrong and you drop a purlin on your customer, or part of the shed comes down due to some overlooked detail. Or grit gets in the door runner and the idiot they hired cant escape.
If you want it to be useful in summer you'll need self opening thermostatic vents, as used in commercial greenhouses. Used in pairs the wind blows right through when they open, very effective.
I've never built anything that big out of steel, but hopefully one or two of the comments might be of use. These are just things I might consider, Im not saying you should do any of them.
Thanks a bundle, N. Thornton, That's all very usefull stuff.
I am more concerned with a long lasting strong structure than something that looks very professional. I could Mig weld if it would save time. I don't care about the expense, it is time and quality that I am interested in.
The biggest difficulty, I think, is going to be the angled cuts in fairly heavy corrugated - for the end sections. I shall copy the dimensions on one of my original Headen sheds, if they have gone out of business, I doubt if they will mind. They used a heavy thick brown paint that took while to dry, but that was applied by dipping, I expect. They also used roof sections that ended at the edge of the walls, I would and maybe will, give a bit of an overhang, so the rain does not drip so much on the walls and not blow back under into the shed.
The front and rear sections also suffered from rain dripping inside the joins and running inside the shed, especially wind driven rain. A section of flat tin sheet bolted along the joins and angled down outside and up inside should stop that. Is there any advantage to making a concrete base a bit bigger than the shed? The plans from Headen made the base so it just supported the shed and some stuts went down into slots in the concrete at the edge to bold to the bottom of the walls - to stop it blowing away. I was thinking of bolting it all down to a slightly bigger base with either expanding captive nuts or rawplugs. Which is the best method? I usually concrete along the inside edges at the bottom to stop the rain coming in anyway. A big shed presents a lot of area to a strong wind and one blew off it's base before. Even though I had a half ton engine hung from the roof on a block and tackle to hold it down before I got the base fixed!
It is all still a lot of work and if I knew of another supplier of sectional buildings of this type, it would be a temptation to buy ready made.
The sort of tools that we were talking about can presumably be purchased all at one place, Does anyone know where? Is there an on line store where I could have a look at what is available first? I have not heard of two wheeled rotary cutter and cannot visualise this?!! How does it work? I actually live in the United Arab Emirates but when we go back to UK this autumn, I shall have a lot to do quickly.
As far as looks go, it doesnt take much more effort to make somehing that will look good. Spray painting is a bit more effort but will make a big difference to the final result.
Well supports sunk right in the edge of the base arent going to be nearly so strongly held. I would prefer a slightly bigger base for that reason. No extra base and no overhang sounds like corner cutting measures. So depends what your customers want really. If minimum cost is all that counts then small base.
not me. I might look at ebay though, it might be a way to get industrial stuff at good prices, if you dont mind dealing with the problems and risks inherent in online auctions.
This one bit I mentioned I havent seen, and dont know if theyre used/available. It struck me as the logical thing. Imagine 2 hefty metal discs that overlap partly: as the wheels slowly turn the thing acts like a powered scissor. And if the wheels are smaller than the corrugations it would cut corrugated.
Someone suggested the other day that I get a second hand container, how much would one of these be? A 40 footer with delivery. Would it be waterproof? I am willing to entertain any and all suggestions as I have a house to sell contents to store and I am moving to UK with a 20 Ft container full of other belongings which have to go somewhere. I have 20 acres of farmland and so the simplest solution would be an agricultural building. But what sort. If there are alternatives to steel and corrugated, I would love to hear about them.
Can't tell you the maker, but at the local agricultural auction this type of thing goes for around £1750 each time.
30'x60'x14' to eaves agricultural building
They are new substantial steel frames plus timber purlins. Of course roof panels, foundations, drainage and blockwork or wall cladding is still required.
Ahhh - always state these things if you want a good answer :)
A container would be much easier, and quite possibly cheaper, I dont know, since theyre mass produced and available used.
Concrete bubbles were used in WW2 for top speed bottom price housing. A big bag was inflated and concrete was slapped all over it. Trowel out door and window holes, let it set, deflate and remove bag. Add windows/door: One house.
One could do it faster by putting a framed door against the bag, so you concrete the frame in as you build the house. Ditto for a window. Then all you do is slap the crete on, and you have a house.
I'm trying to think what one could use in place of an inflatable bag: if youve got 20 acres I guess one could lean tree branches together, put a canvas over it and concrete it. I havent done this so there may be pitfalls, but it all sounds way faster than a steel fabrication. And cheaper.
The one thing with concrete is it has strength in compression but not in tension, so you need to have a shape that keeps it all presing together, like a dome, triangle, etc - you cant have sagging sections or flat roofs unless you put reinforcement in.
If you want to go conventional of course a wood shed is quicker and cheaper than steel.
Further to the above, I have worked out that it would take me too long to construct a storage building by myself, from scratch. I am willing to go up market if necessary to get one up during June/July/August. Does anyone know of and can recommend, a manufacturer of storage buildings of a strong, prefabricated design who could supply and errect a (approx) 20 ft. X 60 Ft building? I can arrange the base. I welcome approaches by suitable manufacturers. Please reply to snipped-for-privacy@maribelecosystems.com
I would like to deal with someone in the East Anglia region. The building should be at least 8 ft high at the eaves and be strong enough to not blow away or be damaged by our Norfolk winds. Now, anything will be considered. I have wasted enough time on this already.
Thanks for any information or offers. Regards George Bell.
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