Recommended Shed suppliers

You could do worse than Tiger Sheds. They offer windowless options on their workshops, and if the pent shed my son bought is anything to go by their quality is pretty good.

**LINK**

Brian

Colin

I find that with any largish project of this nature its imperative to do book end costings for "minimum I can live with" and "what I'd really, really like" concepts on similar basic construction. Then jack the minimum concept up and trim the really like one down until they get fairly close in the middle.  Very dangerous to assume that ought to be cheaper than this.

When I did that exercise I was surprised how little difference there was between the nice design I actually built and an improved to workshop standard log cabin or good shed. Not being able to have proper 8 ft ceilings in the workshop was the final concept killer for good shed or log cabin kit approach. Kit would have been a few percent saving but meant putting up with open void roof, lower eaves and ordinary wooden shed type doors and windows. Really useful savings meant skimping and considerable aesthetic compromise.

Figured I was going to spend the next 30 plus years looking at them sat in the garden so might as well try for something nice.

Clive

Edited By Clive Foster on 26/01/2018 19:37:05

During 2017 we built our Men's Shed 24ftx16ft traditional timber frame cost about £7000 but we had charity discounts and free insulation. Wood has become rather expensive these days at least if you are not in a big town.
6x2 roof and floor, (planning constraints precluded slab) 4x2 wall frame, green painted ply exterior OSB interior, corrugated iron roof. Windows are just glass (free) set into the framing timber with some trim and sealant - no need to buy frames.
I wouldn't advise a plastic type roofing sheet as it curls up in the sun and splits where the cats and squirrel claw it. If felting use the full 3 layer house grade from Wickes not shed grade or torch on but real iron is best.

As well as the planning allowance for a shed you are allowed a car port and nothing says it has to be on the drive so worth designing in to give a BBQ and outside work area.

Felt shingles are supposed to have a 25 year life but do involve a lot of nailing. I used them as think they are reasonably attractive and may last well. Only five years gone so far so a bit early to come to a conclusion.

Mike

For a flat(ish) roof, I'm a fan of EPDM rubber. Mine's done 12 years so far no probs, 50 year expected life... You can get DIY kits on Ebay...

Edited By Bikepete on 26/01/2018 20:50:51

Colin. I did a lot of research three years ago and ended up with a building from Malvern Timber Framed Buildings **LINK**

Their Website is not the greatest to navigate but the bottom line is that they will configure the product to your needs. I ended up with an adapted summer house design that I subsequently lined with top quality Kingspan insulation lined with 15mm foil back plasterboard and it has been a great success. Malvern erected the building in half a day and I then spent a few months fitting it out.

I looked at building one myself but the cost of materials was very high compared to buying a ready made product. I discounted 'sheds' from garden centres etc as they were very expensive and lacked sufficient depth in the uprights to take insulation. The time was also a key factor.

Message me if you need more information. Nick

Edited By Nick Thorpe on 27/01/2018 08:10:10

In my opinion it's not possible to buy what you want, there is only one option to build one either yourself or have one made. If you do it yourself its possible to have something amazing for very little cost. I built this for £3200, including the concrete slab. Timber is not expensive if you spend time shopping round and using the internet. The only not new materials i used were the windows and doors (£20 each off facebook or gumtree). 4x2 frame, OSB board all over, breathable membrane all over, steel roof, 100mm insulation everywhere, and clear tanalised cladding to make it look nice. cheap but good .... best of both worlds i hope

Phil may be right re the design, but materials can be bought second hand - and often unused.

Take my 20m^2 of 100mm insulation. Second hand (likely cladding from a high rise building?). Mine actually cost me £44+ VAT and was a small pile of 1200 x1200mm and 1200 x 600mm pieces. I was lucky to get it, on the day (someone only wanted 8 or 9 piles, so I got this smaller pile at the same price. His piles were probably about 24-28 high). I had to give away some of mine because I could not fit any more in and on my Saxo . It also cost me 20 litres of fuel, but I did buy other higher value items and spent a night with my wife and friends who were working in that area over the weekend.

There was also umpteen lots of new, but secondhand, timber for sale. £150 + VAT would have bought a14ft Ifor Williams trailer load, so was particularly expensive that day!

The four full sheets of kingspan (costing £33 in total) were simply loaded onto my roof rack and taken home, two at a time, when I was visiting my brother - so very little in extra fuel.

Wow - thanks for all the replies. Perhaps I should have mentioned that I'm 70 years old - so I'm not looking for a shed that will last 25 years. Secondly, the change of integral garage to Office/Guest Room will use up a fair amount of my time and money - so a quick easy shed-workshop is required.

To Silly Old Duffer-Dave: Although the present garage-workshop is comforting, it has been put together over many years in an ad-hoc "bits here - bits there" process - so the idea of a workshop where I can fully plan where things go and make bespoke benches, cupboards, shelves etc as well as getting rid of accumulated waste (e.g. why have I kept 20-odd old metal 3-pin wall sockets?) - and no disrespect to Peak4-Bill but I thought his picture was actually my workshop. And It does make sense - you can't put modern cars into 1960's built garages and around here - the conversion adds 10% to the value of the house - because we have front drive space for 2 vehicles and a caravan.

Which brings me to workshop base construction: my paver drive frontage on hardcore and sand "whackered down" supports 2 SUV cars and a caravan without any problem - so anything along these lines (concrete slabs over compacted hardcore and sand inside a concrete block surround) seems adequate for my needs.

I expect to reinforce the inside of the shed with extra timber to improve stability, as well as specify extra thick flooring and insulate the timber sections behind extra plywood sheets.

Having said all that, I appreciate and was intrigued by the many solutions to the problem. Twenty years ago, I would have followed the build-it-yourself route - as I have on many previous occasions - but not this time. I need to get a shed up quick and easy, move everything into it, and start/finish the garage conversion - all before we start our many annual caravan trips around the UK in April.

Colin

Possibly not of interest to the OP, but one avenue not explored above is the 'horsey' world. I recall from some years back that, for both variety and strength, wooden stabling can make a good basis for a workshop. At that time, it was also likely to be a little cheaper, area for area.

rgds

Bill

Another not yet mentioned possibility is that of a used shipping container. 20ft long around £1000, don't know if that includes transport and craneage though. Very solid and secure just site on 4 concrete pads but needs insulating well.

John

Re the shipping container suggestion from Journeyman. Lot of strong space for the money if reasonable delivery costs can be negotiated but working environment in an ex-shipping container is truly horrible. They need a good deal of fitting out and extra insulation / ventilation to be acceptable. Can't nail to steel which doesn't help! I couldn't be doing with the low ceiling, about two hours and I'm ready to fight anything smaller than T.Rex. And win!

Council (& SWMBO) will probably not approve of the aesthetics.

Used Portacabins might be worth a look if no planning issues. Bit over budget and probably need some sort of plinth to make it look like an ordinary shed. But it comes with all the electrics and insulation. Fill the scuffs, coat of paint, move in. Fitting out always takes longer and costs more than you think. Especially for the more mature person with plenty of other things to fit into their remaining good years. Something I've become very aware of as the big 60 recedes into the past.

If future property valuations are important seriously consider the log cabin option over a shed. A nice one will almost certainly add value to the property if you are careful not to leave screw holes everywhere when fitting out. No need to line or insulate either which closes the price gap over the good shed option.

Clive

To Colin,

Do you know there's a showroom for the dunster house cabins around Bedford way, if it's anywhere near you? You can go and see what you can get?

If I could do it again I would've maybe used the garage to keep the timbers dry while they're resting, it took a bit longer than I thought it would but we got there in the end.

A concrete block paved based is what I made as I already knew how to do this, and there was limited access to the site so I wasn't knowledgeable in doing the shuttering and self levelling/filling with concrete.

So I basically laid all the hard core and mixed all the cement with a mixer and wheel barrows.

Michael W

Don't know if any of this is of help. Location is East Anglia, UK, so temperate and low rainfall.

A friend from Norfolk built the shop, to my design. Fourteen years ago he charged £1600, which included two 100 mile return trips from his home to mine.

My mistake was siting it on slabs on sand/cement. Should have been a reinforced concrete base, TOO LATE NOW!

The aim was to use 8 x 4 sheets wherever possible, (In practice, the centre panels have had to be smaller, to keep within the 10'9" x 6'9" max external dimensions. (Max SWMBO would allow between her beloved bay tree one way, and the fence and patio wall the other.

50mm framing, for walls, with 19mm T & G cladding and 12mm Ply inner, over glass fibre. Having asked for 5 lever lock, he supplied a secondhand Fire Door with a 6 lever lock. This needed a 100mm x 50mm framing to support it, and insulation to match.The roof has 12mm cladding on each side of 50mm framing with glass fibre insulation.

Roof is flat, with 6 inch slope from front to rear, 8' high at front, 7'6" at rear, (door is offset in end wall), to run rain water into a butt for SWMBO garden.

Original Felt roof cover replaced after eleven years with one piece EPDM rubber (From Rubber4Roofs. They do a neat calculator for the quantity required, and supply the edge trims that you specify, with plenty of ring shank nails. Get those in the right place first time; not easy to remove! Order by midday and everything arrives first thing next morning! Just a satisfied customer)

The coldest part is the 18mm Ply floor, (diagonals are within 1mm!) carrying 1" deep plastic mats, redundant from work. Floor is carried on 8" x 2" bearers, to allow legs of a folding crane to pass beneath it.

No windows, for security, and anyway I would only have put shelves across them!

Ventilation is by two fixed vents near floor, and intake by rarely used ex equipment 6" fan near ceiling, all on the back wall. (Terry said, quite correctly,"You'll spend most of your time with the door open"

Front wall carries shelves on 12" centres, (Late bargeboarding from a neighbour's house, plus anywhere else I can squeeze one in, even over the door! Shelf behind the lathe carries Drill Chucks, Faceplate, Ccollet chucks, Steadies, etc.

The door has three home made hinge bolts. Woodscrews with the heads turned off, screwed into the door with a drill chuck, and the post marked by partially closing the door and then drilling clearance holes on the the marks on the frame.

A thermostatically controlled 2Kw fan heater keeps it cosy, and rarely runs, once up to temperature.

A 60 Watt tubular heater, beneath the Fitting Bench (18" deep x 8' long) is left switched on when frost is expected.

Rust has not been a problem, so far.

Benches are all steel topped, on 1.5" angle iron frame. 2.5" angle iron load spreaders under the benches for 300Kg each, Mill/Drill and Lathe.

4" Record vice mounted on Fitting Bench, so that long work can protrude through the door.

Depending on your viewpoint, Compact or Congested; has some commonality with Rubik's Cube!

Power supply is a ring main of eleven metal clad twin 13 Amp sockets, fed through a RCD. (The feed to the VFD is via a suppressed socket)

Lighting

Two 5 foot individually switched fluorescents on the ceiling. The lathe has a 24 Volt 50 Watt Halogen light that came with it.

A single LED in an ex industry worklight over the Fitting Bench (Sadly also used for storage), and similar on each side of the Mill/Drill.

If the mains drops out for any reason, a battery powered emergency standby lamp on the end wall provides enough light to make a safe exit.

A handheld, LED torch for when my old eyes cannot see what has fallen on the floor!

Walls, door, and ceiling, undercoated from the benches upwards, with white emulsion paint, followed by white gloss, to brighten things a little.

Some of this may help, I hope.

Howard

Hi Howard - so what was the ramification of the "slab" mistake? Was the composite slab/sand/cement bounded by a solid wall of some sort - without this the outer sand/cement will tend to slip away allowing the outer slabs to tilt. I'm planning to concrete in concrete blocks - both around the slab perimeter and an inner pattern to support the inner edges of the slabs These inner areas to be filled with hardcore and sand - this should provide the stability of a concrete base with the ease and convenience of using slabs (I don't have easy access to the back garden for moving a concrete mixer and constituent loose ballast and sand).

On the power supply issue - I was planning to bury 30A armoured cable from the external house supply to the workshop 7m away - not because I need 30A but to provide more strength and minimise voltage loss down the cable - although this is only about 0.6 volts

Shipping containers make excellent workshop accommodation although you do need to line with ply or OSB to insulate and give a surface for fixings. We had many such containers converted for use as workshops when I served at RAF Stanley in the Falkland Islands. Big advantage was the weight which ensured they stayed put when the wind blew which was pretty much all the time whilst I was there, winds there were pretty ferocious. The downside of steel containers is they are not aesthetically pleasing but there obvious advantage is durability.

Dave W

I have a friend who has recently set up his new workshop with a 2 Bay Dunster Building and he is very please with it.

As his site was on the slope he used the plastic honeycomb and shingle system to build up to a level. If you have an existing slab with cross fall for drainage they do adjustable floor beam supports as a simple solution. Take a trip to Bedford to have a look.

I am considering replacing my 'other' outbuilding with something from the same firm.

regards Martin

Hi Dave,

Yes - I've exported (and used) Shipping containers to both west Africa (1987) and Siberia (1999) for use as fieldwork office/labs. In west Africa - they were unbearable hot when the temperatures reached 45 deg C in May. In Siberia - I sent out "Office" containers that had windows, normal doors, internal wall cladding and installed electrical wiring/sockets to an external mains socket for attachment to a generator. It's probably still out there.

Colin

Hi Colin our workshop containers were all wired for power which was supplied by generators, the only power available out on the airfield. Some had windows fitted, we didn’t have to worry about the heat in the Falkland Islands but it got pretty cold so we were glad of the plywood lining. We were accommodated on ships located in Stanley harbour, the vessel that I was on had been extended with an extra deck on top which was mainly shipping containers fixed together forming cabins and we lived three to a cabin, quite cosy the way they had been fitted out, glad to get home after my four months was up, do appreciate accommodation made out of bricks and mortar.

Dave W