Shed Project: Bracing

[jteneyck]

They show for me.

And that is one heavy duty built shed.

"Nothing too strong ever broke."    Tom Lipton

It sure is, and you guys are mostly to blame!  

John

[Stwood_]

OK, I tried making them smaller.  Maybe they will show now.  

John

Yea that did it. Looks fine and braced well.

But where's the iron braces??

[Roly]

OK, I tried making them smaller.  Maybe they will show now.  

John

Pics showing for me too.    If you have a bad storm the shed may be the safest place around.   Roly

[daddo]

Trying to think of something smart-elic to say- got nothing.

Wish my old shop was that strong.

[BrokenOlMarine]

Way back when we first bought our small farm here, I built two small barns. My father in law critiqued every step and every design decision.  "You don't need to do this, or that..." he kept saying.  "That is way over engineered." Since I added barns, of course the FIL had to show me how it was done and throw one up on his place... for half the cost in half the time.

Funny thing... 
 The second winter after the barns were built, we had a harsh winter.  Several heavy snows, including two storms that dropped more than four feet of snow each.  My barns are still standing to this day.  The FIL's collapsed under the weight of that first heavy snow. 

[lift mechanic]

That shed is not going anywhere with that bracing, nice job.

[Tapper]

Here's a link to the last installment:  Roofing

We talked enough about bracing earlier that I thought it deserved it's own entry.  Buildings are subjected to all kinds of forces when the wind blows and can cause it to rack, or twist, or for the roof to lift off, or for the trusses and gable ends to domino over.  Racking is not much of an issue if plywood or some other sheathing is used to sheath the building, and hurricane clips help keep the roof structure anchored to the walls.  To mitigate twisting and the domino effect on the trusses you need bracing, as some of you rightly pointed out to me.  Some building designs don't require much if any added bracing, hip roofs, for example.  Each section of roof braces the adjacent ones.  But with a simple gable roof some added bracing is needed.   Today, I took care of it by adding two sets of diagonal braces.  One set goes under the bottom chord of the trusses to the midpoints of the walls.  The other and likely more important set goes from the top of the gable ends down across five trusses, crisscrossing along the way.  You can see both sets in these photos.








The braces are double screwed at each point they cross the trusses and also to the walls.  I think it will shrug off most anything short of a tornado.  The commercial sheds I've looked at often address the twisting forces by installing a 3 ft or so deep storage shelf at the top plate at one or both ends.  But I haven't seen any bracing of the gable ends.  Maybe it isn't required, and/or maybe it's not a real problem with the low pitch that most commercial shed roofs have.  

John

Nice looking framing, John! Are those studs on 12" centers?

Doug

P.S. Never mind! Just saw that this was part of a larger thread; haven't been to this site in a few weeks so didn't know you were building the lumber shed - looks great, as usual!

[Snipe Hunter]

That sucker ain't going nowhere

[messmaker]

That shed is not going anywhere with that bracing, nice job.

+1