New Year surprise I could have done without

[symmetal]

My roll-off shed for the RASA 11 is fine up to 50mph winds but if it's forecast higher than that I run straps over the roof and under the base as a precaution. The winds this morning from 10 to 11am were much higher than the forecast 50mph and here's the result. 😭

Luckily there was no rain with the wind, so everything is still dry and the scope looks fine. I've brought the scope indoors and coverered the mount with a taped down bin bag for the moment. The mains power was still working so the 60W tube heater was happily heating up the surroundings. 🙂

Unfortunately one of the shed panels has split down one edge where it bends to form a corner so it's not a simple case of putting it back together again. The large coarse thread hollow plastic screws used to hold the panels together usually work well in that under severe stress they just pop out and don't actually break anything. I may be able to 3D print some brackets to hold the corner together where it's split. While writing this I just realised the shed roof wasn't among the debris so I'll have to go and look for that when it's stopped raining.

This coming Sunday is the first forecast 'green' night for well over a month so I'll see if I can get it rebuilt in time.

The other plastic shed in the picture housing the 10" LX2000 and the weather satellite receiving gear is fine, as well as the satellite dish, though I've had to kill the mains power to it as it branched off the power to the flattened shed.

Alan

[Richard_]

Sorry to hear about your situation. It could have been a lot worse as you say, but it sounds like you're seeing the positives. Hope everything is working OK Alan and that you're up and trucking as soon as possible! 

[symmetal]

Went to look for the missing roof but nowhere to be seen in torchlight. There's some overgrown scrub land to the East which is the direction it likely would have blown to, so I'll resume the search when it's light.

Alan

[saac]

Not good, last thing you want at the start of the year.  On a positive note you now have an opportunity to re engineer to hopefully stop that happening again and give you peace of mind.  Relief that the scopes weren't damaged.  Good luck with the rebuild. 

Jim 

[irtuk]

That's awful! sounds like you were lucky that wind didn't come with lashing rain though. Its been blowing up a gale down here and I keep checking on my cameras that the scope cover is still on. 

Best of luck with getting all that up and running again. 

[WolfieGlos]

Close call, glad all of the kit is OK.

Our winds were also much higher than forecast, and it lasted all of an hour and it brought a tree down across the road from us this afternoon. Luckily it just blocked the road but if it had been 3m taller it would have gone through our fence and onto the house. So at least that didn't happen to your shed, or that could have been a lot worse.

Luckily for me also....it's removed an obstacle from my southern horizon view 🤣

[Jonny_H]

Glad all is relatively unscathed with exception to the shed!  As others have said it could have been an awful lot worse!

Not quite sure what is going on with the weather forecasts at the moment, however they seem to be way out when it comes to wind speed.  Last week we had 45-50mph winds (allegedly) and luckily didn't really experience anything other than our green bin got blown over.  Today we had 30-35mph winds (again...allegedly) and my exterior table (which I struggle to move on my own) got completely blown off my patio and onto the lawn (a distance of circa 4ft from where it usually sits to where it ended up).  A little stronger than 35mph me thinks!!

Edited January 2 by Jonny_H

[symmetal]

Thanks everyone for the kind replies. 🙂

It's been forecast around 50mph winds many days here since before Christmas and as others have said the actual wind speed has been significantly lower. Same here, so I ignored another 50mpgh forecast today.

I thought of getting another shed of the same model and using the existing base to save cutting out the slot for the concrete pillar, but it's listed as out of stock on the shed websites that list it, and isn't in the manufacturers catalogue any more so I think it's been discontinued.

If I can't find the roof, or it's too damaged, I'll have to start again with another model. 😔

Alan

[Ags]

You were really lucky the RASA11 didn't get a cold shower. Leave a saucer of milk out for your guardian garden faeries!

[Carbon Brush]

It may be worth having a chat with a company who offer repair services on car bumpers and the like.
Some have ultrasonic welders or good solvents to layer up.
Thinking in terms of repair options on the damaged sections.

[Mr H in Yorkshire]

That's bad news but good that the scope was undamaged. You may be surprised if you do find the roof, my brother in law had a double stable completely destroyed, the roof was found intact but nearly half a mile away (his place is very rural so no chance of hitting anything/one thank goodness) but the doors for instance, we never found.

[symmetal]

Thanks for the new comments and suggestions. 🙂

I found the roof. It was about 150yds away due East in the scrubland. I had to fight my way through 10 yds of waist high brambles to reach it. It looks undamaged, just muddy, so I have all the parts.

I thought of using a fibre glass repair kit to repair the split. It's a resin shed rather than pvc or similar and the panels are quite rigid so it should take ok. It doesn't have to be neat. 🙂

Just need the wind to die down and the rain to stay away for a while now so I can try and put it back together.

Alan

[Alan White]

Sorry to see this happen, nothing shocks you more than when Mother Nature gives you a good shake.
I hope you have managed to literally pick up the pieces.
 

[Xsubmariner]

What a horrible experience, you are very lucky the system equipment is undamaged. I have a plastic shed as a ROS observatory and was very pleased no damage was sustained during the high winds this last week. When building my Roll of Shed, I focused a lot on over engineering the base and associated securing arrangements for the plastic shed.  I chose the 8x6 Ketter Shed as the building comes with a robust plastic base that the sides lock into, providing good rigidity to the sides and roof. While there were cheaper items available I was sceptical as to their robustness against a strong wind.

My Ketter shed base is then bolted to the wooden rolling chassis’s base. I removed the plastic hinges and fitted steel hinges to the doors.

The Pier base has a steel plate beneath the wooden platform that holds the PSU’s. This plate ultimately secures the whole building structure down when the shed is slid into the closed position. Once in place and secured the whole structure is very rigid.

My observatory is in the open, and was subject to very strong winds here in the last 2 weeks. So far there is no evidence of any damage to the structure, which is a relief and comfort for the future. 

 
I personally would not attempt to rebuild a structure that has already failed once. You were very lucky this time. May I suggest you consider a more robust arrangement rather than a repair, especially in light of this experience.

 

 

 

[Mr H in Yorkshire]

I think some of the 'once bitten twice shy' advice is probably right. Despite the numerous storms of recent years, outside the highlands and islands we rarely experience really extreme winds but I have seen what can happen. In 1987 we lived in south London, right in the firing line of the 'hurricane'.  In the area numerous massive trees crashed down, but domestically we acquired the remains of a glasshouse, shorn of its glass, from four gardens away, an upstairs window pane simply burst, and most telling of all, our next door neighbours large cherry tree came through the fence still standing, the trunk simply sheared at ground level and the whole thing went sideways simply splitting the panel vertically leaving the two pieces like an open gate. I never imagined such a thing was possible.

With this sort of force, overengineering is the only safe course, especially with what the future bodes - the main prediction of climate warming is more energetic phenomena.

[symmetal]

1 hour ago, Xsubmariner said:

I personally would not attempt to rebuild a structure that has already failed once. You were very lucky this time. May I suggest you consider a more robust arrangement rather than a repair, especially in light of this experience.

Yours looks very neatly done. 🙂

Mine's a 5' x 4' shed and at the time, (10 years ago) was the only one I could find with full width double doors. As you can see from the pictures the roof locks the sides in place as it's slid in place from the front and back (it's in two halves) along pre-formed grooves. The top door spigot locates in a hole in the roof too. In a very strong wind the front of the roof can lift and the door top spigots jump out and the doors detach. The interior then acts as a sail and the roof side fixings aren't strong enough to hold the sides up and pull out of the side grooves.

Putting straps around the whole shed and base front to back when it's windy prevents the roof from lifting and starting the chain of events, which has worked well so far but does rely on accurate wind forecasts, or I leave the straps in place when it's not in use. The shed base is locked to the concrete pillar by utilizing the part of the base that was cut off attached to the wooden board.

I could 'glue' the roof to the sides up to where the door spigots are, using fibre glass cloth and resin, (arriving tomorrow to repair the side split) which should prevent the roof lifting too much.

Alan

[symmetal]

Ta Daa!! Not much wind today and the sun even appeared, and it's back up in 90 mins. The two roof halves are held together with 6 self tappers but I only recovered one. The ones I have are too narrow so I'll have to order some. So I've put the straps on for the moment as a precaution. The split panel at the back corner should be easy to fix as it's under no stress. The gaffer tape isn't really needed to keep them held together. The 60W tube heater is running inside to dry out any dampness in the mount.

The Oculus all-sky camera under the white cover sufferered no ill-effects.

Fibre glass resin and cloth has just arrived too. 🙂

Next week is looking promising. Fingers crossed. Haven't seen that much green for months. 😃

Alan