Ivan's roll-off shed

[IvanT]

Hi guys,

I'm going to try and get a roll back shed in place before winter and would be interested in your thoughts on my initial design.

Thankfully the footing and pier are already in place so the labour intensive part is done.

As it's a roll back shed design I plan on just running an extension lead from my garage to power it when needed. I was thinking of putting a couple of sockets in there that would also tap into the garage extension, one for the notebook and one for a red light.

I've opted for this design as I don't have a great deal of space that the missus will let me occupy in the back garden so roll-off with a warm room was out. With this design, I still get somewhere warm to sit while imaging.

It's 8' x 6' x 6'. I'm going to get a joiner we know to give me an estimate as garden sheds are silly money & don't look very secure. Was thinking around £600 for labour & materials does that sound close to the mark in your experience?

The Google SketchUp file is here if you'd like to have a look around.

[malc-c]

Costwise, depends on the construction. If using studwork and 16" centres then you could end up with around 45 - 50 lengths @ appr £2.50 ea so that's about £125 max for stud work. Then to clad it, a 5m length of good quality shiplap will set you back £7 - I estimate around 25 lengths would be needed to clad the sides - £175. Throw in a couple of sheets of 12mm ply for the roof, screws, bolts, hinges, etc - £100, so approx £400 in materials at retail prices.

Add to that the labour, estimate no more than a full day / day and a half for a skilled chippy to build the frames etc, but sorting out the runners could add another day or so to the cost, so it depends on what day rate your builder charges, my guess anywhere between £80 per day and £120 - so it would be far off your £600 estimate.

[IvanT]

Thanks for that, good to know I'm roughly in the ball park. Do you see any unforeseen gotchas with the design ?

I'm pretty restricted E & W for CE alignment stars so won't ever get a star on the CE & low on the horizon for drift alignment with PHD.

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[IvanT]

It's a thing of beauty (I hope)

Pretty much got the observatory finished today, it's 8' x 6' x 6' as per the sketch-up design. Just a few things to tidy up but thought I'd share some pics, I know you all love pics

The joiner built the shed to spec in his workshop then delivered the bits

Went for four stainless steel garage rollers seated in two x 16' galvanised garage roller tracks. Here's the rollers

Floor installed on the tracks:

Next the sides:

Then the roof and doors:

Had to do some tweaking as the weight of the roof caused the joists to sink onto the rails:

A new home:

Getting two steel right angle brackets made to keep the floor square, cutting the slice for the pier caused things to flex a little.

And finally, all squared away:

[Bizibilder]

That's a really novel solution and a good looking, sturdy build. The wheels and trackwork look interesting - do you have any more details of them and maybe a supplier?

[IvanT]

Thanks, I'll ask the joiner where he got the wheels and rails.

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[gary1968]

Cracking looking shed mate, and a neat solution.

As for the rails and runners, they are supplied by most electrical Wholesalers, the Brand will either be Uni-Strut or Uni-Trunk. The rails look to be 42x42mm channel and runners to suit.

Gary

[IvanT]

I'll take your word for it, I paid dosh and they arrived :-)

Had some trouble getting them here in NI apparently but glad he convinced me to go that way. I'd originally planned on a caster type solution. This works really well. Don't think I can improve on my setup times now and if it rains suddenly, no more panic, really happy with it.

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[laser_jock99]

Looks like a good job. Any reason why the tracks are on the inner joists and not on the outer (wall) joists? I thought it would be a bit more stable if they were furher apart (especially if you are going to be moving around inside).

Looking at your sketch-up they are shown this way.

[IvanT]

It's a good question and we did consider putting them on the outer joists as per the sketch-up, problem with that was the floor would flex in the middle too much after we cut the slice out. When inside I'd rarely if ever be walking over the outside joist. The entire load is constantly on the rollers, the joists don't come into contact with the rail. It does move a little when I'm inside bit is stable enough.

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[sublime_mick]

wow?

did you come close to your original £600 estimate?

just spent the guts of £3k on a log cabin in my back garden - currently housing sauna/desktop pc etc.

telescope etc is stored in it and it's a nice base for long evenings/nights observing as I'm not pottrting around in the kitchen making noise.

only negative is the scope has to be set up everytime i go to use it

must get some photos of it up -

what kind of bulb do you use for a red light? I asked my wife to get me one - she still hasn't stopped laughing

[Gina]

Wot no pier? I'm hoping to get away with half that cost but I haven't finished spending yet.

[IvanT]

did you come close to your original £600 estimate?

The wheels and rails were quite expensive and not in the original plan, also I had to get a couple of right-angle brackets made to reinforce the weakness introduced when the pier slice was cut out. Custom built and fitted = £870, which I still think is pretty good. Joiner reckons if he was to do another one it'd be closer to 1k

Log cabin and a sauna sounds uber cool, looking forward to some pics of that, convert it to a roll off roof :-)

The pier is the best thing I ever did, takes much of the setup hassle out and is step 1 to the obsy :-)

As for bulbs, Maplin had some bayonet style 60w red bulbs, I'm just sourcing a little desk lamp that takes those style bulbs, seems to be mostly the screw in type these days.

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[Aoraki]

For 150kg items; 2m track is £18.38, 3m track is £28.17 and 4 wheel hangers (used upside down) are £21.97 each all plus vat. 75kg gear is cheaper, 300kg and 500kg dearer.

I do think you have made a BIG mistake by not siting the track under the walls where the shed is at it's strongest, the floor would not bend up any where near as much if you had. It shouldn't be too much of a job to rearrange them.

[IvanT]

I do think you have made a BIG mistake by not siting the track under the walls where the shed is at it's strongest

Problem is that I'd need to cut a chunk out of the deck to enable the 8' roll-back clearance I wanted for the track. Since fixing the two right-angle welded brackets to the front bottom corners there really is no problem. If you look at it, the line(s) that get walked on most are the line(s) directly over the tracks which was part of the reasoning when we made the decision.

I guess time will tell though, for now, I'm happy to have something to keep the moisture off both me and the computer.

[Dave]

Absolutely fabulous!

[Rols]

Would it not have been possible to put two extra tracks in for support each one along side the cut for the pier?

only observing from the outside maybe i'm wrong.

i think i'm going to do something along these lines but i think i have extra obstacles to overcome as this will be sitting on the lawn area in the back garden.. i have to hide mine as she wont have anything 'unsightly' on the lawn...

[Domis]

Interesting design,I like it. The exposed tracks would be a problem for me as this area rountinely receives 1 foot or more snowfalls and freezing rains throughout the winter months.

[IvanT]

Would it not have been possible to put two extra tracks in for support each one along side the cut for the pier?

That is an option, but when walking on it my path does seem to be concentrated over the runners so I don't think it's necessary.

If the runners are sunk in at ground level on a lawn area for example, cleaning them out to maintain a smooth running action might be a pain. With mine above ground level I just need to power hose them occasionally I'd think. Maybe something to lay over the rails when not in use would slow any crud build up.

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[IvanT]

Interesting design,I like it. The exposed tracks would be a problem for me as this area rountinely receives 1 foot or more snowfalls and freezing rains throughout the winter months.

I don't normally have extreme weather like that to deal with, but when it snows, a quick brush down off the exposed part at the back should sort it prior to an observing session.

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[IvanT]

This design was an alternative to roll-off with warm room as I didn't have space/permission to do that and scraping some of the deck would not have gone down well at all :-)

It keeps me warm and dry and stops any condensation build up on the notebook as the temp drops.

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[IvanT]

Absolutely fabulous!

Thanks :-)

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[IvanT]

Would it not have been possible to put two extra tracks in for support each one along side the cut for the pier?

only observing from the outside maybe i'm wrong.

i think i'm going to do something along these lines but i think i have extra obstacles to overcome as this will be sitting on the lawn area in the back garden.. i have to hide mine as she wont have anything 'unsightly' on the lawn...

Rols, you asked if I'd do anything different in PM and I said consider the rail placement when laying the concrete for the pier. I thought I'd link the Pier progress post I made to give you an idea of what I mean:

http://stargazerslounge.com/showthread.php?p=1597720

Also, asked the joiner where he sourced the rails, he just replied with

"Henderson rail systems. Based in London but they do distribute all over uk. Tell them to ring main office and get a number for a rep !"

Good luck with your project.

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[IvanT]

One other thing, I had designed the doors as 50/50, the joiner realised they needed to be cut 25/75 to allow bottom door bolt to be able to latch down on the short side. 50/50 would have placed the bottom bolt in the centre of the cut out which would be pretty pointless.

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[Rols]

OOps Sorry.