Shibby

That is an excellent build, you must be very happy with it! I love your idea with the LEDs and 2 switches - I might just have to steal that idea! 😁

Thanks! I will certainly keep the thread updated. Ha, probably not considering the prior rate of progress! At least I can work inside, even if raining, from now on...

It does make you wonder; I've never tried looking through a telescope while walking around an attached concrete block so who knows! The advice is always to isolate, so I expect somebody once has experienced this.

Not bad - started mine in Feb and doubt I'll be done any time soon! Just thought I'd check - and I'm sure you've made sure it's not - but that left-hand bearer isn't touching the concrete is it?

September After a few more days work, the rather fiddly job of completing the roof section is now finished. The panels are HeatGuard polycarbonate. The boards at front and back are "golden oak" PVC fascia boards, in an attempt to match the timber colour as well as possible. Mmmm veneer. The next job was to move one of the heavy-duty roof joists to line up with the edge of the opening section, then cut the roof panels and re-fit to make a hole! Once done, the timber "lips" were added around the edge of the hole and the new roof section lifted into place. One late evening of twilight, rain-dodging felting and the roof is *finally* water-tight! The ugly tarp has gone! Here you can see it from the inside, with the toggle latches holding the roof in place. I might add insulation to the underside of the polycarbonate - it depends how effective the HeatGuard turns out to be next summer. Since there's an actual opening in the roof, I have actually started calling it an "observatory" rather than "shed" - I milestone, I think There's just a few bits & bobs to finish on the outside and then I'll be ready to start fitting it out. Thanks for reading - I'll update this thread as and when any further progress is made!

July Work starts on the frame for the new roof section. It's made from steel tube, which I painted with lead oxide, and tap-in connectors. In the centre is a self-supporting glazing bar. Here you can see the V-profile steel wheels, embedded in timber and bolted onto the steel frame. The rails are mounted on the outside of the shed walls - this allows the sliding section to overlap at the front and back for better protection from the rain. And it fits!! It can be easily slid back and forth with one finger! Here's a closer view of the V-profile rails & wheels.

June After a week of heavy rainfall, I was very concerned to find damp patches on the floor. Worried that I had either rising damp or water getting under the floor, I lifted all the floor sections and painted them with 2 coats of "liquid rubber". Rather embarrassingly, it turned out that my roof tarp was not entirely waterproof (since replaced) and that's where the water was coming from! Still, a good idea to have fully waterproof floor bearers. My stepfather is a qualified electrician, so he helped my hook up the electrics. The power (and ethernet) is run from the house, just as an extension plugged in to an existing 13amp socket - this helps avoid some of the certifications that would otherwise be required. Here is the consumer unit and first socket:

May Everything is set, template removed: Rear area fully cleared, weed barrier + gravel added. You can't see in this picture, but I've dug a drainage channel on the left-hand side where the ground is higher that the base foundations. My wife and I took this opportunity to re-paint the fence. Pier bolted down and floor started! Floor completed. I was pleased to see the measurements match up! Et voila! The shed itself went up in no time. The walls stack up from thick tounge-and-groove boards that overlap at the corners. We pre-painted them with 2 coats of Cuprinol. At this stage, I haven't completed/felted the roof because it's going to have a massive hole cut in it later on! Little did I know just how long the tarpaulin would be in place...

Late April Template and threaded bar for the pier fixings. At this point I drafted in some help from my dad... Paving slabs partly laid; concrete mid-pour (using a hired mixer): Paving finished and concrete all poured, template with threaded bar in place:

Early April Finished digging the hole. The pegs are for levelling the sub-base. USB & DC power cables run through a drain-pipe to the pier location MOT barrowed in MOT compressed with a hired plate compactor (scary machine!)

March Some materials for the base arrive. On the same day, I finished cutting down the tree and clearing the area. Groundbreaking! Started digging the hole. Very hard work with the solid clay below 20cm, mixed with large stones.

February Area marked out (you can just see the pink string). The tree on the left is a bit awkward - at this point I'm thinking of just trimming it well back: 2 days later... a storm rips half the tree down, the rest is partly up-rooted! More space for my build!

Here is my observatory build thread! I actually started work some 7 months ago, but progress has been very slow as I only manage to find a couple of days per month on average. I thought I'd wait until I had enough decent progress to show you all before posting anything! Originally, I only planned to put up a pier + new shed, but the good people here on SGL encouraged me to go for a full observatory. See my original thread here: Pier + "Astro Shed" Eventually, I settled on the idea of a roll-over roof. My design is probably quite unconventional and uses an off-the-shelf 12' x 8' shed as a starting point. It's a fairly sturdy one, though, and I'm reinforcing it where possible. I (my wife) wanted to save as much garden space as possible, so I will be building a new roof section that slides back, on rails, over the warm room side of the observatory. Back at the start of the year, I did not consider myself adept at DIY let alone construction, so I've learnt an awful lot along the way. At the time of writing, the observatory is not quite proven, so I don't know for sure if my "unique" design or methods are going to work... So far, so good, though! Here are some of the early / rough designs:

Thanks very much for the advice! I already have the vapour barrier, plan to insulate all around and have a dehumidifier. Even OSB seems expensive when compared to the plasterboard (2 - 3x the price). I suppose you're getting added water resistance just in case...

Question for you (as you seem to know about this stuff!) Is there any reason not to use plasterboard (in the warm room, with insulation + vapour barrier) - it's a LOT cheaper than ply.