I recently costed the timber to make a good quality 8 X 6 shed. Timber from timber merchant - not a DIY place. I was shocked when it came to approx. £300. I decided to buy one instead - delivered and erected for not much more than that. BTW the sheds in the likes of B&Q etc. are *not* good quality - the cost of timber for one of those would probably be considerably less.
HTH.
Yes I have. I probably spent a little more on materials, but then I made it using far more subtantial materials for both the framing and the cladding.
For example
-100x50mm for framing rather than 38x38 or 38x25 as is typical for bought products.
- 18mm TGV for cladding on top of 18mm ply
- 22mm flooring
If you have suitable tools, the assembly time can be quite fast as well.
.andy
To email, substitute .nospam with .gl
I am looking to buy a largish apex shed, about 3.5m x 2.4m (12ft x 8ft), with the gable end being on an 8ft wall and double doors on the 12ft section. Given that a decent quality bought one is over £1000, do you think it is worth building one from scratch? What do you do for the roof structure? I don't think I want ceiling joists, so how is the strength obtained? (I am currently presuming that you just build the frame strong enough that the rafters don't exert too much of a outwards load on the walls anyway). I will be insulating and plasterboarding the interior.
How do you joint the framing? Skew nails? Timber connectors? Coach bolts? If building myself, I'd probably use 18mm T&G cladding, 50x75mm studs with 50mm Celotex or Jablite, 18mm plywood, 9.5/12.5mm vapour check plasterboard. The interior plywood is so that I can screw anything to the wall through the plasterboard without worries. It'd probably seriously stiffen the structure, too. The plasterboard is because it looks nicer and I'm not too fond of spiders and it is much easier to clean the cobwebs off!
I haven't been to a builder's merchant to price up yet, but I bet there would be change from a grand (especially as insulation and interior boarding is extra with the bought shed). What do you think?
Christian.
I looked into this and came to the conclusion that self building from scratch was more appropriate for my needs. YMMV!
I did not think much of the quality of the ready made ones (especially as I was looking for a room I could work in comfortably all year round rather than a storage space). Also to make best use of the space I had available for it, I needed a non standard shape. The final problem with most ready made sheds I found was lack of height - I wanted something at least 7'6 at the eves so as to accommodate my 6'3" of bulk, and still let me handle 8' long materials without having to take them outside to turn them round!
The whole story is recorded for your amusement here:-
I had six rafters (if you include those on the gable wall), and only added cross members on two of these. I also placed them high into the apex of the roof space so as to minimise the loss of working height. This seemed to work very well since it gave an ideal place to mount two of the strip lights I installed, while at the same time adding enough strength to remove any outward thrust on the sides of the shed. As a test of this theory it was quite able to support the weight of all the (heavy) roofing materials and me -- which together I estimate exceeds
1/4 tonne! -- without any noticeable outward deflection of the sides.I created a butt joint and drilled through the uprights, level with each noggin. I then used 4" x 12 Twinthread Quickscrews (screwfix) through the upright into the end grain of the noggin (this was with 2x3 sawn kiln dried framing timber). Two screws for each joint.
The addition of a triangulated bracing strut somewhere in each stud wall, ensured the whole assembly was nice and rigid. (you will note that I decided the original plans I drew were a bit over engineered in this respect -- and used less cross members in actual construction)
Pretty close to what I used - except I used 19mm shiplap in place of the T&G. I did not bother with a vapour shield since the jablite seemed to do the job well enough.
Might help keep noise in/out better as well! Must admit that the interior ply I used looks quite nice now its had a couple of coats of emulsion.
I think my one came out at a bit over that - but then there was probably
300 quids worth of electrics by the time you include the SWA cable to the building, consumer unit, lights, dozen sockets, heating, extractor fan (with hindsight - good idea!) etc. Don't underestimate the cost of thing like wood preserver - that caught me out as I must have got through 60 quids worth of that alone.I found that going to a local builders merchant (Jewsons) with a big list of parts also saved money because they gave various extra discounts just because it was a large order.
Note that if you do the roof well that will cost a bit (although it will far exceed the quality of a bought shed in that respect).
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