Sheds

Been a busy (and bloomin' tough if truth be told!) day - the gent that usually helps us with things like this is out of action following a nasty accident at work, so it was over to Mrs C and I to try and start levelling things up a bit.



The top two were taken this morning.




And these are taken this afternoon. Still more to do though - I think the ones with a splodge on them in the image below are the ones that will need our attention tomorrow.



Even after all of this, and of course re-pointing them all too, it is only going to be 'reasonably' level, so I will almost certainlyl have to do some sort of adjustments.

@pete - if I were to go to for a wooden shed, with a T&G floor, would you say it was acceptable to cut a hatch into the floor as we are putting it up to allow access to that drain lid? Assuming of course that we strengthend the surround and the hatch itself with additional bearers, and then screwed it all in place with a view that it could be unscrewed if we did actually need to get in there?

 

Not seen those @john558 - are they a standard sort of thing?

 

I know you can get different types of kerbings for greenhouses. Some have grooves in the top for setting the base in and others have screw holes fitted so that you can screw a base batten to them.

Don't know where to get them but I have my greenhouse on them (built it 43 years ago)

I've just grabbed this picture off the net.

 

This was an old Gumtree ad.

Alton greenhouse concrete kerb type base | in Horley, Surrey | Gumtree

 

Thank you both

We are popping out tomorrow morning, so on the way home we are going to try and pop into a couple of local places that make/sell sheds - they don't look to be the cheapest, but at least one of them is known for their quality.

 

I don't see a need to level then re-point those slabs. It's extra work and is surely just a cosmetic thing as they are going to be covered up anyway. Just pack the bearers with spacers, it will save a lot of time.

 

My thoughts were to stop water pooling under the shed @JWK - that appeared to be part of the problem. We've adjusted them so there is a dual run off away from the shed, one toward the greenhouse, the other toward the gravel bed at the back.

As for the ones we are loking at tomorrow, they are mainly cosmetic, and won't be under the shed - as we have everything to hand and the area is clear, it is as good a time as any to do it, and probably only extending the job by about a week; from what I am reading, there is generally a 4-6 week lead time from the point of ordering a shed, and we are not even at that point just yet, so one more week won't hurt

 

One step forward, and three steps back.....

We went to two local places today to look at sheds, and somewhat ironically, the one I was expecting to be the most expensive, wasn't. Don't get me wrong, it was still expensive, but in comparison to the other place......... well, judge for yourself.

Second place we went to first - there were three sheds, one of which I have to admit was the dogs dangly bits, but at £2513, it would want to be! 12mm cladding (roughly 10mm in reality, so that will be 'finished' size, and flooring made from something called Caberboard (this scares me a bit, as I have never heard of it, and being a sheet material it is reminiscent of the flooring in the failed shed. In fairness, that price is including installation, but that is not necessarily a good thing as it would not allow for us to place the shed on blocks, or indeed to make modifications to the floor to allow access to the manhole. (I will come back to the manhole shortly)

Importantly, there was nobody available to confirm the sizes so we are assuming that a 12 x 10 has the 12ft on the correct side for us, which is how we have then calculated the price. Their cheapest offering was around £1800, but we weren't overly enamoured as it had a fairly small door. Their middle offering (£2200) had a similarly small door and the windows were a bit weird to be honest.

On to the next place, and they were selling Malvern sheds - very nice sales lady, very helpful, and their sheds were very nice indeed. Not a busting lot nicer than the other place, it has to be said.

Their offering was fairly simple - £4490 including delivery and erection, or £5240 if you would like that in 19mm cladding flavour, sir....... if people are paying these sort of prices for a shed, I am thinking I am in the wrong job! Oh, and as we have restricted access, they would have to have a picture of the entry to the garden and then cut the panels accordingly - with each cut costing £15.

Both of the above have a 12-month guarantee.

So, I then turned back and searched online. From what I can discern, Adley, Oren, Windsor, Mercia and a host of other brands fall under the same umbrella of the Waltons group. The rest, seem to fall under Forest - Forest seem to be the ones that the bulk places go for (B&Q, Homebase etc) and are generally the thin things that you could spit peas through. There seems to be more 'fronts' to the shed business than you would believe, and the addresses of some places actually transpire to be someone's house!

I went back at this point to looking at Tiger Sheds - and this is the only one they do in a format suitable for our location. We are not overly struck with the doors being in what we would consider the side of the shed, but it has 12mm cladding, 12mm T&G flooring and roof, so should be reasonably sturdy - sadly, it is not pressure treated so would require us to treat it annually. Tiger Sheds get good reviews - - - or at least they do, until you scratch below the surface, and then it transpires that they hide all of their negative reviews, and there are some proper howlers on forums like Money Saving Expert; essentially, the shed that we actually really liked but were put off by the reviews....... well, it seems that Tiger are no better, and in many ways they are actually worse!

So, that took us back to @Marley Farley's suggestion, and they are doing this fellow which we can spec up to 16mm cladding and a 28mm floor AND in the 10 x 12 format the doors are on the right side and in the right place. As the bulk of the negative reviews seem to be centred around delivery and installation, the latter we will do ourselves, they become less significant. Add in the higher eaves height (and it is high!), that gives a lot more storage space for stacked stuff too. And they have 10% off until the end of this week, which brings that spec of shed down to £1680.30 (£1867 before discount)

Regarding the manhole, it only serves our utility room/outhouse, and there is a guttering on that part of the building that feeds into it also - our neighbours have one on the front of their property for their building, so it does not feed our building (although we will lift the lid on it and double check next weekend).

I am wondering if I might be better to put the shed up, off the ground, to allow access to the manhole, but then I am not sure if I would be able to get it up high enough.

So, what are all your thoughts now folks? Is my thinking correct?