Thread: New shed. Now, how to fit it out?

Don't you just love new things to smell and play with??

First thing, plan on putting all your machines on wheels. You don't have to spend big in them, a few bits of pine and some casters from Supercheap or Bunnings.

Not sure if 20 amps will be enough down the track. I've got 10 amp for lights, 20 amps for a swag of power points, plus a dedicated 15 amp circuit for my table saw. Ask your sparky how much extra to ugrade to 30 amps or so, it might save you a lot of frustration.

Check with your sparkie, 20 amps is not much juice for lights and power. I have 16amp light circuit, 2 20amp power (RCD/MCD), 1 10 amp dedicated gpo for the lathe and a dedicated 15amp gpo for the Thicky on their own circuits.

As Switt says, put everything on wheels - Bandy, T/S, Thicky, Drop Saw & Dusty. My Dusty will migrate to a small shed outside of the main shed, along with the compressor. The only thing bolted down is the Lathe.

Are going to line the floors? I have and am glad! I can drop tools without hearing that Dog awful "cink" of a freshly sharpened chisel hitting point first on the concrete. I used 19mm particleboard yellow tongue flooring over concrete plastic sheath and air foil insulation.

Beetle Shirt, when I went through this process, I ended up opting for 2 power circuits running down either side of the shed, and a single light circuit, the power circuits are 25amps, with the lights at 15 amps.

I feel that you may have a bit of overkill by running conduit through the middle tophat section, I just ran all of my cabling through the tophat and used a multi step drill to place holes where ever I wanted to change direction.

One thing I have learnt is.. work out how many power points you "think" you need the double it. also look at using a few pendant style power points througe the centre of the workshopp. but be warned these have a $50.00 price tag.

The double power points I used were purchased off of Ebay, and I got 10 for $48.00.

As far as the power goes, one 8A circiut should be enougth for lights, one or two 16A or 20A circiuts for general power, then at least one 15A outlet on its own circiut for larger machines, possibly more dedicated outlets if you have a few larger machines.

Be carefull running mains cables along metalwork without conduit, make sure they aren't near any sharp edges or anywhere they can be pinched. Use glands or bushes where they pass through holes and make sure they are secured somehow (use perlin clips etc.)

In my shed i currently have a sub board fed from a 10mm2 sub main cable and 40A breaker in the main board. I have one 8A lighting circiut, two 16A general power circiuts, two dedicated 15A outlets on opposite sides of the shed, and one 20A dedicated outlet for my hammer c3-31.

A shed your size you'd probably get away with two double fluro battens for general lighing and then add some extra work area lighing above benches etc.

If you're going to suspend lights from chains etc you need to use a flexable cable to the light fiiting which plugs into a socket fixed to the ceiling purlin. Suspended mains outlets also need to use a flexable cable.

Wow, thanks for the quick replies guys!

New toys are always good!

I was thinking of casters for all the tables too, and even for the bike stands. Pick up both ends of the bike on race stands with casters, and you can roll the bike around wherever you want it. I may yet end up with a shed like one of those little puzzles with a missing piece that you move around to complete the pattern!

My original plan for the power was to run a switched 80 to 100A feed from the main switchboard down to a submain, then take 3 circuits from that - one for lights, and one down each side of the shed for powerpoints. The sparkies talked me out of it though, only asking questions about welding as according to them nothing else in a shed used much power. The other point is that the main feed to the switchboard is apparently too small to handle more than a 20A feed to the shed, and the switchboard itself needs upgrading - it's old enough to have an asbestos warning sticker and wire fuses, so I'm keen on giving it the flick in favour of something from this century. The upgraded feed to the switchboard by itself added half again to the quote, so I was trying to avoid it.

My welder is small, and I can't see needing a bigger one. I can only use one power tool at a time, so thought a single 20A would be enough and I wouldn't need to upgrade the feed to the switchboard. I was going to run heavy cable to the shed in case I needed more later but only run a 20A circuit and cross my fingers. The 15A plug comment raises a new point though - I've already had an eye on the 15" thicknesser from Carba-Tec, and hadn't even considered needing a 15A plug. Might be a better idea to put some 15A points in, and bump up the feed to 40A or even 60A.

Has anyone tripped a 15A or 20A circuit before? What were you running to do it? Would it physically fit in a 3m x 6m shed?

For the lighting I think I'll go with one double fluoro bank per (3m square) bay with extra worklights as needed. The double fluoros are what, 80W each? 160W on a 240V line draws under an amp, so you can basically ignore that circuit's load. The worklights will all be CFLs too, so won't add much extra to the load.

All the wiring will be in conduit. I have no desire to test how well the electrical cable handles being stabbed by Tekscrews, so it will all be nicely protected inside the conduit. I thought of running the conduit in the middle of the battens, but I'd have to put a hole in the batten to get the conduit into it and I don't want to weaken the batten if I can avoid it. I was just going to have the conduit sitting on top of the battens, but still inside the wall cavity between the insulation and the ply wall lining. It needs to be in conduit because inside the battens are the Tekscrews holding on the exterior cladding, and on top of the battens will be the Tekscrews that hold the plywood lining in place. Either way I need to protect it from Tekscrews. I suppose I could drop some 2" timber on top of the batten and run the cables on top of that, but running the cables in conduit right on top of the battens means I know where the sparks are if I want to run a screw into the wall. This is important, apparently...

Hmm, floor lining. Haven't really considered it, I kinda like the bare concrete. The chisel drop test is a fair call though. I might go with mats around the wood section and just sealed concrete elsewhere.

Oh, and what's a hammer c3-31?

I could have gotten away with 30A sub mains with my usage because i'm also only using one tool at a time but not 20A as my C3-31 draws 19A and i still have to run lights and the dust extractor. 40A gave me a bit of extra head room. It's also a bit unrealistic to go above 40A sub mains from a standard single phase domestic supply as the feed from the street is only 63A.

The Hammer C3-31 is a combination machine, table saw / jointer / planer / thicknesser / spindle moulder. It has three 4kW motors, only one can operate at a time but each motor draws 19A so it requires a 20A circiut (dedicated 20A outlet).

I also have a Hammer N4400 bandsaw which draws 13.5A and runs off a 15A circiut.

It is a good idea to keep all your mains in conduit, everything apart from sone cables that run along inside the roof purlins in my shed is also in conduit.

At the moment i have 4 x double fluro battens in my shed which is 6m x 10m and it provides good general lighing but i still need to organize some work area lighing.

The standard fluro tubes are 36w each, you can get more expensive ones that are brighter than others, you can also get 40W ones which are the same size but a slightly larger diameter and will work in most standard fittings.

If you are going to line your shed with ply, take the time to insulate behind the ply as well. OK so it's added expense, but it certainly makes the shed more workable the whole year round.

If I could redo my shed over (yeah yeah, I said I'd never need to do that - boy, was I wrong) I would put in smooth-faced cupboards & drawers that are dust proof. I would have a separate room/shed for storing my timber. I would plan and put in place the dust extraction first before moving any other equipment in.

cheers
Wendy

@Nihilism
Ah, I forgot the dusty. Looks like I will need two things running at once. A 2hp engine will draw about 6A too, so that may be a factor. Hmm, I might go back to my original plan of a 40A feed, and run 3 circuits - a small light circuit and a 15-20A circuit down each side of the shed. Be nice to partition things a bit more onto separate circuits, but it's not really workable at the moment because I don't know what's going where yet. Maybe for the next shed...

Just looked up the C3-31. Very nice bit of gear, but can't see myself ever justifying getting something like it. Best I'd hope for would be the Carba-Tec 15" thicknesser, which gets by with a 15A plug and circuit, so I'll plan for that. Might end up with something more like the Carba-Tec Economy 12.5", but I'd rather have an unused 15A point or two than be short of one.

@RRustic
The insulation is already in, and it's amazingly good stuff. It's the silvered bubblewrap style about ½" thick, and the shed came with 3 rolls that are 20m x 1.5m each. I have a full roll left over, so I will be adding a second layer in the roof and the North (long) wall before adding the ply. I highly recommend this stuff, it's much better than I expected.

Dustproof cupboards and drawers are a great idea. Dust extraction is an issue though, because I've never used it so don't know how best to lay it out. What do you suggest?

I've scrounded heaps of polystyrene "broccoli" boxes from a nice green grocer. Cut them into six flat pieces with a normal panel saw. Makes a hellava mess but sweeps up easy enuf.
These 'flats' were ca. 32mm thick and fit neatly in the 35mm space between the posts, inside the colorbond cladding.
Then I put 35mm thick pine offcuts horizontally at the top and bottom. Screwed these in from outside with 16mm Tek screws.
To cover the insulation I cut up core doors found on the verge. Cut 30mm off the edges. This left two nice thin ply sheets held together only by cardboard honeycomb. That was removed using a paint scraper. Beware the glue can scrape/cut soft hands. At first I wore gloves til I got the hang of it.
Next I fixed this 'lining' using sheetmetal self-drilling screws where the metal posts and rails were and nails where there was wood behind.
Where I am going to put in shadow boards or hang stuff up I used thicker lining made from scrounged melamine MDF or plain MDF from e.g. a local BBQ shop. I painted this material with water based sealer/undercoat soas to minimize it absorbing moisture.
I used Air-Cell tape to tidy up/cover the gaps between sheets.

Now I'm on the lookout for cabinets, lockers, etc top keep dust off small stuff.

Been a while, but made some progress with the shed and yard. No pics yet, will post some soon.

Concretors have been and gone, leaving a run of 32mm conduit embedded in the path down to the shed. Sparkies then ran 3 phase 40A wiring through it to the shed, installed a submain in the shed with one circuit connected, upgraded the switchboard to something slightly less medieval and upgraded the street feeds from 40A to 100A.

I now have safety switches in the switchboard instead of fuses, a separate switched submain in the shed with circuits on their own safety switches, and best of all a powerpoint in the shed! I also have the option of using 3 phase power in the shed later, but without the circuits actually connected yet. I figured it would be better to spend a little more on adding the extra wire in case I want it than not have it in there later if I need it.

Next step is to finish the lining. I'm using 12mm 5ply on end, tekscrewing it to the battens with cutouts at 1400 high for the power points. I'll end up with pretty much one power point per sheet I think. Only have 3 sheets in place so far, so subject to change still.

I even managed to use my new #4 Stanley trimming the sheets to fit.

Originally Posted by Beetle Shirt

... upgraded the switchboard to something slightly less medieval and upgraded the street feeds from 40A to 100A.

I now have safety switches in the switchboard instead of fuses, a separate switched submain in the shed with circuits on their own safety switches, and best of all a powerpoint in the shed!

I think I'll also be needing to upgrade our house switch board and street feed when I run power to my new shed; I'd be interested in the ball park cost of this? Also, was your sparkie able to upgrade the street feed or did they need to call in your local power company? (Its Energex up here in Qld).

Thanks,
Duncan

In most cases the power supplier has to do the upgrade to the board then the sparkie does the domestic instaltion work.

You may need to upgrade your board as well depending on how old the one is you have.

Beetle Shirt:

Who did you get to do the shed? Could you PM me with some details & costs for construction?

I am interested in getting a pair of sheds about that size ( the maximum 2 x 20m2 under the new regulations) in my back yard, mid North Shore area, PITA access.