Shed Project – Concrete

So with the shed basically installed it was time to call in the concrete contractors and let them do their thing.   I was thankful to find a local concrete company that gave me a fair price, turned up on time every time and was a pleasure to work with.

You know things are getting serious when your concrete truck is willing to drive overland to get to your job site fully laden, I’m glad he had a seriously low range box and diff lockers.

Meanwhile the boys were getting the interior of the shed prepared, you can see the first three feet of concrete is being wheelbarrow’d into place.

And by the end of the day it was flat and smooth.

Now the more observant reader might have spotted the steel work by the front door, I’ll explain a bit more about that in another post.  But for now I’ve got to wait for the concrete to harden and then start filling my new space with my stuff !  and finish the door and locks.

Shed Project – The Main Event

With the retaining wall out of the way I could get the shed builders in.   This is the first time I’ve not assembled my own shed, I wanted this shed done fast, in total it took 4 days for the shed to be assembled including material delays and supplier issues.

The ground where I live is basically heavy clay that includes limestone balls.  You can hit this stuff when dry and it’s hard like concrete, when wet your tools bounce like they are on a trampoline.  It’s really tough to dig.  There were 8 holes required dug to a depth of 450mm, the poor builders are on a fixed price contract and required a full day just to dig the holes.

The back wall went up on the beginning of the second day.

It was about now that I realised a 3m high shed (at the eve’s) was large.  It doesn’t sound very big off the drawings, but when you stand in front of that wall of steel it hits you.  By the end of the second day we had two walls up.

Most of the second day, all of the morning in fact, was lost due to the shed manufacturer supplying the wrong columns, they were too short.  I’m glad it wasn’t me that had to unravel that mess.

So there’s all of the walls up just leaving the roof to complete maybe half a days work. The PA door can’t be fitted until the concrete is done, I’m changing the door to swing inwards which will require a bit of skull duggery to get right.

The shed dimensions are 7.2m long, 5.4m wide and 3m at the eve’s, can’t wait to have 39m^2 of additional storage space.

Anyway now on to the concrete

Shed Project – Retaining Wall

In late October last year I finally decided to pull the trigger on a new shed, every man needs a good shed.

So down to the local shed builders and select one off the plan, then send the plans to council and wait, and wait, and wait.  That has to be the worst part.  Thankfully the Council got the job done inside two months and approval granted.  Being close to Christmas meant the silly season festivities also put much on hold.  Oh well that gives me time to perhaps build a new retaining wall.

So grab a few mates, throw on a barbie, find the sledge hammers and lets get busy getting that wall down.

One thing we did learn is that 65 year old hand mixed concrete is rather hard.  This required a much larger hammer.  A big thanks to Peter VK5KX for bringing the beast !

 

At the end of two full weekends we had finally finished the demolition and it was time to start building.  Yaaay !

Concrete retaining walls are easy to build, just cement in steel posts to the right depth and spacing, then load with concrete blocks.   This wall was simply adjusted in height to slope with the existing land profile.  Make sure you don’t hurt yourself loading the blocks, they are heavy !   Then it’s just a matter of getting in the bobcat to clean up the site remove any vegetation and rubbish ready for installation.

I’m kind of glad that the shed was delayed over Christmas a bit since the site prep took a little over 6 weeks to complete.  A big thanks to all of my fellow Radio Club members and friends that came to assist.

Ok now for the shed.