The Great L-Shaped Shed build of 2014!

[artme]

No flies on you old fella!!

Good to see you stood your ground!!!

[Simplicity]

Glad you stood your ground
Being a small business trady
That kind of stuff gives me the sh...... It makes as all look bad

[ian]

demolition of a timber framed shed

could the old framing have been Oregon?
did your future work bench just get cut up and hauled away?

[TimberNut]

Groundworks were started today. Today the concreter was on site with an excavator, and bobcat to level the ground.

We ended up needing the tipper trucks to get their trailers due to all the soil I decided to remove.
In the end it was just shy of 130tonnes of soil and 7.8 tonnes of concrete.

The guys all worked like Trojans all day. I couldn't fault them at all, and considering what I was paying for their services I was pleased to see them all dig in (get it) and get the job done. Todays bill - ~$4700 (and I didn't have to pay for the excavator - that was covered by the concreter as he's already factored that into his total bill).

The concreter is back tomorrow to show one of his guys where to do the formwork for the retaining wall, which they will do on Monday.
The plumbers are due Monday to rough in the drainage for the bathroom.
Tues the concreter will do the plastic and all the reo.
Tues afternoon I should have an inspection from council.
Wed, if all has gone according to plan, the slab will be poured.

[TimberNut]

Slab and retaining walls will be poured tomorrow (I believe the first cement mixer load is due at 7am). It's going to be a busy day tomorrow!!!

Council is due here in 1 hour to inspect the formwork and mesh etc. Unless they defect it (which I don't think they will - but it is council, so who knows....), we are all ready for pouring. I didn't think we'd get here. The plumber arrived yesterday to 'rough in' the drainage for the bathroom, and left without running the copper for the water. Luckily one of them arrived this morning to cover that off. Conduit is in for the electricals, so we're all ready. Weather forecast is fine at this stage, so no issues there thank goodness!!

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[TimberNut]

Slab pour went really well. The weather was about as good as I could hope for. A nice sunny day, but no wind. So no issues with leaves falling on the wet concrete (thank goodness).

The retaining wall was poured first, then the slab. The concrete pump was on site at 6am and the first cement mixer arrived at 7am. All up it was about 32-33 cubic meters of 32MPA concrete.


The guy that manned the helicopter was a real stickler for a good finish and he 'burnt' the slab. Essentially he kept sprinkling water on it as he ran the helicopter over it, time and again. I think he went over the whole slab 5 times throughout the afternoon.

I had a few dramas as the boss left in the afternoon, and one of his offsiders went around banging the timber pegs to get them out. These were breaking up and putting bits of timber all over the still wet concrete. I tried reasoning with him but in the end had to resort to "I'm the customer, and you are wrecking my slab. Your boss told you to do it, but right now, I'm HIS boss and I say STOP!". A phone call to his boss, and I got that issue resolved. No permanent damage done, and the helicopter was able to tidy it all up. I guess that's why you don't leave workmen unattended.

We've run the power cables now (16mm 4-core XLPE with 6mm earth - $600 worth of cable). Once the shed is erected the electrician will come and terminate them in the meter box, and sub-board in the shed. The XLPE, being so thick was a royal PITA to run under the house, but considering the electrician quoted me $25-$35 per meter to do it, and I got out of it for about $14 per metre it was worth running myself. I've left plenty of extra at both ends so there will be no issues terminating it. If I'd short-changed the cable, even by a tiny bit, the whole thing would need replacing, and that would be $600 down the drain. Not to mention that this morning my wife and I filled in the trench covering the conduits and there's no way I'm digging them up again!!!


The plumber is due here Monday and Tuesday to run all the drainage and sewerage lines. Yet more excavation!
The concreter is coming back to do all the paths around the shed, most likely here to box up on Wed with the next concrete pour either Thursday or Friday.
The shed delivery is scheduled for Friday too, with erection pencilled in for mid week the following week. So in less than 2 weeks time the shed will start to go up (I can't wait).

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[FenceFurniture]

Did they need the pegs for the job tomorrow or something? Sounds very odd. Not exactly expensive or hard to come by.

Anyway, landmark progress!

[TimberNut]

No idea what the rush was. I warned the boss when he was leaving that the guy left behind didn't have his attention to detail, and that was what I was paying for. He assured me the guy on the helicopter was a perfectionist and would take charge. It turned out I was right. His workman just kept saying 'the boss told me to strip the boards, so that's what I'm doing'. Not the sharpest tool in the shed. He was happy when I told him to stop (he wasn't real keen on work in the first place), but needed someone with authority to give him direction (I don't think he was too good at thinking for himself ;-). I figured seeing as I was paying the bill, that gave me all the authority required.

All's well that ends well, but presumably he'll be back when they do the 2nd pour later this coming week, so will bear watching again, lest he start 'working' again....

[groeneaj]

It's coming together rather quickly mate. I look forward to seeing the pics of the actual shed being put up.

Have you got a completion date yet?

[Christos]

I will agree this is looking really good. I guess it is just something about when concrete goes down a more solid progress.

[TimberNut]

Hey Andy and Christos,

Yes, it certainly is a good feeling to be able to look out at the backyard and see a very solid slab sitting there, ready for a shed to be erected around it!!!
The yard is still a mess, and there's more excavating to come, but at least it's progress!!! Up to 1 week ago everything was fees, quotes, forms, regulations, blah blah blah, and a lot of 'backyard dreaming' (me standing in the yard staring into space mentally trying to sort all the little pieces of the puzzle).

Now finally we're off and running.

Re timelines - Erection is pencilled in to commence somewhere around 12-14th November. They are saying it'll take 2 weeks to do. I can't see 2 weeks solid work in it, but due to the unusual design some of the roof, flashings couldn't be pre-ordered and will only be ordered when the structure is up and they can take some measurements. So my best guess is it could take 2 weeks maximum to finish, but there will probably be days in there where nothing happens whilst the builder waits for stuff.
I'm hoping he doesn't just disappear to build other sheds, and not return for 2 weeks.

Once the shed is up, the bathroom needs to be finished before I get an 'occupation certificate' from council, and technically I'm not allowed to use it until I have that, but the bathroom will take ages (I don't expect to finish it any time this side of Feb/March). I need to get my Felder gear out of storage and by the time the council does their final inspection the shed will be full of stuff ;-)

[artme]

That is all a sight for sore eyes. Really great to see the progress!!!

[TimberNut]

It looked like the plumbing was going to delay things for a while as I was having trouble pinning the plumber down to a date, but in the end we got it sorted. The expected duration for plumbing all the stormwater and sewerage lines was 2 days. In the end it went for 5. The plumber was NOT happy....
I wasn't too thrilled with having my entire backyard converted to what I can only assume the trenches of Gallipoli, or the Western Front looked like.
It turns out 300mm below my once-grassed backyard, is a fairly thick layer of sandstone...who knew?! I'm guessing the plumber didn't know, by the look on his face as the days ticked by....

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[TimberNut]

Once the external plumbing was completed, the concreters were back to finish all the paths around the shed, and the turn-out section in front of the garage.
The main issues were some moron driving over a pipe JUST laid for the rain drains (even after I specifically pointed it out to them), and cracking it in 2, and the downpipe fittings all being too low. I could have got the plumber back to raise the downpipe fittings, but he'd have charged me to fix the other cracked pipe. A quick trip to Bunnings, a few fittings and some blue glue and pipe primer, and it was all done. Whilst I had to pay for all the fittings, and technically it was the plumbers mistake, I didn't fancy asking him to come back, as after the 5th day of digging he'd had enough. I figured I'd get a better quality result, in a much quicker timeframe if I just fixed it myself.

I couldn't be there on the day they did the 2nd pour, and I desperately wanted to be, but had to go to work. I'm happy with the end result, and we've had 1 fairly heavy rain day since, and there was no ponding of water, so it looks like all the levels were right.
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[TimberNut]

The shed kit was delivered last week. The wife took some pictures for me. Apparently the guy got the crane hung up on the wires, but no permanent damage was done (either to him, or my neighbours power supply, thank goodness!!!). I hope none of the neighbours wanted to go out, in the 1.25 hours it took him to unload it all, as I live at the end of a culde-sac and the semi trailer kind of filled the end of the street ;-)

The roller doors, insulation, door frames and windows, and some downpipes, had all been delivered previously, and aren't in these pictures. When we placed the order, we chose the gutters in one colour, but the downpipes in a different colour. Needless to say they were wrong when delivered, but a quick call to the shed supplier, and he assured me that it was no drama to get them swapped over. The builder who is erecting the shed lives right near the shed manufacturer, and he said he'll pick up the right ones on the way here tomorrow.

My wife and I man-handled all the steel, except the cladding, up into the backyard. I doubt anyone would have pinched anything but I wasn't taking any chances. The cladding was just too heavy to move, so it spent the last week in the front yard.

My wife has had as much as she can handle, listening to me rabbit on about every detail of the shed/concreting/plumbing/electricals etc, for the last 8+ months, and asking her to help me carry about 2.5 tonnes of steel up the driveway was pushing the friendship just a little. If I keep this up I'm in the dog-house for sure. The only saving grace is that it'll be a VERY nice, and quite spacious, dog-house.

I think the only reason she agreed to help, was probably because if any of it got pinched, this shed saga would go on for even longer. She's had enough - she doesn't want to hear any more about it, and so anything to bring this to a speedy conclusion gets due attention.

I know once it's done, and she can resume requesting anything she wants built, any way she wants it, her sense of humour will return, but until then.......

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