Summer house build

Building Candy

Building Candy

Building Candy

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8 Nov 2006
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Following on from my garage build, I had a lot of wood left over that I took out of the garage (floor) so after pulling the old shed down at the end of the garden I decided to try and make a summer house.

Started off making a base and another the same size that would serve as the roof.

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The shape is so that it fits perfectly at the bottom of the garden to maximize what little space there is.

Rather than a flat roof I wanted to copy the nice pitched roofs I had seen on some posh summerhouses.

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The law says 2.5m tall, the roof is 50cm, 10cm for the floor and i'll make the walls 1.9m (ish :D).
 
forgot to say this is the whole its going into where the old shed was. I have pulled up the old astroturf and relaid the blocks and gravel now, into a path that will lead up to it.

shed03.jpg


Ply wood on the roof:

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base layer of felt

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I looked at roof "shingles" and worked out it would be about £150 to do the roof. So instead I thought i'd try and make my own out of roofing felt, this may or may not work!

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The picture with them all flapping up in the breeze was just a trial lay in place, I have mastic'd them all down when I put them on proper.

Ah yes now, weight, and thats where the problem started :D the frame weighed about 40kg, the ply another 20kg, then 3 rolls of felt, 20kg each plus a tin of mastic and some screws and nails, looking at the fat end of 130kg! :eek: Clearly this was going to be an issue, I got 2 mates round and really we needed 5 people total not 3!

I had a bunch of breeze blocks laying around, some flat chip board and 3 wheelie bins.... I think you can tell where this is going. I didnt take any pictures during the "raising" as I was seriously worried at the time that someone might get hurt or even die! and there wasn;t a moment I wasnt hanging onto something for dear life.

We all got hold of it and lifted it onto the 3 wheelie bins in a triangle formation, at the point I was really worried the thing is massive and far too heavy to do anything about if something went wrong. From there I had my 6 legs cut ready, drilled with screws and cordless at the ready. we put a bit of chipboard across the top of each wheelie bin and then slowly lifted each corner and added 1 breeze block at a time, this went on untill we were at 6 on their sides, this had the roof at about eye level. This was now feeling massively dangerous, and I wouldnt recommend anyone do anything this stupid. From here 2 people held on at 2 wheelie bins and I managed to push my end up enough to get one of the legs under it and with some help, get a screw in, then one the other side so it was balanced at about a 25 degree angle on 2 legs and 2 wheelie bins. From there I put the cross braces in at 45 degrees to stop it toppling over off the legs. Then 1 big push to get the other end in the air and more legs under whist whacking in screws everywhere just to get it stable. It was frightning having 130kg+ wobbling around 6 foot in the air, it was dangerous and I wouldn't have done it this way if I had thought about it a bit harder before hand.

So hard bit over we now have the roof plus 6 legs and bracing making the total more like 160kg and we had to shuffle the thing from where it is to the end of my garden! The whole operation took around 3 hours and im glad its over and no one got hurt.

Pictures to follow later.
 
Didn't I see a picture of you on internet on a pair of metal step ladders in a swimming pool using a 240v drill to drill hole in ceiling ? :rolleyes::rolleyes:

dave:p
 
I knew that weight would be problematic. :p Good to see it standing but a shame we didn't get a video of all that moving and raising. :D
 
Cosimo said:
I knew that weight would be problematic. :p Good to see it standing but a shame we didn't get a video of all that moving and raising. :D
Click to expand...

I spoke to my mate and he said he managed to snap a couple of pictures on his phone of the abomination that was the "roof raising" so i'll get them off him tonight and put them up.
 
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