Would like to build my own shed in lieu of a garage - about 4 by 2.5 m
ish) - anyone know of any templates I could use online?

Else

Elsie Tanner wrote:

Would like to build my own shed in lieu of a garage - about 4 by 2.5 m
ish) - anyone know of any templates I could use online?

At risk of sounding like Blue Peter, here is one I made earlier:

http://www.internode.ltd.uk/workshop/phase3.htm

plans he

http://www.internode.ltd.uk/workshop/plans.htm

(I did not stick to them rigidly, but they were a good enough starting
point)



--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/

John Rumm wrote:
Elsie Tanner wrote:

Would like to build my own shed in lieu of a garage - about 4 by 2.5 m
ish) - anyone know of any templates I could use online?

At risk of sounding like Blue Peter, here is one I made earlier:

http://www.internode.ltd.uk/workshop/phase3.htm

plans he

http://www.internode.ltd.uk/workshop/plans.htm

(I did not stick to them rigidly, but they were a good enough starting
point)

nice workshop. it certainly ought to last a while.



RT

John Rumm wrote:
Elsie Tanner wrote:

Would like to build my own shed in lieu of a garage - about 4 by 2.5 m
ish) - anyone know of any templates I could use online?


At risk of sounding like Blue Peter, here is one I made earlier:

http://www.internode.ltd.uk/workshop/phase3.htm

plans he

http://www.internode.ltd.uk/workshop/plans.htm

(I did not stick to them rigidly, but they were a good enough starting
point)



Excellent walk through of your build John, I really enjoyed it. I am
also *VERY* envious of the end product! Would you post a picture of how
it looks now?

Gerry

Cuprager wrote:

Excellent walk through of your build John, I really enjoyed it. I am

Thanks...

also *VERY* envious of the end product! Would you post a picture of how
it looks now?

Inside or out?

Outside looks pretty much the same as it does in the piccies. I only
built it three to four years ago so it has not had chance to decompose
too much ;-). It has had a respray of cuprinol since then.

At the end of last summer it looked like:

http://www.internode.co.uk/temp/shednow.jpg

The inside is now significantly fuller (a little too full in fact)! It
has some shelves, drawers, and storage racks, another work bench in
addition to the one shown (10cm taller, has drill press, engineering
vice, and grinder on it - plus storage under for table saw and router
table.

Once I get the last bits of my loft conversion finished I should be able
to empty some of the stuff out though. I am toying with building a small
"ad shed" to the rear of it to house a dust extractor - it takes up to
much room inside and could be ducted in instead). Tho other thing I need
to work on is some materials storage space.



--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/

John Rumm wrote:

http://www.internode.co.uk/temp/shednow.jpg

Ok, I have to ask. The white building to the left of the shed - what is
the strange circular feature on the roof?


--
Grunff

Grunff wrote:

Ok, I have to ask. The white building to the left of the shed - what is
the strange circular feature on the roof?

Previous occupant was a keen astronomer, and built it as an observatory.
The roof is approx a 1' thick concrete "donut" that used to carry a dome
(which as you can imagine was big!). Inside there was a 1.2m high
concrete plinth that carried his telescope. Impressive bit of kit - 5'
to 6' long, with what must have been a 1.5' objective lens diameter.

When he left, he took the dome and scope, nailed some chipboard over the
hole, and nailed on a single layer of felt! You can imagine what
happened the first time that rained. I got a "friend of a friend" who
was supposed to know about these things to fix it. He tried a more solid
wood roof to avoid it turning into a huge bird bath, but that was only
partly successful. He then bricked round the edge and rendered a
slightly convex surface over it, better but it still leaked. In the end
I got a real roofer to stick three layers of hot bonded felt onto it.
That finally fixed it.

With 20/20 hindsight I should have DIYed it and built an apex roof over
it, since the current building has too little headroom (only 6' under
the rim). Hence it is not much use as a workshop (hence the one I
built), but does have power and plenty of space, so makes for a handy
storage facility / utility space.



--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/

"John Rumm" wrote in message
...
Elsie Tanner wrote:

Would like to build my own shed in lieu of a garage - about 4 by 2.5 m
ish) - anyone know of any templates I could use online?

At risk of sounding like Blue Peter, here is one I made earlier:

http://www.internode.ltd.uk/workshop/phase3.htm


The only point I would make about the construction is that, when I built a
30 sq metre shed (to make a snooker room for a 9' x 4'6" snooker table), I
used cut to length and pressure impregnated timber for the base and floor.
In theory, pressure impregnated timber has a 15 year life expectancy, while
timber painted with wood preservative, which we used for the shed itself,
has a 10 year life expectancy. The snooker room went up in 1982. The floor
is still in good condition, but the shed is showing its age in places and it
will need its third roof if it is to survive much longer. The current owner
of the house is having it fitted out as her office.

Colin Bignell

John Rumm wrote:

Previous occupant was a keen astronomer, and built it as an observatory.
The roof is approx a 1' thick concrete "donut" that used to carry a dome
(which as you can imagine was big!). Inside there was a 1.2m high
concrete plinth that carried his telescope. Impressive bit of kit - 5'
to 6' long, with what must have been a 1.5' objective lens diameter.

When he left, he took the dome and scope, nailed some chipboard over the
hole, and nailed on a single layer of felt! You can imagine what
happened the first time that rained. I got a "friend of a friend" who
was supposed to know about these things to fix it. He tried a more solid
wood roof to avoid it turning into a huge bird bath, but that was only
partly successful. He then bricked round the edge and rendered a
slightly convex surface over it, better but it still leaked. In the end
I got a real roofer to stick three layers of hot bonded felt onto it.
That finally fixed it.

With 20/20 hindsight I should have DIYed it and built an apex roof over
it, since the current building has too little headroom (only 6' under
the rim). Hence it is not much use as a workshop (hence the one I
built), but does have power and plenty of space, so makes for a handy
storage facility / utility space.


I knew there'd be an interesting story there...


--
Grunff

nightjar nightjar@ wrote:

The only point I would make about the construction is that, when I built a
30 sq metre shed (to make a snooker room for a 9' x 4'6" snooker table), I
used cut to length and pressure impregnated timber for the base and floor.
In theory, pressure impregnated timber has a 15 year life expectancy, while
timber painted with wood preservative, which we used for the shed itself,
has a 10 year life expectancy. The snooker room went up in 1982. The floor

Yup good point - did not think of that at the time.

With anything under the floor (i.e. stuff I anticipated never getting at
again) I did not so much "paint" as "soak" everything in preservative. I
am hoping that along with it getting airflow under should keep it going
for a while. I put a layer of DPC over every brick as well.

is still in good condition, but the shed is showing its age in places and it
will need its third roof if it is to survive much longer. The current owner
of the house is having it fitted out as her office.

I don't know what life to expect from my one. It is three layer, first
one nailed and the rest bonded. But it was cold bonded rather than hot tar.


--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/

any idea of total costings???


"John Rumm" wrote in message
...
Elsie Tanner wrote:

Would like to build my own shed in lieu of a garage - about 4 by 2.5 m
ish) - anyone know of any templates I could use online?

At risk of sounding like Blue Peter, here is one I made earlier:

http://www.internode.ltd.uk/workshop/phase3.htm

plans he

http://www.internode.ltd.uk/workshop/plans.htm

(I did not stick to them rigidly, but they were a good enough starting
point)



--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/

sploop wrote:

any idea of total costings???

I guess it depends on what you include...

If you ignore the base which was part of a more elaborate garden
makeover, then you have the materials listed he

http://www.internode.ltd.uk/workshop/tips.htm

IIRC it was about a grand for the basic materials, and 200 for the
electrics.

Depending on use you may save some on electrics since I typically tend
to err on the side of over provisioning.

You may want to substitute foil backed PIR foam in place of the
polystyrene that I used, that would add another 70 ish. However the
insulation that is in there certainly seems to do a good job. (I have a
room stat on the heater in there which is set to kick in a 5 degrees for
frost protection - it hardly ever does)

You could certainly buy a shed for the same money, however the
construction would be very lightweight and flimsy in comparison. The
other issue I noted with every commercial offering I looked at was lack
of height. Most were only 6' or less at the eves. Mine is 7'6" at the
eves. In fact I think I should have built it 6" taller still to make
rotating 8' long bits of stock or board a bit simpler.


--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/

"John Rumm" wrote in message
...
Elsie Tanner wrote:

Would like to build my own shed in lieu of a garage - about 4 by 2.5 m
ish) - anyone know of any templates I could use online?

At risk of sounding like Blue Peter, here is one I made earlier:

http://www.internode.ltd.uk/workshop/phase3.htm


thanks, John, a timely piece of inspiration... I STILL haven't got around to
building my shed!

plans he

http://www.internode.ltd.uk/workshop/plans.htm

(I did not stick to them rigidly, but they were a good enough starting
point)


Initial plans should always be modified as you go along :-)

One question - when creating the base, how did you fix it all together?
Nail-gun whacked right up and nailed at 45 degrees, or something involving
lap joints?


--
Richard Sampson

mail me at
richard at olifant d-ot co do-t uk

RichardS wrote:

Initial plans should always be modified as you go along :-)

Yup fixed goals, flexible plans... we will make a management consultant
out of you yet ;-)

One question - when creating the base, how did you fix it all together?
Nail-gun whacked right up and nailed at 45 degrees, or something involving
lap joints?

The base was a little "unorthodox", in that it uses 4x2" but with the
short axis vertically. That was done to keep the internal floor height
down a bit, and also to create a nice internal lip right round the
perimeter at the base for the floor to sit on (the framing was 3x2").
The actual bearing of the floor is really done by the matrix of half
bricks the 4x2" sits on.

It is lap jointed at each corner, and at the intersections of the floor
bearers and the ends.

To create quick lap joints I used a hand held circular saw with the
depth of cut set half way through the timber, and made repeated cuts
every few mm across the width of the joint. The remaining "fingers" of
wood are then easy to knock off with a chisel.

The joints were then held in place with 4 x 2" screws through the face
of the joint. Fixing was probably not that critical since the whole lot
is held in place by the weight of the shed.

So starting with this:
_______________________________
|
_______________________________|

Repeated cross cuts:
______________________
||||||||||
_______________________________|

After a quick clean-up:
______________________
|________
_______________________________|


(even quicker to do if you have a sliding mitre saw)

--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/

"John Rumm" wrote in message
...
....
is still in good condition, but the shed is showing its age in places and
it will need its third roof if it is to survive much longer. The current
owner of the house is having it fitted out as her office.

I don't know what life to expect from my one. It is three layer, first one
nailed and the rest bonded. But it was cold bonded rather than hot tar.

The hurricane did for the first one, so the second hasn't done too badly,
considering it was only nailed felt.

BTW, I read on to the the fitting out and saw the bit about cutting expanded
polystyrene. When I lined a garage with that, I made a hot wire cutter - a
thing looking like a large hacksaw frame, made from wood, with a bit of
heating element from an electric fire element in place of the blade. That
was fed from a variable supply, which was adjusted so that the wire was hot
enough to cut the foam, without being so hot that it melted it away from the
cut. IME well worth while doing if you have a lot of polysterene foam to
cut.

Colin Bignell