Danny's Small Workshop Build (WIP)

[Danny]

30/11/2014
Today was forecast to be a nice day so I was really keen to make a dent in build today. I started building the rear wall which had to be supported on a couple of lengths of timber so that the cables that come through the floor wouldn't get damaged during the construction. Once I got all the studs screwed into the top and bottom plate I moved the whole wall back to clear the cables and removed the support timber.

Next up was to square the wall up and install all the noggins to pick the edge of the OSB3 up, remembering to allow for a 100mm overlap at the bottom of course.

:shock: OK time to admit to my first mistake, I remembered to allow for the 100mm overlap on the OSB3 when I measured for the noggins but I did it on the wrong side! #-o So I now had to remove all the noggins and reinstall them a few inches the other way, I'm glad I used screws! :lol: If you look carefully at the picture below you will notice there are two sets of black lines on each stud to mark the noggin locations so I had to admit to it. :lol: You can also see that I put the last noggin in on edge so that the SWA cable could pass underneath so it's out of the way.

After that was cutting and installing the OSB3. There's a 100mm overlap on the bottom to cover the majority of the rim joist from the floor and then there is an 11mm overlap at the left and right side to allow for the OSB on the side walls. There goes another couple hundred screws. :roll: It was starting to go dark really early! Well I thought it was about 14:00 but it was actually 16:05, what the heck? Where has the day gone? The weather has been great and I've done sod all, I'm no where near where I wanted to be at today. Oh well, time to get everything covered up before it gets really dark!

 

[katluke]

Nice work so far but you need some dpm underneath the timber base. The base is going to be sitting on the ground 24/7 365 days a year with nothing to stop the damp getting into it.
If there isn't any dpm at all under the base ? The damp will transfer straight through the packers into the base.
What material is the packers made from ? If there Timber ( esp softwood) they won't last to long, plastic ones will stop the transfer of damp.
A better solution might have been to use roofing slates to level the base with a piece of dpm between the top slate and bottom of base to stop the transfer of damp. Or if your happy to use timber packers you could have put a piece of dpm on top of the packers between them and the base. As already said in post above the longevity of shed will be seriously diminished without dpm and the shed will also be damp .

 

[Danny]

Nice work so far but you need some dpm underneath the timber base. The base is going to be sitting on the ground 24/7 365 days a year with nothing to stop the damp getting into it...

I'm really not worried about it, there is no wood in direct contact with the ground at ant point as there are plastic packers under every point. The wooden base which the greenhouse used to sit on was in direct contact with the ground and that was there for around 7 years and the greenhouse was bone dry on the inside. So i'm really not concerned about my workshop floor at all. If I was building directly on top of soil then of course things would be different but the concrete paving drains the water away.

 

[Danny]

04/12/2014
Today was another crappy day weather wise but I managed to get in a couple of hours in the afternoon. I got one of the side walls framed and sheathed in OSB, just as I was putting the last of the screws in the OSB it started raining again so I didn't get a picture of it finished. I'm sure you can use your imagination.

 

[Danny]

06/12/2014
Again due to the weather I had another late start today. I managed to get the other side wall framed and sheathed and then started with the breathable membrane. By the time I had got one side wall covered it was already fairly dark so I called it a day. The weather for tomorrow looks terrible so I doubt I'll be doing any more this week.

 

[brianhabby]

Interesting build Danny, I am also building a new garden workshop but I decided to buy a ready built shed instead of building it myself and I must say I am very happy with it so far. I will watch your progress with interest.

regards

Brian

 

[Danny]

13/12/2014
After a whole week of heavy rain and strong winds today's weather forecast of “Cloudy and light showers in the morning with heavy rain throughout the afternoon and evening” seemed fairly good considering the week we just had so I thought I'd see what I could get done today.. :lol:

I got started cladding one of the side walls, the first task was installing the edge trims. This was actually quite time consuming as the positioning is fairly crucial and took a lot of measuring and head scratching, it's much easier to position them on an already installed wall that's for sure. As the OSB is only 11mm thick I used 3.5x12mm screws approximately every 100mm.

After that installing the siding went fairly quickly, it's secured by a hidden clout nail into every stud. Just as I started cutting the last piece for this wall it started pouring with rain so I had to quickly cover everything back up again and call it a day.

 

[Danny]

21/12/2014
I started out today installing the last piece on the left side wall, as the top row can't easily be secret nailed I used some 30mm plastic coated nails into every stud.

Next up I installed the breathable membrane onto the right side wall, It was very windy as I was doing this and was a bit of a nightmare to do by myself so It took way longer then it should of, it probably took about an hour!. After that I got the 3 edge trims installed and then started installing the cladding, as I got around half way up I just caught the face of the cladding with the hammer and because it was so cold it shattered a big chunk out of it.
I didn't order any spare cladding but luckily the top row is a cut and will just about chop the damage out so it's not an issue. Just as I was measuring to cut the top row of cladding it started raining. Deja vu?

 

[Danny]

06/02/2015
Finally! I started working on my workshop again, the weather here has been miserable since the last update. Ideally I needed at least 2 days in a row of good weather to continue. And it's taken well over a month to get it.

The first task was to get the last piece of cladding on the right wall installed and than move the two side walls out of the way so that the back wall can be worked on. I can just about raise the side walls on my own but moving them is a different story.

With the help of my brother the side walls were positioned just off to the side and braced for a bit of safety as I don't fancy one of them falling on me. You may notice the left wall is upside down, this is so it can just be lowered and slid into place.

With the back wall clear I could then get on with installing the breathable membrane.

The back wall cladding went smoothly and fairly quickly for its size.

After the wall was clad it was time to raise it. I was a little concerned knowing how heavy the side walls are and they are half the size. It was a bit of a struggle but we just about managed it. It was then temporary braced.

Next up was to run a bead of silicone up the edge trim on the back wall and then the left side wall was moved into position and the two of them screwed together with 150mm screws. No pictures of this as it was dark but my trusty headlamp let me continue.

It got to 19:00 and I was so exhausted at this point that I just couldn't be bothered to tarp anything up, I called it a night just hoping that it didn't rain.

 

[Danny]

07/02/2015
Before I started today I took a picture of last nights progress. It's finally starting to look like a workshop rather than a very large piece of flat pack furniture.

The first task of the day was lifting the right side wall into position, again a bead of silicone where the two edge trims meet in the corner.

Next up was framing the front wall, notice in the above photo there’s a Rehau uPVC door. Here's a tip, rather than building your walls and than getting custom made windows and doors to fit your measurements, phone around your local manufacturers and ask if they have any surplus in stock.

It's quite common for them to be stuck with custom windows or doors, either from cancelled orders or screw-ups with the measurements. Many are most likely willing to sell them at cost just to get them out of the way. Then build your walls to fit the windows or doors. The door I got was intended for a conservatory and had a glass unit which I didn't want but the window company was more than willing to supply it with a solid panel to match the cladding instead. Eventually I'm going to add some extra security over the panel on the inside as they are only foam and plastic.

I got the bulk of the front wall framed out, leaving the noggins and door head for another time. The weather forecast for tomorrow didn't look too promising so I wanted to get a temporary roof on so it can be well protected for the week.

As it was getting dark I didn't manage to get any more pictures today, the temporary roof consisted of 6x2's screwed down flat, on roughly 2' centres and 4 sheets of OSB just tacked down every so often. I then installed a tarpaulin over it with battens, screwed into the top of each wall plate. I never like to use the grommets in tarpaulins as they rip so easily. I installed another tarp over the exposed front wall. Again another day saved by my headlamp.

 

[n0legs]

Fair play Danny you will have a lovely looking workshop and by the looks it won't be so small.
Great work, keep it up =D>

 

[blackrodd]

An excellent move, using off sized plastic window and door frames, for an effective cheap build.
I found that it's best to double up the studs each side for the door and frame to be fixed in to or you may well find you have a solid door and frame fixed into a light frame work and it can feel really "flimsy", being open and closed.
And not always easy to rectify after.

Regards Rodders

 

[Danny]

I found that it's best to double up the studs each side for the door and frame to be fixed in to or you may well find you have a solid door and frame fixed into a light frame work and it can feel really "flimsy", being open and closed. And not always easy to rectify after.

If you look at the last picture (032.jpg) in my previous update you can just about see that they are doubled.

 

[Danny]

14/02/2015
I took a photo of the temporary roof I threw together. There has been quite a lot of rain over the last couple of days and there’s only one tiny drip in the middle where there is probably a pin hole in the new tarp. But other than that everywhere seems to be bone dry.

Today's weather was looking a bit too unpredictable to be framing the roof so I did a few other things instead.

First off, I decided to build a high quality maple workbench with an iroko inlay, but it didn't quite turn out as expected... #-o

:mrgreen: Actually I was just so tired of working from a wood pile and a 210L plastic drum, so I took 10 minutes to throw together a large temporary work bench from the old timber that used to be under the greenhouse.

Next up I cut all the noggins for the front wall, having the bench made things a lot easier so I think it was well worth building. It was actually quite novel having a workbench that I don't care about, screws are great clamps!

All the noggins installed.

Next up was to frame the head of the door, note that this not the proper way to frame a door, usually you would chop the inside half of each double stud (jack studs) so that they support the header. You would than have cripple studs above the header to support the top wall plate.

In my case the header just happened to be the thickness of two lengths of timber laminated together with no cripple studs needed. I figured it wasn't worth cutting the header into the jack studs as I have plenty of 150mm screws at hand so why not make use of the off-cut from the sole plate. Besides it's not like there's ever going to be any severe loads above it.

Next up I started sheathing the front wall, however after I installed the first sheet of OSB I quickly realised how dark it was going to get in there so I decided to make use of the available daylight and started cutting firrings for the roof. I made a simple jig to allow me to cut a consistent taper with a circular saw.

The jig is basically straight length of timber to act as a fence with a batten screwed across the top of it at the required angle to guide the saw. You can get firrings pre-cut but they are often shockingly bad quality with no consistency. I think its well worth cutting your own, I cut all 14 in about an hour and that includes making the jig.

The jig worked a treat and produces very consistent cuts, all 14 firrings are exactly the same.

After that I got another sheet of OSB installed and then tarped the front wall back up as it was starting to rain, so I called it a day.

 

[blackrodd]

I found that it's best to double up the studs each side for the door and frame to be fixed in to or you may well find you have a solid door and frame fixed into a light frame work and it can feel really "flimsy", being open and closed. And not always easy to rectify after.

If you look at the last picture (032.jpg) in my previous update you can just about see that they are doubled.

Excellent! Sorry, I didn't notice, until you pointed the doubles out!
There will be no need for me to suggest plenty of noggins then, to "beef" it all up.
Its looking very good and at least you didn't have to dig a base out, as some workshop Erectors do!
Interesting wip, please keep posting
Regards Rodders