# Shed build



## David_c (23 Feb 2008)

Just joined this forum as i am hoping to learn a bit about building a shed. Hope thats ok. I really do need help with one or two bits .

I'm gloucester based though originally from Derbyshire . Usually attempt wood projects slowly and with plenty 
of tea breaks ... , its hobby stuff , i just love wood and have made a few 
things i am proud of . Hoping to get good enough one day to make furniture with real wood and real joints not just shelves !

To be honest i have been looking at a few workshop builds on here already 
over the last few weeks and learnt alot of tips .

workshop builds seem quite popular it seems , anyway i have started taking 
the odd photo with the aim of keeping a diary of the build. 

Just today got the timber delivered .

My budget is pretty restricted so i have had to keep the timber sizes down.
I'm using tanalised 2x4 for the floor frame and i have 2x3 
tanalised for the walls and roof ( favouring trusses currently). I have some 
good ply around to use as strengthening .
I have osb in 18mm for floor ( kity 419 is heaviest kit) and osb 12mm
for roof sheeting.
abw will be around 16 ft x 10ft , height to be decided as i need to catch up 
with the neighbour and get his ok .
Hoping to insulate with seconds kingspan in the floor and walls / roof as i reckon that will help with keeping the neighbours happy on the noise issue.

I cant decide what to use for the base under the 2 x 4 s , i need to keep 
costs down and would like advice on this please as i just cant make my mind up on this ...

Could i use dust / mot whacked down and just rest bricks or breeze blocks on this , could i get away with three 16ft channels , i really dont want to fill the garden with concrete but i know it would be a false economy not to support this build properly .

Thanks for looking .... Cheers , David


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## Digit (23 Feb 2008)

The easiest, and cheapest way, is a series of 'spots' to rest your beams on Dave. Dig down till the ground is reasonably solid then pour concrete to ground level. Brick, or blocks on top will then lift your beams above the damp ground level.


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## David_c (23 Feb 2008)

Thanks Digit ,

How many 'spots' would you say , i mean what span is ok with 2x4 do you reckon ? 

Cheers David


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## Digit (23 Feb 2008)

Depends on which way you lay your 4x2s. 
Try a practical test, lay your beam on two bricks and load it, you could stand on it, that should help you check. The addition of the floor will stiffen the beams as well of course. 
I was fortunate in that I had some 5in sq beams, at a guess I would suggest that one spot every 3ft would be sufficient if the beam is stood on its 2in face, but the brick test should help.


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## superunknown (24 Feb 2008)

I am in the process of a workshop build in the same way as mentioned here,
4 x 2 on concrete pillars. I have a center beam of 2 pieces of 4 x 2 bolted together with toothed washers, this is very strong. All my joists then come of that at 16"(400mm) centers and fixed with joist hangers. 

My build is 20' x 10' and I have 12 concrete pads.


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## OLD (24 Feb 2008)

http://www.stapeley1.plus.com/build regs & calcs.pdf
Page 44 table a1 .25-.5 38x97mm spans at 400mm spacing 1.72 mtr.max span.
So each 4x2 must be supported at each end and middle just set bricks mortared to ballast to provide supports.


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## David_c (24 Feb 2008)

Many Thanks, 

You have convinced me i will go for the pad method.

Digit , That sounds like a sensible test , i may just do that to satisfy myself that i 've got the right number of pads .

Nola - Checked out your concrete pads method on your weblog , photos explain things much better dont you think ! Keep posting the photos i for one will find your weblog compelling viewing. Hope your build is going well .

Old , Hey wheres the paracetamol gone ... ':?', seriously though i think 
i would lose it if i had to refer to tech stuff like that pdf , i need it to be simply set out for me i'm afraid . I'm sure its an excellent reference for those who can take it all in mind. I checked out your Summer house on the web , thats one very impressive structure i must say !



I have realised that i need to bear in mind the lay of the land for my build.
The area where the shed is going in is around 6 or 8 inches higher than 
the surrounding area on two sides at least , the gable end will be very close to what is currently an excuse for a retaining wall which i will need to 
replace , so i suppose it would be best to do that first so i dont end up disturbing the ground around my concrete pads .







If i got my photo in , On my photo you can see I was thinking of fastening two of the 2x4 s
together too for extra rigidity ( using tiny noggings ), had an idea i might create three sets of two running along the length as i seem to have ordered enough timber to do this . I would then fill in the frame between the three assemblies with noggings whilst the ends would be 10ft length 2x4 s to cap it off , what do you think ?

Grateful (very ) newbie , David


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## Digit (24 Feb 2008)

If you are likely to disturb any ground near your pads Dave just take them down below the disturbance.


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## OLD (24 Feb 2008)

Its difficult to simplify further thats the span of 4x2 to support max 50kg force per square meter . the most straight forward method is three rows of supports small slabs or bricks to limit the span, extra noggins/ring beams etc take force into other local bearers and stiffen the floor further.


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## David_c (24 Feb 2008)

Thanks Digit ,
That makes good sense. 

Any idea how i post photos on here ?

David


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## Digit (24 Feb 2008)

If I ever manage to sort that out Dave you'll be the first one to know! :lol:


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## superunknown (24 Feb 2008)

David_c":2d66bo0f said:


> Thanks Digit ,
> That makes good sense.
> 
> Any idea how i post photos on here ?
> ...




```
[img]http://www.yourphotourl.com/photo.jpg[/img]
```


I'm not sure how to link to the photo you show in your picasa album. Can't seem to find a direct link to display it here?


EDIT: 

This may help 
http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2006/12/embed-photos-from-picasa-web-albums.html


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## Digit (24 Feb 2008)

Cheers Nola, I'll give it a whirl later. I tried the info that's already been posted but it didn't work out for me. Mind you, even our phone sulks when I try to use it!


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## chicken_house_man (24 Feb 2008)

I've normally supported sheds on concrete blocks. If the ground is firm then simply slicing a flat pad for it to sit on is ok. If a 16' squre shed than rest on about 30 blocks and seems firm enough. I've another one on posts concreted into the ground put this seems quite bouncy.

if you were thinking of doubling up the timbers it might be worth considering stacking them vetically to make 8x2?


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## David_c (24 Feb 2008)

Lets try this then. 

http://www.picasaweb.google.com/iquitel ... 795938.jpg

Ok so now i know how to drop someone elses photos in , i just cant do it from picasaweb . mmmm.


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## DaveL (24 Feb 2008)

Hi David,

For the img tag on the forum to work you need a URL that ends in .jpg or .gif. You need to drill down to get this on picasa.

I have not use this host but I am sure others on the forum have try searching for picasa.


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## David_c (24 Feb 2008)

Hi Dave L,

thanks for that , best remove that photo from your post as its not mine , i was just uploading and editing and you obviously caught it in time to copy it off.

I was trying that jpg trick , wonder why it didnt work ?


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## David_c (24 Feb 2008)

not sure what i did there , need to resize it mind !







You are right Dave L , i had to drill down as you say , by right clicking , properties and copying the url from that it seems to have worked .
Looks like the first image had a problem with being too large maybe.

HE HE got there in the end !

Now perhaps i can get back to the job in hand ... ':lol:'


David

EDIT- I dont believe it that one has gone now aswell , is google blocking the link i wonder , you may be right Nola afterall.
Anyway its too late for all this now , need some shuteye !


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## superunknown (24 Feb 2008)

I have searched this a bit more, Picasa wont allow direct linking to a picture. :roll: 

So for posting images on the forum you may have to try photobucket , flickr or similar.

Shame.


EDIT: wow you did it  I'll shut up! lol


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## David_c (1 Apr 2008)

Will this link work i wonder ?

Looks like it does work then , if you are daft enough , suggest you click on slideshow, it is all legal decent and honest (apologies for that ).

http://picasaweb.google.com/iquiteliket ... P-07mP43bE


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## motownmartin (2 Apr 2008)

Yes that works okay.

I thought that you had built it already when I looked at the pics :shock: but then realised what you had done, very clever :lol: if only it was that easy,


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## David_c (2 Apr 2008)

Thanks Martin, 

Glad you liked my mock up! thanks for viewing the photos and confirming the link works .

David


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## Mcluma (3 Apr 2008)

He Dave

How do you find that Picasa to work with


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## David_c (3 Apr 2008)

Hi Mcluma

I mainly use Picasa to organise my photos on the pc , you just install it and it will search for all images on your machine and then you can view them , and search through them , its quite capable at that . 

You can even view photos on a timeline so if you go back to the year when you know an event happened you should find the right photo quickly. 

For editing it is basic , but actually very user friendly and without all unneccesary bells and whistles , so its quick to use where you just want to correct problems , crop images down to size , or export to web . 

If you need more serious and capable editing and creative features there are free programs , but Paint shop Pro , Photoshop and Adobe Elements are all good but not free . Photoshop is the industry standard and i was introduced to it last year having used Elements for a couple of years and PSP since i had my first digi in 1999 infact. 
Using layers is a feature of all these and it opens up lots of possibilites and some fun too with head swopping etc .

Tagging is a great feature which you get with Adobe photo album and probably others too , you can label a photo with multiple labels or tags 
so for example Family could be a tag on a photo and the same photo 
could be tagged holiday . You can then search for your photos of family hols , or perhaps all photos of your cat ... whatever you takes your fancy.
Its avery powerful feature , but you need to be disciplined or it can run away with you .

Photoshop is just brilliant and so capable , you could spend years learning its hidden depths , i am no expert myself , i spent many hours of frustration getting to a basic level initially!! 

As always there's horses for courses so it just depends what you want to achieve with a program . I would say if you have straightforward needs dont buy a program , try picasa first.

http://picasa.google.com/

For myself i have been known to tend to take alot of photos being an occasional hobby photographer , so i find having them organized is very necessary , my ideal will be when i can dump them all on a massive hard drive sat next to my wi-fi router and so they are not all clogging up my laptop , whilst i can access them all when i want to at a click of a mouse .

Oooh i do go on a bit sometimes ':lol:'

Cheers David


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## Benchwayze (4 Apr 2008)

Hi Dave, 

I bought this book. Great read, and full of info. It's an American book, but then a shed , is a shed, is a shed.. As they say, wherever you build it! 

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sheds-Do-yourse ... 779&sr=1-5

Regards.

John


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## kafkaian (8 May 2008)

I needed to raise my ground level in places and needed to get rid of some old bricks. So dug out the former and pulped the latter into hardcore and did a damp-proofed concrete floor for my shed - but had a place for all my leftover soil (which I then de-stoned for use elsewhere as drainage)

If the people that buy my house (credit crunch permitting) in the future want to get rid of those foundations they'll be cussing from here to eternity :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:


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