DBT85s Workshop - Moved in and now time to fit it out

[DBT85]

OK great, thanks. I'll get rod, I've cut enough of it so I know the trick with the nut.

I don't have direct access but we know people with just about every type of machine for farms you can imagine. At a cost of course!

Is this for lifting the ridge?

The off-the-top-of-my-head plan is to use the formwork timber to make something to hold the ridge up anyway until such time as the first 4 rafters are in.

That can have holes in it every couple of feet to take a rod. I would lift one end up high enough to get a rod in under it, and then do the other end. Then lift the first end up to the next hole. Etc. At one time I'd only be lifting half the weight and only say 500mm at a time. With assistance.

 

[DBT85]

Off the top of my head I'm going to need to hire:

A digger
A dumper
A nail gun (I could screw it all, but probably cheaper and faster to hire the gun)
A bull float

What have I forgotten?

 

[MikeG.]

If you haven't floated before, then a bull float can be a bit tricky. If you have, you'll know what you're up against. If you've got a compressor it might be cheaper just to buy a nail gun. They were about £85/ £90 last time I looked.

 

[DBT85]

I don't have one Mike. Well, I do but it's 120 miles away. Our hire place is good and it's not me footing that particular bill so I'm happy to hire one!

Had a long chat with father in law today about everything and how we're going to do it. He's got a man who knows his way around a digger who might well come in and dig the hole for the slab.

If he can't do it in the near future though I'll wing it.

Never floated before. Would use a long timber to screed it first and the bull later. The concrete is the bit I'm most worried about as it's not exactly one you can easily fix!

 

[DBT85]

Work began yesterday with clearing the shed out and then the shed itself. The hole in the hedge to the rear of the garden has been widened to about 8ft to allow access for the digger and trailer to remove the spoil. The digger is not your usual tiddler driven through a doorway sized gap.

That extra gap will also give us access with the bale poker to bring in the bags of hardcore and sand as needed, assuming I csnt persuade the HIAB driver to drive in the field and just lift them in where I want them (I'm sure he won't).

I've also been cutting down a load of other hedge that has not been needed since the guy who owns the adjacent field has left it to go wild for the past 30 years. Exhausted right now!

Tonight and tomorrow I'll carry on and I want to be at a point where I have what I need sorted so that I can make some calls and also have my shopping list sorted for sundries like dpc,dpm, m18 rod, etc etc.

This week the electrician will come and tell me what I need. My original plan was to run the conduit into the slab so that it comes up inside, I'm wondering if that's either wise or even necessary.

It's going on conduit just because we have it and I've got to dig a trench anyway. It also always give us the opportunity to run other things at a later date of ever they were needed.

Given that I am proceeding without planning (not within 2m, not over 4m not more than x% etc) I'm wondering if I should email them anyway and just check that the standard planning rules apply where I am.

Pic of the site to come.

 

[MikeG.]

Excellent. I'm looking forward to this one. Good luck!

 

[DBT85]

Thanks Mike. Any thoughts on these two?

There will be plenty more questions don't you worry!

This week the electrician will come and tell me what I need. My original plan was to run the conduit into the slab so that it comes up inside, I'm wondering if that's either wise or even necessary.

Given that I am proceeding without planning (not within 2m, not over 4m not more than x% etc) I'm wondering if I should email them anyway and just double check that the standard planning rules apply where I am.

 

[Sheptonphil]

Excellent. I'm looking forward to this one. Good luck!

So am I.

 

[DBT85]

Mike, I've seen an image of your corner batten detail somewhere and for the life of me can't remember where. Scrub that, just found it!

Still got the link somewhere?

I wonder if you'll like my parametric workshop, my first project after watching 3 youtube videos on Fusion

 

[DBT85]

I'm assuming I can just go with 1 by for the facia and barge boards?

After watching the install on metro tile metal tiles last night they look easy enough, till you have to bend an entire 1.3m sheet to finish at the top. They do hire out their benders so I've sent an inquiry.

Maybe nice cedar shingles instead.

 

[MikeG.]

........This week the electrician will come and tell me what I need. My original plan was to run the conduit into the slab so that it comes up inside, I'm wondering if that's either wise or even necessary.

The usual thing is to just bury the cable (with sand and a warning tape over), and to cast a conduit into/ through the slab for, say, a metre either side of the concrete. Shall I try that again, in English this time? Position a piece of conduit under/ through the formwork so that you can feed the cable through into the desired location. Make sure it is long enough each side such that I can remain completely clear of concrete spillages etc. I can't see any great benefit to putting the cable in the ground in conduit, but talk to your electrician.

Given that I am proceeding without planning (not within 2m, not over 4m not more than x% etc) I'm wondering if I should email them anyway and just check that the standard planning rules apply where I am.

I wouldn't bother. I can't see what there is to gain, unless you are unsure of your status regarding National Parks, AONBs or World Heritage Sites etc.

 

[DBT85]

Thanks Mike.

It was really going into conduit because we have some that we can disappear and because I can always use it to pull something else thought if I ever needed to. I wouldn't buy some for the job.

And barge and fascia boards can just be 1x4 or whatever is needed, right?

And is there magical blinding sand to go under the dpm?

 

[MikeG.]

Fascia boards and barge boards, if you have any, are always done in 1" stuff.

Blinding is only necessary if there is anything underneath the plastic that is sharp enough to push a hole in it when several tons of concrete is dumped on the top. Roots, small flints, hardcore etc are the usual culprits. If you have a perfect bed below the DPM then you don't need blinding. If you don't, then blinding needs only be the minimum to protect the plastic. If in doubt, stick it in there.

 

[DBT85]

Ok Mike cheers. I'm still assuming I'll need the sub base so blinding will have to go on top. I just don't know if there is a specific sand to use or more importantly not to use.

Hopefully tomorrow I can do some exploratory holes to see the state of the earth at slab depth. As I've said to you before, locality to other trees and hedges would suggest I'm unlikely to have just clay and nothing else under there.

So this is where we're at. Site cleared as much as it can be until my father in law walks up with the chainsaw to go at the trees. There are 2 slabs left from the old shed, they currently have inhabitants living under them. I'll move them as late as possible.

Before (some months ago)

Today

 

[MikeG.]

I don't think there is any good reason to choose one sand over another, but sharp sand might be best because it doesn't puddle up like washed/ soft washed/ plasterer's sand if it gets wet.....and it normally rains once you've got everything prepared for concrete. :lol:

 

[DBT85]

Fair enough. I did a bit more rummaging the internets and it seems sharp sand is the norm.

From the online calculators I only need about 0.15m2 of mortar for all the laying, so I just need my ratios to work out what I want. Either way its a long way short of enough to need a bulk bag of the sand!

This is the look of it right now in Fusion. Still no windows in the long side you can see, that would be only place I would put them if at all.

Still missing barge, fascia and all the cladding and the plate below the sole plate for getting level on the bricks. Also the filler pieces between the top of the studs. The studs above the top plate in the gable ends have not been done yet.

This just helps me get a list of everything I need together and I can toy with this when I can't do much else.

The design is 95% parametric. You can define roof pitch, max allowed height, total long side bricks, total short side bricks, how many bricks either side of the door, sheet good sizes, stud sizes, rafter sizes, ridge sizes, tie sizes, overhangs. Just punch in your values and it recalculates everything. All the studs, rafters, ties, bricks, blocks, noggins, OSB, etc. It's been fun and a challenge to work out some of the maths to make it work.

 

[DBT85]

Mike, at the moment this is looking like a 200mm slab and before you have mentioned a142 in the top and bottom 50mm. Best way to support that middle 100mm between the sheets?

I've still not dug any exploratory holes but the idea of laying a slab on little more than a little sand and straight clay just sounds all wrong :shock:

Just getting my timber list ready for all the timber and OSB bar the cladding. Looking like £1800 from Davies timber on their website. Cheeky pippers want £30 delivery on a order that big! Am asking a few others too but it's nice to have a baseline.


Metrotile want about £150 to hire the tile bender and deliver it and collect it for a month. A little more than I need.

I've just been looking at Cembrit fibre cement slates and feel my mind must be going wrong. Their brochure says that the 600x300 tiles avg about 13.33 tiles per m2 on a 25 degree pitch (because of overlaps, got it), but they are only around £1.15 per tile, meaning my 36.5m2 roof is under 500 tiles (ignoring ordering alittle extra). That's easily half the price of the Metrotile or Decra.

The metal tiles come in at about 6kg/m2 but the cembrit come in at around 20kg/m2. Will the roof take the extra weight?

 

[MikeG.]

Ok, that helps with visualising what is what. A couple of things.......can you give me the over-all dimensions. More importantly, the ridge beam is structural, but there is nothing supporting it. Its loads need to be brought down to the ground, which means, this near end at least, that either there is a post in under it which is standing on something which goes directly to the top of the slab, or, if you make the entire gable load bearing (which is effectively what happens anyway), then you have a load over the door opening and thus the needs for a proper timber lintel supported on cripple studs (you should have doubled-up studs at the door opening in any circumstance). Incidentally, if that messes with your door height the lintel can go above the plate.

As an incidental aside, noggins can be staggered, and this helps a lot with nailing them in place.Ping a line across the studs, and then alternate the noggins above or below that line.

ETA:

Extra weight on the roof...? Well....usual caveat etc.......yes. I always assume a tiled roof when looking at structure. Also, your roof is much the same structure as mine, which is natural slate, and natural slate is over 40kg/sq m.

 

[DBT85]

Overall is 7.2 x 4.7m. Internal area will be 29.89m2

I thought that a normal ridge beam would have no ties but the weight supported at either end, and a ridge board would have ties all the way down. Therefore in this design as its a beam but with ties this would suffice. I take that a little from following your build in which I didn't see anything other than the beam, rafters and then raised ties as I have here. Apologies if I assumed anything incorrectly.

What girth are we talking about for the lintel and then support upto the ridge?

The noggins are a little staggered in that image, but not much so its not easy to tell.

Thanks for the tile info. Certainly another option.

Heres the door end, could you show me what I need? I know the studwork in the gable is missing. Wasn't forgotten! Cripples were also on the list.

 

[MikeG.]

A pair of 6x2s nailed together should be fine for the lintel, assuming the opening is of the order of 1500 or so. If you have that and studs up to the underside of the gable rafters (from the plate) then you're fine. That photo you show of mine is before any of that is in place, but later on in the build you'll see studs filling in the gable.