Shed recommendation

Palletwood is cladding. If you're going the cheapskate route, old cloth & bitumen plus a little sand make effective roofing felt. I'd be inclined to pick a roofing sheet that'll last long term, like coroline onduline etc - note they vary a lot in thickness. Ex wood flooring also makes cladding.

A friend of mine purchased a medium size shed for around £5k. Outwardly the quality of build was far superior to many others that I've seen and it came with double glazed windows and insulation between the outer skin and the inner skin. The inner skin completely covered all of the inner walls and roof and was the thinnest of ply. However when one of the inner panels was removed the insulation was found to be paper thin (around 2mm) and with gaps of of 25mm around the edge of the sheet. This optional insulation added quite a bit to the original price!

But breaking a existing pallet down for the wood can be a PITA. I had some plasterboard delivered on a pallet and thought that the 2.5m lengths of wood on the pallet could be useful. I found that the nails used in the construction were heavily barbed - easy to get in hard (impossible) to get out. In the end I took a circular saw to it and made use of some of the shorter lengths of wood.

Yeah. There are somewhat solutions, like cutting just under the planks with a circ, leaving the top bit of nail in situ. Some people seem to have figured out how to dismantle them with ease.

always made my own

I needed something quickly.

As it happens I went in the opposite direction of my original plan and bought a cheap & smaller one from Tiger Sheds.

I had thought about this - how ho you break them up? Only the very lightweight pallets seem to come apart without destroying them . . .

I'm thinking of a living roof, or if that doesn't work, yes, onduline or similar.

Yep, good idea. I may well spend some money on something more attracting - wouldn't mind it looking reasonably decent!

You could try your local sawmill for treated feather edge board. Rough sawn so a bit agricultural but a 7" board gives you 6" of wall cladding.

There are several ways people use. The fast easy way is to circ saw all planks at once so they're only nailed in the middle, then pry them off. You lose the ends but it's super quick.

I'm not sure what you'll find that looks nicer than real wood. Plastic pallets make a great base, they don't rot.

I've done that on a few of the lighter pallets - you're right, it is relatively quick and easy. But the remaining planks are weakened considerably

- not that much of a problem for a shed, granted.

Also, it gets through batteries quickly.

I'd estimate £12m2 - so about £140 for the 2.4 x 2m shed (5m2 of openings). Think I'll give it a go on a couple of sides and see how it goes. I've just put the roof on so needs doing soonish.

Bottom of the learning curve here :-)

If you do use featheredge a useful trick is to make up a spacing guide. Metal sheet, 1mm or so thick and 160mm x 100mm. Fold 10mm at 90deg. on the short end. Fix your first board and then use the guide (lapped over the lower board edge) to position the bottom edge of your next board by starting a few nails for it to rest on.

I can't see how the planks would be any weaker. There must be misunderstanding here. Use a mains saw!

Prying the 4 or so cryptonite pallet nails . . .

I wish! It's on an allotment.

Thanks!

Crikey Tim. I just cut a bit of scrap wood the width on the un-overlapped portion, screwed (not nailed, faster, less harmful to the wood and me) a board using it as a rough guide - no need to be mm perfect, used it at the far end as well, and then whacked in galvanised cross heads with me crap electric screwdriver from Wickes. When the battery ran out, so did I and it was time for coffee and a bun while it recharged. Cheap, low energy, and more than good enough.

Buy a mains generator

Each to his own:-)

Working alone and often off the ground there is a benefit in being able to position and mark the next length to coincide with the uprights for cutting. A couple of nails in your offcut would do the same job.

Clarkes of Walsham, a bit down the road from you, will do treated featheredge 175x22mm in 4.8m lengths. Rarely perfectly straight.

Nails/ screws? Your pocket! Galvanized wire nails give an adequate fixing and less risk of the timber splitting with shrinkage.

It'd be too much hassle carting it on and off site - quite a bit of pilfering goes on apparently. I've just bought a couple of 5Ah batteries so fingers crossed that'll do it.