I’ve just erected a workshop in my garden. Eight foot by twenty five foot long. Basically, I bought two sheds, one 10ft X 8ft and one 12ft x 8ft and connected them together. There was a three foot gap in the middle where we inserted a doorway, fitted a door in it filled in the remaining voids with a wall, roof and flooring which extended the entire length to twenty five foot long.
The shed timber cladding is feather edge. I went for this for two reasons. Firstly it was the initial cheapest option for the outside structure but still does the job. Secondly, in the summer later this year, I intend to renovate an old existing shed next to the new workshop into an extension and I’ll reclad that in shiplap or tongue and groove and at the same time, I’ll also reclad the new workshop in the same material which will add a further layer to the wall of the workshop.
The footing is concrete blocks laid on their sides in a shallow trench on a bed of muck to level them. The floor is 18mm OSB board with 18mm sheets of buffalo board laid on top. A substantial saving on a concrete base for that size at over a £100 per square metre for concrete and the OSB and buffalo board will feel better with the heating when it’s cold. The OSB floor was also in the price of the shed building.
the whole structure including all the walls and ceiling has been insulated with 25mm jabolite insulation sealed over on the interior with 18mm OSB board on the walls and 12mm OSB board on the ceiling. The 18mm on the walls is man enough to have shelving brackets screwed into it for shelving and the thinner 12mm was chosen for the ceiling to reduce the weight hanging off the ceiling. The 12mm is butted up over the top of the 18mm on the walls so the 18mm adds to the support.
The electrics are 60% there roughly. The power cable is running through a suitably hidden route through the house from the main to outside and armoured cable has been laid up the garden and into the new building into a heavy duty consumer unit. We have to decide where we want the sockets etc and where to run the ring for them. We also have all the lighting etc ready to be installed. We have all the materials. It’s the last thing left to do and then we can connect them to the mains in the house. That connection will be on a small consumer unit installed for that purpose on a separate set of tails from the meter.
I’ve also run internet cat7 outdoor cable from our indoor router out to the workshop as well.
I have to say that with the recent cold weather including frost and snow etc, the existing insulation work that we’ve done is performing well. We can heat the new building and the frost and the snow have remained in situ without melting which is testament to the fact that the heat is being kept in the building.
Overall, I’m happy with the whole thing. The electrics apart, a coat of preservative along the front and the jobs a good one for now. That said, I might add a sheet of perspex to the inside of the glass windows that are on one side of the twelve foot length to create a secondary barrier to stop heat escaping through the glass. All the other walls are timber with no glass in them.
My garden isn’t huge but it’s not tiny and we are within the permitted rules even with the old workshop being added on at a later date in the year. That’s an 8ft x 8ft structure which I’ll turn into into an 8ft x 12ft structure.
The last bit is that my garden does currently resemble a building site. With the levelling required resulting in a largish pile of earth and an older smaller shed that was previously on the site being dismantled and piled up waiting for disposal, a skip will be in order soon to smarten the place up.
What‘s it all about? Picture framing!
We now have the space to really get into it in a way that we never could before. It was really frustrating setting up for each part of the process and then taking it all down. We spent significantly more time setting up and dismantling tools and equipment than we did framing.
Now we will have a production line process with everything ready to go when we need it. I’m looking forward to getting on with it.
