mickthetree":63pjue9s said:
Hi Pike
Mind if I ask a few questions?
Hi Mick,
I haven't really reviewed the build yet as it's not quite done (never will be
) , so good question! Excuse me for thinking out loud.
The new floor is 2x6 treated c16 sat on dense concrete blocks (about 3 or 4 each to go quite deep, on gravel in very shallow heavy compacted clay). The clay means the ground is solid but it will move quite a lot in a frost, which could throw things out of shape a bit, but hey its just shed. The 2x6 I think I did 400mm centres roughly. You can see that early in the thread.
3 or 4 blocks and gravel in each means they are I guess about 400-700mm deep. I just went down to very hard clay. I might not have done that if the ground was softer or got a lot of water for example. I dug them by hand.
The CLS I used is 63mm x 38mm. I nearly went for 89mm x 38mm but because of the small framing of the existing shed and the fact that I decided to outer sheath with ply, I didn't need the extra strength. The framing was at 600mm centres.
The cladding is 150mm with 100mm on top so that the visible width is around 100mm (25mm overlap each side). I did single screws in the centre of boards as it was enough and maybe avoids movement problems.
Would I do anything different? Probably almost everything! I was learning as I went and deliberately making decisions just to try to end up with something looking a little bit different. I wanted a particular look so some common sense design decisions (like proper overhang/guttering) went out of the window provided I could make sure it was basically water tight and strong *enough*. It's at the bottom of a long garden with no access so getting concrete poured was less of an option (not that I would have anyway). I've lived here 6 years or more and been agonising over how and where to have a work shed so in the end I made compromises to get something done.
I should (and still may) do better stronger gussets on the trusses.
Extending a rubbish cheap shed was the biggest pain. It would have been much easier and ended with a better structure if I'd knocked it all down. As most of my challenges came from trying to work with the existing bit. I ended up having to half rebuild it anyway so it wasn't worth it. Worked out fine though. The only issue there would have been where to store all my gear while I built from scratch.
The heaviest tool is the bandsaw and I don't have room to add much else anyway. It hasn't fallen through the floor and things are still level so I think its just about strong enough. I did notice the plywood has marked a bit when I've been moving it around but now in place it seems fine. Maybe overkill but I think 25mm ply or doubling up the 18mm might have been worth while.
I wanted to build something I could do myself which would be "good enough". It's what I would call "almost under engineered" but it's not going to fall apart and I had fun with going for a particular look.
The batten and boards I see as just a weather screen, only effective along with the sheathing, membrane and air gaps which are the important bits. I would normally ply the inside not the outside especially if I had planned to insulate but I wanted the open look where you can see the framing and I'm not in there enough to worry about how cold it gets. I can just stick a fan heater on for an hour or two.
Batten and boarding the roof was entirely me going for a certain style over function. It's not that effective as there will be gaps between the boards. Having said that it's fine as even if water does get through there's the membrane underneath and has the big air gap for drying out. A more effective roof would have been corrugated sheets or maybe running the boards horizontally to let gravity do more of the work of keeping rain out.
If I did it again I might look again at open boarding and a specialised uv membrane. That was my first choice but I went for something more basic.
What I do like is that the cladding it very easy and cheap to replace. I'm happy with it just being a shed but if I was bulding a workshop which I thought would be the last and only one I ever have I'd probably have beefed it up with poured concrete footings.
Cheers,
Carl.
