UPDATED 8/8/2012 Added Slab Pour
This is story of how a project can grow and grow on you. Any of you guys out there about to start a build, don’t let your wife read this.
I started this small workshop/storage building/garden shed because I had too much stuff in my attached garage. I couldn’t even get my lawn tractor in there much less either of my cars. The attached garage is not finished on the inside either. I am working on that as well. That build is shown in this THREAD. I eventually want to have a workshop around 1500sqft for auto work. But that is not in the budget right now. When I do get that larger shop built, I don’t want to be storing my lawn and garden equipment in there anyway.
Thus, I needed a small storage building. I started looking at the various pre-build wooden sheds that are available. To get one in the size I wanted, around 16x10, with the features I was looking for, including electrical and a garage style door, was going to run at least $5000. And it may have been closer to $6000 by the time it was in place and all paid for.
So I started looking at building it myself. I decided to take it to 16x12 because that was full sheets of plywood for the floor and it also could still be transported on a trailer if I decided to sell it or move it later. I also decided to build the floor so that it would be capable of supporting a car, so the building could be repurposed. After calculating the cost of the treated lumber to build the floor to these specs, and asking myself if I would ever really move this “shed”, I decided to make it a permanent structure on a concrete slab. You can see where this is headed….
Since it wouldn’t be moved there was no reason to limit the size to 12x16. I figured if I made it a bit bigger, I would have room to setup a work bench for small jobs. Also, I am a beekeeper so this building could double as a honey house when I need to extract honey. I finally settled on 14x20 with a 9 foot garage door on a 14 foot side. My original plan was to pour a monolithic slab. I plan to use Hardie Plank for the siding which requires a minimum of 6 inches between the bottom of the last board and grade level. Thus, the top of this slab would need to be approximately 7 inches above grade. I was going to put a stucco coat on the exposed edge of the slab.
I had a local grading guy come out with his mini excavator to dig for the slab. When we shot the site with his transit, we discovered that the difference in grade from the high corner to low corner was 22 inches.
****, ****, ****! That meant I was going to have 29 inches of solid concrete out of the ground on that one corner. Not only would it look like the back end of a mangy dog, it was going to be somewhere between 20-25 yards of concrete. For reference a 4 inch slab 14x20 is about 3.5 yards. So after about 45 minutes of discussion, (while I was paying for excavator time), it morphed into a traditional block and brick foundation on a footer with a pad poured on top.
I didn't manage to get any inital pics. In this first pic we have already started the foundation wall. It's a 4 inch block with brick veneer. The brick is run two courses above the last block and the pad will be poured level to the top of the bricks. You can see that the slope of the site required a step down in the footer.
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Here is the finished foundation. I used 8 inch block where the door and ramp will be in the front. Those blocks are filled in with mortar, (both courses), and the rebar sticking up will go in the edge of the concrete pad.
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These next two pics show the detail where I ran piping for water and conduit for electrical in the front corners. They are run up the front of the block and the brick is cut to fit around them so that they will be located inside the finished walls. You can also see the ladder wire I used between the last two courses of brick. This will tie them into the pad when it is poured.
View media item 22469
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I have some additional pics if anyone wants to see another angle or a close up of a different section.
This is story of how a project can grow and grow on you. Any of you guys out there about to start a build, don’t let your wife read this.
I started this small workshop/storage building/garden shed because I had too much stuff in my attached garage. I couldn’t even get my lawn tractor in there much less either of my cars. The attached garage is not finished on the inside either. I am working on that as well. That build is shown in this THREAD. I eventually want to have a workshop around 1500sqft for auto work. But that is not in the budget right now. When I do get that larger shop built, I don’t want to be storing my lawn and garden equipment in there anyway.
Thus, I needed a small storage building. I started looking at the various pre-build wooden sheds that are available. To get one in the size I wanted, around 16x10, with the features I was looking for, including electrical and a garage style door, was going to run at least $5000. And it may have been closer to $6000 by the time it was in place and all paid for.
So I started looking at building it myself. I decided to take it to 16x12 because that was full sheets of plywood for the floor and it also could still be transported on a trailer if I decided to sell it or move it later. I also decided to build the floor so that it would be capable of supporting a car, so the building could be repurposed. After calculating the cost of the treated lumber to build the floor to these specs, and asking myself if I would ever really move this “shed”, I decided to make it a permanent structure on a concrete slab. You can see where this is headed….
Since it wouldn’t be moved there was no reason to limit the size to 12x16. I figured if I made it a bit bigger, I would have room to setup a work bench for small jobs. Also, I am a beekeeper so this building could double as a honey house when I need to extract honey. I finally settled on 14x20 with a 9 foot garage door on a 14 foot side. My original plan was to pour a monolithic slab. I plan to use Hardie Plank for the siding which requires a minimum of 6 inches between the bottom of the last board and grade level. Thus, the top of this slab would need to be approximately 7 inches above grade. I was going to put a stucco coat on the exposed edge of the slab.
I had a local grading guy come out with his mini excavator to dig for the slab. When we shot the site with his transit, we discovered that the difference in grade from the high corner to low corner was 22 inches.
****, ****, ****! That meant I was going to have 29 inches of solid concrete out of the ground on that one corner. Not only would it look like the back end of a mangy dog, it was going to be somewhere between 20-25 yards of concrete. For reference a 4 inch slab 14x20 is about 3.5 yards. So after about 45 minutes of discussion, (while I was paying for excavator time), it morphed into a traditional block and brick foundation on a footer with a pad poured on top.I didn't manage to get any inital pics. In this first pic we have already started the foundation wall. It's a 4 inch block with brick veneer. The brick is run two courses above the last block and the pad will be poured level to the top of the bricks. You can see that the slope of the site required a step down in the footer.
View media item 22472
Here is the finished foundation. I used 8 inch block where the door and ramp will be in the front. Those blocks are filled in with mortar, (both courses), and the rebar sticking up will go in the edge of the concrete pad.
View media item 22468
These next two pics show the detail where I ran piping for water and conduit for electrical in the front corners. They are run up the front of the block and the brick is cut to fit around them so that they will be located inside the finished walls. You can also see the ladder wire I used between the last two courses of brick. This will tie them into the pad when it is poured.
View media item 22469
View media item 22470
I have some additional pics if anyone wants to see another angle or a close up of a different section.
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How's that garage coming?