The Build of my Workshop

Hi Guys,

Just wanted to post a link to my website where I have documented the build of my new workshop.

Hope it is of use to someone.

**LINK**

Graham

Great write-up and an impressive build - thanks for posting it!

.

Very, very well documented.

Nick

Does one have to chant a prayer to Microsoft to make the links appear?

.

Worked instantly on the iPad [a Micro$oft-free Zone]

MichaelG.

Yes, my tablet worked but all rather small.

Ah, found the secret - turn off the style.

Very interesting to see the costing.

Graham

Very nice work. Fibreglass is not a common roofing material here in Canuck land ( a wee bit colder) so I found that segment particularly interesting.

Bill

Well you definitely did better than this guy: **LINK**

Link invalid, but it must be this one...83 pages!

http://www.bcsportbikes.com/forum/showthread.php/146566-Build-to-Fail-Fail-to-Build.-What-is-this-I-don-t-even

...just the pictures in the first post brought a Friday afternoon smile

Edited By Martin Millener on 24/10/2014 13:02:32

Edited By Martin Millener on 24/10/2014 13:02:58

I tried to login into your workshop site. It slung me out and I could not find a place to register, so I am putting my comments here which will bore the pants of every one.

First of all I am most impressed with your build, its to a much higher standard then I would be trying to achieve with my shed mkll.

I built a shed in about 1983, and left it (sniff, sniff) in 2011, only to re-vamp an existing commercially made shed, so its fair to say that I have had a bit of experience. with a man cave. As I am about to repeat the procedure , but am 30 years older (but not wiser), I thought I would look around and see what other people have done.

First question, What have you done about the floor?, I feel that the whole site should have a DPC over it, then foam insulation, floor joists then P5 water resistant T&G chipboard. I have use a 4mm MS 1m sq. sheet as a load spreader under my mill, but anyway, holes can be cut in the floor and bricks taken down to the concrete base if really heavy duty machine mounts are required. No insulation - cold feet.

One problem I had was , like you I used the back wall of the MK1 as the "fence", my neighbours plants then searched out any minute crack and got through under the eaves into the ceiling insulation. This is where I think your featherboard may show a weakness. Likewise on my commercial shed the boarding is pulling out the nail gun nails (blunt points that shear the grain of the wood so no friction grip on the nails shank). My MKl, used marine ply planks screwed in with two screws on every upright.

The only other problem I had was with drips splashing upwards and rotting the bottom 9" of the boarding - I then put a gutter on (after 25 years?).

I am less then impressed with Sterling board, It says leave a 3mm gap between sheets, have you had any problem with it? Also I wonder if its strong enough to screw brackets onto for shelving, I was thinking of using square edge chipboard, so a panel can be removed for maintenance.

I lined my ceiling with hardboard with 1000 cup washers and M4 X 16mm Posidrive screws, cheap, but a lot of noggins required (every 18" along the joists). I am tempted by your sterling board, use but will try to prime it before use (to fill the holes!).

Can't think of any other questions at the moment.

Frank

Hi Frank,

I did have commenting enabled, but within 30 seconds of the site going live, I was receiving spam posts. I got fed up of deleting them all so turned off commenting.

I haven't done anything with the floor. The base is 6 inch steel reinforced concrete laid down over a damp proof membrane. I put a DPC inbetween the base wood and the concrete, sealed with marine sealant. This wasn't so much about stopping the damp getting at the wood as it is all treated, but I didn't want water seeping under the edges and into the workshop. It seems to have worked ok. Apart from that, that's it. I stand on the bare concrete, as do the machines. I have electric heaters in there which keep the workshop around 15-18 degrees, which rises to about 20-21 degrees when I am in there working (I must be hot stuff) (outside temperature currently 8 degrees). I haven't had any problems with cold feet as yet. If I did, I would just put rubber mats down infront of the machines.

One of the good things about my location is that the fence side of the workshop faces out onto the car park for my house and my neighbours. I've nuked the area around the workshop with weedkiller as no plants should be growing there, so I don't see why any plant growth should affect me. If any do grow, I nuke em immediately. Like you said, not so lucky if you are facing onto a neighbors garden. Plants will hunt out any gaps and destroy them.

Interesting that you are getting boards pulling out your nails. Maybe the decision to go for Paslode Ring Shanked 2.8/50mm nails wasn't such a bad choice afterall. I tried pulling one out (when I shot it in the wrong place) and believe you me, it wasn't coming out in a hurry. I had to hang off the claw hammer. Sofar so good, the outside of the workshop looks like the day I built it (apart from the colour changing slightly).

I wouldn't fix shelving/units to the sterling board directly. Attempt to line all your screws up so they are driven into the studs behind. When putting the sterling board onto the stud work it gives it massive rigidity. It really is strong stuff when nailed down to a frame. I wouldn't have thought it would give much resistance to a single screw being pulled out on a 12mm board though. I didnt leave any gap at all on my interior boarding. They are all tight up against each other. The side boards are gapped slightly, but I wouldn't say 3mm, probably a mixture of 1-3mm on those. I did stick to the 3mm gap on the roof though, as that is exposed to direct sunlight (albeit under fibreglass) and would be subject to expansion. I went by the book on the roof as I didn't want to mess up the GRP stage.

I was amazed when I did the boarding out just how many screws I went through. My initial "I'll do them all at 200mm spacing" and this crappy box of 200 should do the job, didn't turn out right at all. Mine were a mixture of 4 x 30/35/40 whatever I had available. I sunk them about 1mm deep into the sterling board. When I painted I dolloped a big drop of paint into each screw hole to seal them off. It turned out quite well. You can't actually see the screws unless you get close.

Be sure to post some pictures of your new shed when you have them. I'll certainly be interested to see how you get on.

Graham

That's the one martin. Cracking read!

Graham, you have built an excellent shed and the documentation if anything outdoes the build which is excellent. I am in the final stages of completing a 105 sq. ft. extension to the rear of my garage and was beginning to think my budget had run away but believe I have built it to a very high standard, perhaps at a much lower cost per sq. ft. mainly because I have very cheap high quality timber suppliers.

One wall is formed from the garage wall and a second wall has 18 inches formed from another wall I have not had to build which obviously saved on cost but against that I had to lay the slab (4 inches mainly but 6 inches where I have inserted very thick walled steel sections to take a leg vice and as immovable holes for bending). The base layers are DPM, 2 inches of Kingspan,Vapour barrier . 4 inches concrete with steel mesh). I used modified metal post stubs for supporting the 3 X 3 verticals,set into the concrete. I have also fireproofed the entire structure (inside and out ) with Ecosol (excellent service technically and always next day delivery to me in Scotland) and treated all tongues and grooves ,newly cut faces and the main structural members (all 3 X 3 s ) with Jotun Visir. I think this is probably the best rorproofer altho whether it does what it says on the tin I can't tell you as its all in Norwegian)..

I obtained 36 mm tongue and groove cladding (finished thickness about 30mm thick) cladding, excellent quality, Scandanavian grown timber (would have preferred Siberian) but as I paid £12 per sq. metre I was happy to settle for Scandanavian). I would have preferred lapped timber to T and G as I would have then controlled the overlap but the T and G price was too tempting. My initial plan was to use tanalised timber but I got fed up with arranging a load to Scotland from the Yorkshire tanalised timber mafia. This proved fortunate in hindsight as tanalised timber is expensive and difficult to fireproof and at £12 a sq. metre that pays for an awful lot of visir. All timber fixings are screws or ss ring nails (60mm) My bottom layer of cladding consists of thermalite blocks, profiled by me, they cut very easily , to take a sloping ,watershedding, fibre cement cladding (expensive but rot proof and slightly more insulating than timber.All thermal bridges,such as the metal post stubs have been "broken " with kings span. I have 3 inch kings span for the pent roof (8 ft 6 inches falling to 6 feet 5 inches) and 25mm Kingspan for the walls to be installed this winter. I have still to make the smallish windows (security) and doors (a double door about 5 feet wide.

One wall has two zigs and a zag to preserve the view from my lounge window giving 6 corners in all all of which I have mitred for extra security (i did buy a compound chop saw for the job which makes good mitre joints quicker than hand sawing butt joints).

The roof is clad in half inch sarking, fireproofed this twice, and will then have two mm glass fibre mat with bitumen "torched on" as my roof slope is only 12 degrees (the mat is meant for flat roofs) which will be covered with Wickes felt shingles. under this as stated 3 inches of kingspan for the highest half of the pent roof and two inches for the lower half to be installed before Xmas,I hope.

I have procured all the materials except , double glazing panes,Butinox 3, window fittings. locks and bolts..electrical fittings,compressed air fittings (the zigzag wall gives a convenient housing for a vertical compressor, sound insulated by the kingspan. ) Probably a few other bits as well. Visir is a bit expensive and slow to apply to the main area of cladding which will have to be content with a double spraying of modern gutless wood preserver followed by 3 coats of Butinox 3 (12 years life they say even in Scotland--but pricey ).

I have all receipts and had avoided doing a total due to a suspicion I had run over my estimate of £2000 but will do an add up when I have procured all the fittings I have still to get). There are also complications in that I bought enough cladding to build my grandkids a hut so they can sleep out on the tree platform in summer -Has to hold 4 ) and I have vast quantities of DPM ,vapour barrier, and ss nails left over plus 4 fibre cement boards for the base of my other shed)

I think any saving I might have made is probably due to the cheapo prices I got for the cladding, other timber (I paid the guy £20 more than he asked as he's my last remaining cheap timber supplier and I don't want him going out of business. ) I believe the concrete was pretty cheap as well at £200 for cash , which included a man to help with the borrowing, use of barrows, and was mixed to my specification in one of those posh new lorries that mix it on the spot, so you only pay for exactly what you need. The man who supplies my timber (not the same as supplied the cladding) always supplies top grade timber and last time I costed some from him I worked price out per cc (to compare with Wickes as I could n't have got timber that size from Wickes) and it worked out under one sixth yes one sixth, Wickes price. Wickes by the way supply better timber IMO, than the other chain stores ,and are by no means the dearest.

I may yet get a shock when I do the final addition but my gut feeling is that for 105 sq. ft it will come in at under £2500 of which the Visir (4 litres at about £15 a litre), fireproofing (Eco-sol WD 15 litres at about £80 for 5 litres ) and the Butinox 3 (still to be procured) are not insignificant contributors.

The shed is 11 feet 6 X 11 feet , but only 105 sq. ft due to the zigzag wall.

erdLL HAS TWO ZIGS AND Apost stumetal

Ran out of characters before I could say best regards a fellow shedder and then noticed the few words of Erdish at the end due to earlier typos. but anyway regards .

Also thanks for your shed build site which as you can imagine had much of interest to me.

Now I have a few characters the negotiation with my timber man went something like

"150 quid"

" What for that lot.!!! You're bloody joking ,I'll give you £180" (I'd estimated £300 plus)

"160 then"

'180"

'!70" Which we settled on. This is a Goon Show negotiation. I might add my cladding supplier "threw in" 8 extra 10 foot boards " ...as you'll lose a few feet as the odd board will have shakes at the end" .Not many.

To any Scottish shed builders my timber man is in Carronshore and the cladding came from South Alloa. My next door neighbour who is the heid banana on a N.Sea oil rig and is not short of a bob or two asked me recently where to get timber for a fence he's building and was staggered by the prices also.Walter Marriott on the Dryrmen -Stirling road used to be as cheap and had dock sized timbers .Alas he is no longer with us.

Alan

Edited By alan frost on 07/11/2014 19:04:07

Edited By alan frost on 07/11/2014 19:04:52

Timber is relatively cheap at the moment as a rash of diseases mean large areas of conifer are being clear felled. A senior chap in the Forestry Commission told me it was their own fault for planting monoculture crops in the past.

Neil

Yes....but. Call me unpatriotic but the slower softwood grows the better or so I'm told, hence my preference for Siberian and then Scandanavian, although Canadian would `I presume also be good, and especially US Alaskan. Scottish is of course always cheap up here but grows too quickly. Its the distance between the annual growth rings that gives the poor stuff away.

My preference received some confirmation when a former professional boat building (wooden) cousin visited this summer and remarked on the excellence of the wood I had, although at the end of the day it still ain't hard wood. Must admit my budget was n't going to ruh to a hardwood shed.

Nice write up of your build. I recently bought a cabin about the same size. I agonised for some time about what type of guttering for mine and settled on the Floplast Mini Gutter at B & Q in Grey. The smaller size looks very neat and has easily handled a few downpours to date. I just fitted an automatic rainwater diverter for the water butt. I've had several garage workshops and have to say I would never settle for a concrete floor again. It's really hard on your feet in the cold weather and anything you put on the floor to improve things seems to attract swarf or make cleanup a chore. The floor of my cabin was finished boards on top of bearers but I've covered this with sheets of ply and then applied several coats of floor paint. It's bright, foot friendly and very easy to sweep clean.

Around where I live we can buy King span rejects, which consists of two sheets of profiled plastic coated steel with 75 or 100mm insulation foam between. The inner is white and outer often green, but can be painted a different colour later. My friend made a concrete base with all the usual polystyrene and damp proofing, then laid marine quality ply on top, then erected the walls. The shed is so light and warm, I think it only needs a couple of light bulbs to keep it warm and damp proof. Farmers use the same material for animal building roofs. The sheet are 4 metres long and a damaged on one end where some one has been careless when handling with a forklift, that can be cut away using angle grinder with a thin disc. I've had my workshop for more that 25 years but if I was to start again it would be Kingspan. For £30 the owner delivers and if you take a complete pack its even cheaper. I notice an advert in Saturday Yorkshire post for similar material. Ted