Shed Project: The beginning

[jteneyck]

I've wanted a shed to store lumber in for a long time; finally going to do it.  After lots of thought, looking at my lot, measuring, repeating the above two or three times, I finally decided to locate it on one end of our now smaller vegetable garden.  I had initially thought about a shed on the order of 12 or 14 x 20, but settled on 14 x 18 because of the space available w/o a lot of earth moving.   

I asked here about plans a couple of weeks ago.  In the end, I found none for a 14 x 18' shed.  While I could have easily just cut 2' off the plans for 14 x 20' shed plan, I drew up my own plans in SketchUp.  That allowed me to increase the wall height to 10' as well, something I did not see with any on-line set of plans.  I currently have a 7/12 roof pitch (30 deg), which puts my peak height at around 15'6", just under the local code limit of 16'.  Local codes are pretty loose, but are firm on the max. 16' height for some reason.  They also specify that the shed must be located behind your house, though I have seem many that aren't, and a minimum of 5' from the property line if on a temporary base, and a minimum of 10' if on a permanent foundation.  Anyway, here is a cutaway of my SketchUp model:





There will be two six foot double doors and two windows on those sides, also windows in the gable ends to let in more light.  Standard 2 x4, 16" OC wall construction, on-site built trusses 24" OC, and a beefy 2x8, 16" OC floor structure since this thing is going to have several thousand BF of lumber stored in it.  The walls and roof will be sheathed in OSB; the walls then covered in vinyl siding and standard 3 tab shingles on the roof.  A few more details to work out, but this is the basic plan. 

To get started, I laid out the site, drove a stake at each corner, and used my water level to figure out how much dirt I had to dig, and got started.  The base is a foot larger all around, or 16 x 20'.  At 6" deep that's 6 cubic yards of dirt.  Took awhile by hand, that's for sure, but I had the help of good friend and we got it done in two days, during which time he also dug a 50 ft long trench about 18" deep to carry off any runoff and water from the gutters.  

 



Here's the drain piping all wrapped in fabric with a water hose in one leg to test it.



With that done we were ready for stone.  I wanted to buy 6 cubic yards of 1" crusher run stone.  There's a landscaping/supply company about 1/4 mile from my house.  Turns out they sell by the ton.  OK, then I'll need 9 tons.  "Max load on a truck is 8 tons."  OK, bring me 8 tons and we'll see if it's enough.  Turns out it was, but 9 would have been better.  They dropped the load on my next door neighbor's crushed stone driveway, and he moved it with another neighbor's old Ford tractor with front bucket the hundred yards to the shed site.  He dropped half of it in the hole, and I spread it out, and the other half on tarps at the edge of the hole.  The water pump on the old tractor gave out just as we finished.  I think that tractor is headed for the bone yard, but it got the job done.  

This morning I rented a plate tamper ($40/day) and we tamped down the first 3" after getting it spread level.  Then we shoveled in the second 4 tons of stone, leveled it out, and tamped it down.  Checking it for level afterwards showed it was a little crowned in the center so we scratched some of it towards the edges.  I can report that a plate tamper really works, because it was hard to get the compacted stone loose again in order to redistribute it.  But we managed to get some moved and then tamped it down one more time.  And here we are.  



Time to buy a bunch of lumber.  

John

[R Clark]

Very cool, John. 

Please keep up the pics; I find the build stuff very interesting.

That's a lot of work right there, especially dealing with the stone.  Knowing a guy with a front loader makes all the difference; when I needed that help, had a friend with a John Deere compact tractor and front loader move 12 tons in about 30 minutes.

[BrokenOlMarine]

Very nice start.  Looking forward to the process.

[brnhornt]

Looks great and thanks for sharing!  I love build alongs!

[Steve Friedman]

Very nice start.  I thought I was the only one who dug stuff like that bu hand.

Here's the question - what did you do with all the dirt?  Still haven't figured that one out from when I built my shed a couple of years ago.

Steve

[jteneyck]

Very nice start.  I thought I was the only one who dug stuff like that bu hand.

Here's the question - what did you do with all the dirt?  Still haven't figured that one out from when I built my shed a couple of years ago.

Steve

Yeah, 6 cu yards of stone replaced almost the same amount of dirt that we removed, a wheel barrow at a time.  Had the timing been right I would have put it on top of the garden to raise its level, but I couldn't do that now so it's piled up in the woods adjacent to my property, on my neighbor's property actually.  This Fall I'll schlepp it back and put it on the garden.  

As for digging out all the dirt, thank goodness I have a rototiller.  Not only did it loosen up the soil to make it easier to shovel, but it digs down a pretty consistent amount so the surface underneath was pretty flat, smooth, and undisturbed. 

I'm doing my last checks and updates on my BOM and will go to the lumber yard tomorrow to order the framing lumber and sheathing.  I was going to use 3/4" tongue and groove pressure treated plywood for the floor, but it's not available, at least not through my local lumber yard, so I'm thinking of going with untreated T&G plywood instead.  Any reason you folks can think of not to do that?  Any other recommendations, if so?  I'm not worried about moisture but could paint the floor if need be.  Any comments appreciated.  This is my first (and likely last) building build so help and advise is definitely welcome.  Thanks.

John

[jlanciani]

Hi John,

If it were mine, I'd go 12" on center for the floor joists to better support the intended load and use Advantech 3/4" T&G for the flooring. Definitely put a coat of exterior paint on the underside.

[Phil Thien]

Wow, those pics represent a ton of work, looking forward to the progress.

[giradman]

Wow, those pics represent a ton of work, looking forward to the progress.

Boy, I agree w/ the others - a LOT of HARD work in that preparation - looking forward to the rest of the story! Dave

[jteneyck]

Well, yeah, not the most fun job but I wanted a stable base that won't shift over time.  I think my friend had the hardest job digging that trench.  He cut a lot of tree roots along the way.  We were smart enough to take a day off to recover before finishing the hole.  And the tractor was huge in getting the stone up to the hole.  

I forgot to mention it in my post, or take a picture of it, but there is what must be the world's best geotextile under the stone.  My neighbor gave me a piece of polyester paper machine drier felt that he got from a local corrugated manufacturer.  It was a perfect 17' wide and about 25' long.  We laid it in the hole after the drainage system was installed and then dumped the stone on top.  I cut off the excess before I took the "after" photos, so you would have to look very closely to see it.  He put over a thousand feet of it under the road he built at his gentleman's farm.  

Jim, thanks for the advise on the flooring.  I am definitely going to go with T&G material for the floor, and I will paint the bottom as you recommended.  The joists are 2 x 8's, 16" OC and the span is only 4.5' between the 4 x 4's.  The span rating at L/360 deflecton is around 7.5 ft at 120 psf total live and dead load, and 1 ft more at 12" OC.  I couldn't find span ratings for higher loadings, but clearly this is going to be very robust.   I was going to use 2 x 6's, but found out they can't get PT 18 feet long (for the rim joists), only 20 ft long 2 x 8's.  So I upsized all the joist stock to 2 x 8's, rather than ripping down the 2 x 8 rim joists to 6".  

John