Building your own shed/workshop

[Tim S]

Jules coughed up some electrons that declared:

No I don't really care about a shed. If the buyer objects, I'll knock it down for them - difference in price between a house with a shed and without is likely negligable. Probably find a sudden attitude shift then. Anyway - after a few years, planning contraventions become moot (It's about 4 years I think under English law, after which they can't touch you. Might be a different figure - depends on the type of contravention but in either case, I'll be in the clear.)

Buyers here fall into 2 groups. One group is pragmatic and is certainly not going to worry about technical flaws in a shed. The other group panicks whenever their solicitor wibbles. For them there is indemnity insurance or just tell them to go away.

B&Q will reliably sell you all warped timber.

I've got some "yellow pine" for my shelves. It was pretty good stuff. Don't know if there's "yellow pine" and "yellow pine".

Wool's an option too - Ireland's knocking out loads of sheep's wool in insulation format. I think it's partly a way to get rid of the stuff that's too rough for clothing - but it's good good attributes. Doesn't support combustion readily, non irritant, about the same U value as glass wool.

If I were using glass wool in a house, I'd use sheep's wool instead. As it happens, I'll probably need to use celotex for space reasons - and glass wool is less of a problem on a shed (outside).

That's far too much fun to be having! I assume you have acres?

Good luck with it all.

Cheers

Tim

[Jules]

At a premuim, no doubt. I don't have very fond memories of B&Q :-)

It certainly seems strong enough - I've not tested it to destruction, but a 2x4 of the stuff takes a lot of abuse. Throw enough of them into a frame for a building and I don't think the side loading's evr a problem - although I'm not sure I'd want to try a multi-storey building out of the stuff (I bet it's quite explosive if given enough compression!)

That's an interesting one. Wonder what the longevity's like (particularly if it ever absorbs moisture - I suppose it's not much good if it contracts and doesn't return to form once it dries out). Blown paper concerns me similarly - sounds good, but I'm just not sure what it'll be like 20 or 30 years down the line. Tried-and-tested might well be worth it just for peace of mind.

Not much - the old dear who used to own this place had sold nearly all of the land off, so we've just got a couple of acres of trees and similar for lawn. It's nice to have the out-buildings though (even if some of them do need some serious attention) and that sort of space is a useful amount for the kids to play in without being a major chore to maintain. They won't let folk build new property on less than 6 acres where we are, so we know we're not going to get anyone doing anything major right next door or anything.

Ta - you too. I'm following your exploits (a bit haphazardly) with interest :-)

cheers

Jules

[dennis]

Mine is two layers of ply (18 mm on top, 9 mm underneath) with layer of 1" polystyrene glued between. It is incredibly stiff and I am sure it cost less than using decking stuff. The roof is the same.

The internal walls are shuttering ply (on 3x2 battens), for now it is clad with 6 mm wbp as it was cheap and I couldn't find any cheap cladding.

[David WE Roberts]

Check out the one about 'why wooden' as well :-)

I am still considering going with a block wall because of the relative costs, and the problems getting decent timber.

Cheers

Dave R

[Tim S]

David WE Roberts wibbled:

I suppose that's a good point - I didn't see anything in the "law" that suggested garden outbuildings were limited to wood.

Makes some sense building one out of brick, say. More fireproof and a bit more initimidating for the pikeys, if the door and windows are solid...

Cheers

Tim

[David WE Roberts]

More to the point, the limitation on 15 sq metres within 0.5m of the boundary does not apply for buildings made of 'substantially non-inflammable materials'. I am going to check, but assume that blockwork would be considered substantially non-inflammable.

I assume that this is to avoid a major fire risk to fences and neighbouring buildings.

I am not too concerned about high level security - the crime rate is quite low around here - I am mainly concerned with 'bangs per buck' and ease of construction plus conforming to any building restrictions. Being able to go over 15 sq metres within 0.5m of the boundary may be a strong argument for blockwork. The garden is fairly small and plan #1 has already been abandoned because the shed all the way across the bottom of the garden would be too intrusive, especially with the 1m gap from the rear fence.

One attraction of blocks is the low ongoing maintenance. Timber is attractive but does need regular treatment to avoid rot.

It may also be easier to hang shelves, benches etc. from a block wall.

This is now making me wonder if I will need pillars to strengthen the wall - or if a 5m run of single block will be O.K.

Nothing is easy ;-)

Cheers

Dave R

[Tim S]

David WE Roberts coughed up some electrons that declared:

The house I grew up in had a standalone brick garage about that length - or perhaps a little longer. That was single brick wall with one double thickness butress about halfway along each long side.

That didn't fall over.

You can always have the butresses external to save messing up a nice internal wall.

I don't honestly know if you *need* them for 5m.

Cheers

Tim

Ha - Taking me 3 days to do a one day job of fitting conduit in the new kitchen and insulating and plasterboarding the bay windows... Mind you, I do have about 36 drops of conduit plus interlinks! And some of that is in carefully bent round 20 and 25mm (all the stuff that goes though the bay window ceilings up into the roof void above plus cooker drop). Utter bitch of a job and I;m all covered in expanding foam having emptied 2.5 gun cans up there to seal the celotex in. Cloths, hair, shoes, floor - everywhere...

But I wore gloves this time so I can still move my fingers.

If they still had factory apprentices these days, I'm sure that one of the initiations would be to fill the lad's underpants with a can of Siroflex's finest.

[John Rumm]

Have you tried a can of the foam solvent? very good at getting it off stuff while still wet.

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember Tim S saying something like:

The most impressive single-skin brick garage I saw was actually a truck shed, of about 30' long by 30' wide and two stories empty space. Not a buttress in sight and...

It had been up for many years, too. Probably fallen over now, mind.

[geoff]

In message , Grimly Curmudgeon writes

More likely a grade II listed building

[Jules]

Ha - I'm halfway through reading that at the mo. Forgotten how good it is/was too, although I think I still prefer Withnail...

Heck. Must have had some serious foundation to it...

I don't remember any buttresses on the brick vehicle sheds on any of the farms that any of my dad's family had, either. They they weren't two storeys, but must have been 60' or more long. I remember my cousin levelling the end of one when backing a trailer in... :-)

cheers

Jules

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember Jules saying something like:

I recall a local telling me the bloke who built it was a notorious cheapskate, so I doubt the founds were expensive. Struck me as utterly pointless, when for much less cost and time he could have easily stuck some RSJs vertically in concrete, like every other agribuilding near him and had a much more sturdy construction. I suspect it was a case of bricks was all he had, so that's all he used. What gave me pause and a sharp intake of breath was the sight of a f*ck-off engine hoist fastened to a beam running from one wall top to another. I honestly don't know why that shed hadn't collapsed.

Quite so - curtain walls like that are very weak when hit.

[Jules]

Yeah, seems like an odd way of doing it. Must have been a case of him getting a boat-load of bricks cheap off a mate, so that's what he used (I suppose I like using what I have around rather than spending cash on new materials - but I sure as heck wouldn't do it when it'd result in a compromised structure)

Ha ha! I can just picture the sharp intake of breath every time it was used...

(Oddly enough, it's already crossed my mind that when I rebuild our garage I want to build in some extra strength in the right places so I can put a hoist in)

cheers

J.

[Tim S]

Grimly Curmudgeon coughed up some electrons that declared:

You could do an imaginative long shed with a single thickness crinkle-crankle wall - those are much stronger.

Assuming one has a bit of space to waste...