WiZeR's Workshop Thread

[wizer]

Well after getting official planning permission from SWMBO, I'm now in the design stage of building my own workshop! The build will probably take place next year now (when the weather warms up again). I would like to build the whole thing myself rather than buy a 'kit'. The main reason for this is that i'd like to use every mm of space availible. The external measurements are roughly 4.5x2.5m. Still not a massive workshop, but will keep me dry in the winter. Lots of ideas running through my head at the moment. I am just trying to get some drawings done and incorporate my ideas.

I intend to use this thread for all the little queries I may have along the way. It saves lots of small quick questions cluttering up the place. Also I will keep a small diary of my progression.

I think I have got my head around the basics of timber framing and, after the decking, feel confident putting it all together.

Here are my initial drawings of the area to get us started:

Ok, so I have drawn out the floor frame and here bares the first questions.

1. I have left 150mm either side of the workshop. The outside fence has to stay and obviously so does the house wall. The front fence will go and the front of the workshop will face out to the drive. Is this gap either side nescessary? Would it be easier to build the workshop 'onto' the house wall?

2. Is it ok to build the workshop directly onto the tarmac?

 

[wizer]

Adding the Sketchup File if anyone is interested:

http://www.wizer.co.uk/wshop.skp

 

[Les Mahon]

Wizer,

Only 2 points come to mind at the moment:

1) I'm assuming that teh workshop and fence are both timber, and will therefore need treatment from time to time, getting into a 105mm gap to paint would be tight at best!

2) Depending on what is behind the houe wall, biulding the workshop lean-to could open up the long term possibility of a door directly from the house into the workshop? On the flip side of this, if you go the lean to option you will need to tie the roof into the house wall with flashing.

Just a couple of ideas to kick off the debate! When I did mine I spen months thinking / dreaming about how I would do it, and in the end pretty much went with a sketch on the back of a *** packet and a suck it an see approach! It worked, but I'm not sure I'd recomend it as a building "technique"

Les

 

[wizer]

thanks Les, I'm sure it will end up being a suck it and see afair, but i can't help planning planning planning...


Good Point about the maitenence, not sure how to get around this (excuse the pun). I can't really afford to loose anything off the width. hmmm


WRT door from the house. This will never be possible due to the lay out of the house. I'm happy to walk out over the decking round to the workshop. It's prety easy access.

I think I like the idea of tieing it into the house. Would this mean there would be no need to build a wall on that side? Just plaster the brick wall? I take it that to do this you would need to fix a ledger on the wall for the roof trusses to fix to?

 

[LyNx]

Why not remove the fence panels and then fix again with screws from the outside face. You can then easily remove when you need to do any maintainance work. Plus you can build the workshop closer to the fence.

If you building onto the side of the house, you will need to make a proper flashed joint into the brickwork as it will cause endless troubles otherwise.

I would list everything that you want in the workshop so you can plan these in at early stages. Any plumbing, electrics, extraction can be built into the main framing to save a bit more space.

Andy

 

[StevieB]

Hi Wizer,

My first thought when you mentioned a lean to was noise, closely followed by light. If you cannot lose the fence and cannot move the house wall then you only have the two ends for windows. If one of these overlooks the street it may well need a blind or curtain of some description, so you will want to make the only remaining end (which I assume has the door in it) with a big a window as possible. You might even want to consider a skylight if you slope the roof from the house wall down.

As for noise, by all means go with a lean-to to maximise space, but you will probably want to board and possible insulate the house wall side of your workshop. You will need to hang things on this wall, and drilling holes in the outside of a house wall may be viewed negatively if or when you come to sell the property?

If it were me I would go with the lean-to, but board and insulate the house wall inside, with lead flashing over the top down onto the workshop roof. I would also make the roof sloped from the house wall down so there was little chance of rain water going down between the house wall and the boarding inside.

Best of luck with it, I spent ages planning and building mine. It will never be big enough for you, and always too big for SWMBO I have found!

steve.

 

[Gill]

I built something similar to this at the side of our house a few years ago out of OSB - it's just the ticket . The big difference between ours and yours is that it abuts directly onto the house wall. This means we've got no side wall maintenance problems (we've got no side walls ) but we found it difficult to weatherproof the roof. In the end, we got a pro roofer in to lay a felt roof which he embedded into the walls of the house. It's been fine ever since. Something else he did was to install a large "plastic bubble" (sorry - I don't know the proper name) as a skylight which not only gave light to the shop, but also to the room abutting onto it.

Building it directly against the side of the house also made it much easier to feed electricity through from the main building.

Gill

 

[wizer]

That is a good idea LyNx. The fence divides my property with my neighbours. But she is friendly and would be ok for me to remove the panels when building and in future if maitenence is needed.

The flashed joint will be a problem. I guess I will have to get a pro to do it.

Steve: You're right, I had considered the light problem. It's worse by the fact that I want either one large door or double doors at both ends. We need large access through to the back of the house so these doors need to be at least 1200mm. This was a question for later, but I was thinking about making them sliding doors (a la norm). Roof lights are essential for natural light. This would reduce the opportunity to store things in the roof space.

Noise is not really and issue but boarding the brick wall is a good idea in terms of fixing things to it.

The roof will slope down towards the fence.

Anyone comment on building it directly onto the tarmac? What about moisture barriers/damp proof courses?

 

[wizer]

Thanks Gill, good point with the electrics. I think Lean-To is deffinately the best option. How much did that roofer cost you roughly? (if its not too rude to ask)

Not sure I am with on the bubble idea? Do you mean this sort of thing?

 

[tim]

This was a question for later, but I was thinking about making them sliding doors (a la norm). Roof lights are essential for natural light. This would reduce the opportunity to store things in the roof space.

I wouldn't recommend sliding doors in this case - it would mean that the widest opening you could have would be one door width only because the 'closed' door still has to go somewhere.

Personally, I would build it against the side of the house and put a fairly steep single pitch roof on it. This will have two advantages - it will give better water run off and it will give you better storage options plus allow you to put a couple of roof lights in.

Anyone comment on building it directly onto the tarmac? What about moisture barriers/damp proof courses?

Not sure what you mean exactly. Are you putting a base into the workshop or do you mean putting the walls directly onto the tarmac?

Tarmac is soft and I don't how suitable it is for building on. I would have thought that some form of moisture barrier would always be good.

Cheers

Tim

 

[Gill]

Hi Wizer

It's quite a while since we had our roof done so my memory is vague. I think it was in the region of £200 - £300. This might seem expensive but the guy had a good local reputation and I've had workshops in the past with roofs that have proven to be less than durable. Believe me, it's no fun lugging heavy machinery out of a roofless workshop into the kitchen at 11pm on a stormy October night . Anyway, the roofer gave our roof a 10 year guarantee, saying the guarantee was pointless because it would last for years longer than that.

Yes, the 'bubble' on our shop is like the picture you've shown. Only ours is more functional, more like the sort of bubble window that World War II aircraft used to have. At least there are no joints on it that might leak .

Oh, did I mention that I painted the OSB with some burgundy paint? Inside, I painted one or two other details sky blue with some left over paint. I thought this would be ok, but His Lordship had to be placated when he saw the job - he's a Birmingham City fan and I'd inadvertantly painted the workshop in Aston Villa colours :lol: !

Gill

 

[Mcluma]

Wizer.

what ever you do do not go for a flat roof
more prone to leaks
Less storage space and darker
More expensive

McLuma

 

[dedee]

The flashed joint will be a problem. I guess I will have to get a pro to do it.

Why?

I installed lead flasing on a leanto workshop on the back of my father's garage a few years ago. You only need an angle grinder to rout out an inch or two of mortar between a course of bricks, stuff the lead in and replace with new mortar. We hired one for a day to cut the hole through the garage wall for the door and do the flashing.

Andy

 

[tim]

Andy is right - its not difficult at all.

 

[wizer]

Thanks tim, the sliding door idea came from the fact that the front of the shed is at the bottom of a steep sloping drive. Which means there is only a small amount of access for swinging doors. I look into how wide the door can be without hitting the slope. Smaller double doors shouldnt be a problem.

I plan on setting the timber frame directly on the tarmac and the walls on top of the frame. Just wondered if the tarmac is strong enough. My guess is that it would be ok, there is plenty of weight on it at the moment. Where does the moisture barrier go? between the floor and the frame or between the frame and the walls?

Thanks Gill, I will look into the bubble idea.

dedee, for some reason I thought this would involve blow torches and lots mess. If it's a simple as you suggest then I am sure I can handle this.

 

[PJ]

Wizer,
If the base is going to be a frame and joist structure I would cut out 6 2x2ft squares of tarmac (3 down each side), down to the hardcore, and bed a 2x2 flag in concrete to bring the top flush with the tarmac. I would then place another flag on the top to give about 2" ground clearance. Now you will be able to level the joist structure of these points using slate etc. The 2" space also allows air to circulate under the shed keeping the dampness to a mininium. Insulate between the top of the joist with 50mm polystyrene, tack a 500g dpm over the slab and then nail/screw desired flooring on top. Then build walls on top of the floor making sure to give at least 2" overlap onto the outside frame to weatherproof the joint between wall/floor.
If you use lead flashing at the top of the roof/house the easiest way is as described in an above post, ie rake out mortar joint about 1" deep place lead in slot, use a couple of small pieces of lead, bent over and flattened, to wedge main flashing in slot and fill with either leadmate silicone or equivalent. Mortar can also be used but it has a tendency to crack and fall out.
Just some ideas.

Philip

 

[wizer]

hmm thanks Phil, I was afraid id have to do this. What about just placing the shed on concrete blocks? Drilling through that tarmac wasn't fun when I had to install the fence earlier this year. I guess it may be nescesary if I don't want the workshop to be too tall.

 

[wizer]

Took a break from designing the framing for a bit. Started to think about the internal layout. Very basic at the moment:

The woodrack is quite small but will be mainly used for sheet material and scraps. I hope to utilise the roof space for yet more wood storage.

I need to set out for power points, the dust extractor will again be mobile. Infact the more I build on my shop equipment I will have to make sure everything is movable/on wheels.

Am I missing anything?

 

[tim]

Its difficult to comment without sounding too negative but I think that you may be being unrealistic about the amount of space that you have left yourself to move around in. Don't forget (and its a problem in my workshop as well) that you need somewhere to build furniture as well as cut the constituent parts etc.

Is there anywhere that you can store timber / sheets other than in the workshop. Its really space hungry and it maybe worth considering paying a little more for extra deliveries etc to store less.

Sorry.

Cheers

Tim

 

[devonwoody]

I thinks its looking very practical. Also Tim remember the Triton if on wheels pushes away to a corner when not being used so a fold up flap off that side table would give welcome table space when required.

Top ventilation is handy together with light if you can stretch to it.