Thread: Shed build

No pain, no gain, you will look back on the whole process when its finished and we all say the same thing, I should have done this or that, forgot about the (insert description), but you will still have an enjoyable asset and somewhere to hide/chill out/ create. Look on the positive side, council have approved it, that's the best plus - no come backs from anyone
Definitely sounds like a good set up though.

Yes I have been warned by my local shed builder to never request a mezzanine. However he is very happy to provide an extremely large storage shelf.

Councils exist to annoy the small property owners, say what we can do with our small bit of land. They roll over for the larger landowners and big business.

Originally Posted by Pat

Councils exist to annoy the small property owners, say what we can do with our small bit of land. They roll over for the larger landowners and big business.

The reason I had the mezzanine installed on day one was a recent event with a mate of mine where is got a knock on the door by council. Said x,y,z wasn't right outside of code etc and made him pull it down.
This certainly put the wind up me as I was going to remove the mezz and add it later. So I thought I would do the right thing and went through the engineers.

The staggering issue for me was I needed letters from neighbours for the wall height on the boundary etc. I had no issues at all which was great.
However not 5 doors down the street a massive house is being built on the now vacant land and I ask the builder how did you get away with the height so close to the boundary and how can you cover so much land with a a roofed area all of which I had to comply with and he shrugged his shoulders and said do drama.


What can i say........it costs you more and more money.

Steven

3.3m wall height at the boundary - Luxury!

My council has a " no shed wall can be more than 2.4m above the fence ground level if the wall is within 1.5m of the boundary" rule. We have such a small block (620m^2) I figured floor space was more critical than height.
Even if shed is 1.5m from the fence the max height of sheds in our area is 2.7m

To make matters worse, because my shed sits on top of a 300mm retaining wall about 750mm inside the boundary I had to settle for 2.1 m shed height for that side of the shed. If the retaining wall had been on the boundary it could have been 2.4m but was not permitted to move the retaining wall just to get extra shed wall height. Even if I could have done this it would have have cost an arm and a leg plus involve the neighbour which was not going to be pleasant.
The shed was in a corner of the block and the adjacent retaining wall was about 1.25m from the fence and located the shed ~250mm further away from the fence so the other end of the shed could go to 2.7m.

The other issue were two smallish trees close to the site that SWMBO wanted retained and that the the builder wanted us to remove as they were going to get in the way of the build. When the subbies came to erect the shed they asked about the trees and I traded 2 cartons of beer for their inconvenience and they were happy enough about that.

I was somewhat surprised at the so called council inspection and just happened to be there when he turned up one morning towards the end of the build. He didn't even go around the back to look at the site. He got out of his car and chatted for about 2 minutes to one of the contractors erecting the shed who happened to be out the front picking up materials from the verge. "Everything alright" he asked. "Yep" was the reply. Then a bit of chitchat about the weather as the forecast that day was for 42ºC and that was it.

Its all good Bob, and at least you have a shed your mostly happy with. Councils...on one hand i cant argue with anything they have said but on the other I feel that they do have one set of rules for some and not for others. My first proposed inspection has already come unstuck when I asked what was the point when the existing slab has been approved by you already. Ok its fine then?????
Steven

It'll all be worth it in the end. I''m still waiting for my shed kit to arrive, then get a build start date from the company. Hopefully doesn't take too long. As you point out, then we have all the expensive post-build operations - internal frame, insulation, ply etc on the walls, electrical, etc. I need to do the flooring in the mezzanine myself - the building company just does the structure (needed an internal post to support the middle of the mezzanine too).

It took 11 weeks from signing up for my new shed to handover.
Then the fit out started BobL's shed fit.
In some ways fit outs are an endless WIP but it took a couple of years to get it to the point where I reckon it was close to finished although this did include renovating the old shed which was attached to the new one.
I did add a lot of stuff. I did quite a bit of the electrical work myself. Ran mains power, water and gas to the shed. Insulation, lining, reticulated compressed air, Dust extraction - still fiddling with that. Cupboards, shelves, racks, etc.

We got flooded out of our home on 17th July with 150mm over the top of the carpets and waist high water outside. The house was yellow stickered and we bacame refugees!! All the furniture had to be stored of course and so I bought a brand new Hi-Cube 20ft shipping container .... when the furniture is restored inside our house after the rebuild I will have a brand new Woodworking shed!!!

Meantime I am enjoying planning the layout .... It will be ONLY for woodworking. Mowers, gardening tools and the like will NOT be allowed in.

I bought a new DeWalt table saw 9 months before which the water missed by mm's, tested the motor and thank goodness no damage. Ny Tru Pro 15" thicknesser did get drowned ... a new motor costs almost as much as a new thicknesser by the time its installed so I'm getting a DeWalt 13" to replace it and a 6" jointer.

Anyway the table saw is mounted on one end of a table made of 2400 x 1200 19mm ply running on castors. The new Thicknesser will sit on the other end of the table mounted on track to enable it to be parked at the end of the container when not in use.

I have marvellous 5 meter length of Oregon 350mm x 150mm which will transfer and help form the new bench running the length of the container.

To utilise all possible space for storing our household treasures I have had made some steel tube brackets which hook into the securing eyes in the top corners of the container. A hefty plank runs along those so boxes of Memsahibs crockery collection is up and safe. These will become wood stock racks.

I don't aim to cut windows or doors but plenty of LED strip lighting will be as adequate and the end doors will be open when I am working.

Council dont want consents for a container as its movable!! A "Caravan" type power socket will give me power.

Anyone else done this??? Tips welcomed ....

Barnsey

Westport

New Zealand

Going on an existing workshop which I liked the lighting. What is everyone doing LED's or Flouro strips. To give you an idea I'm looking around 14-18 1.2m long twin batten lights.
The cost as you can imagine is getting up there for sure and he quality is various light fitting varies considerably as well.

Originally Posted by stevenjd

Going on an existing workshop which I liked the lighting. What is everyone doing LED's or Flouro strips. To give you an idea I'm looking around 14-18 1.2m long twin batten lights.
The cost as you can imagine is getting up there for sure and he quality is various light fitting varies considerably as well.

Using a value of about 4000 lumens per 14-18 1.2m long battens equates to between about 56000 and 72000 lumens, and for your 66m^2 shed that's and average between about 850 and 1100 lumens per m^2 (lux) which may still mot be enough.

Look here for recommended levels
Illuminance - Recommended Light Level

While 750 lux is recommended for mechanical workshops and 1000 lux is needed for areas where detailed work is done - see link below, those are theoretical numbers and assumes all the light goes straight down which it doesn't as the walls are also illuminated, and also assumes here's direct line of sight from all lights to all parts of the shed. Also just because a light fitting says it outputs X lumens doesn't mean it will in practice, especially over time as all light fittings dim with age.

The other thing is the older you get the more light you need. A 65 year old needs about twice the lighting a 20 year old needs to see fine detail.

Of course you don't need fine detail viewing in all parts of your shed but at least above certain machines like lathes and work benches

I have a theoretical average of about 1150 lux of general LED tube lighting plus a few LED spots in my shed but have a look in this link as to what happens in practice.
Some actual shed illuminance measurements..
In short this is not enough for my eyes and am about to add more lighting.

My plan is to use 10,000 lumen LED panels like I have 1m above my small electronics work bench inside the house where I have about 20,000 lumens of lighting.
In practice this works out to 2800 (real) lux on the bench and this is finally working well.
Usually i use 10,000 lumens for general viewing but if I want to see fine wiring or read tiny values printed on sides of components I turn on a second 10,000 lumen panel.

Going back to your shed, your prosed 1100 lux should be fine for general viewing but maybe look at providing a few spots above machines and benches.

Thanks for the input Bob, I know how you feel about the lighting and as far as I'm concerned you can't have enough. The shed total area in quite a but if i also add in the additional mezzanine and the ceiling height under the mess will be 3.0m.

I think LEDS are great if you like the lighting it gives off....for me I think you get used to it no matter what..ie Flouro or LEDS.
But I know I need to address this issue pretty soon.
Steven

I got a whole stack of LED lights at an ALDI special 2 years ago. Best thing I ever did for the shed. I will be taking them all with me when we move but there will not be enough. So yeah, definately go LED and you just can't have too many in a workshop.
You can get difference colour tone LED strips but I'm happy with the cool white, personally. It's a workshop.

FWIW, we just replaced all of our fluorescent light tubes with LED light tubes in our community workshop. In the process, we increased the amount of light by about 30% using fewer tubes in the process. The results are superb. And no more flickering from aging fluorescent tubes. In our case, we reused existing fluorescent fixtures by replacing with the fluorescent tubes with purpose made LED tubes that directly connect to the 110v wiring, bypassing the ballasts needed by the fluorescent. We still have some task lighting to add in various locations (which will also be LED), but the overall impact of the LED conversion so far is making all of us oldsters smile. We used 4000K "Daylight" colored bulbs, by the way.