Above 1200 Sq/FT Drafty Barn into Everything Workshop - the VolksBarn? (100x40) (U.K.)

[roger440]

If you have mains gas then why do something else for heating stick a conventional boiler in with a hot water cylinder, oil costs a bit more install and to run, heatpumps much more to install and whilst you might get cheaper running costs (with solar and battery storage) you have to pay for all that extra gear and it doesn't change the fact when you want the most heat output you have the least light on the panels and the lowest efficiency from the heat pumps.

Our heat pump installer (we do a lot of commercial work which use a ton of combined heating/ air-conditioning units) has just removed the system he installed in his own house and put an oil boiler back in, got tired of his wife moaning it wasn't warm enough whilst it was using a fortune in electricity.

Plus to not be disappointed with heat pump heating you need to be very well insulated and draft free, plus make all your radiators larger.

I really would get a diesel generator for 3 phase if the utility wants silly money for a connection, because you can run off it when there's a power cut, which is going to be much more common in the future.

WRT building control, haven't used the council ones in years, went with a private provider about as soon as they started (an ex council guy) much more helpful, wants to help find solutions to problems.

Since October 2023, building control cannot be and mustnt be helpful. If they are, they run the risk of being struck off. After October 23, many private building control companies have ceased trading. You may find things are rather different future.

I dont, and i suspect the OP does not have access to mains gas. So oil or heatpumps are the only viable options.

Im well aware of heat pump shortcomings, or rather the shortcoming of the skills base to install in the uk. The product itself is fine. Though still pricey to run compared with oil.

Anyway, im hijacking the thread!

 

[VolksWomble]

You did well with that Meddings Paciera, in that condition its worth around 4 to 5 hundred nowadays easily.

Yep, I’ve seen them advertised for £600 locally… one of my favourite finds - although my colleagues who helped me lift into my Land Rover the lunch time I found it probably don’t agree!

 

[VolksWomble]

If you have mains gas then why do something else for heating stick a conventional boiler in with a hot water cylinder, oil costs a bit more install and to run, heatpumps much more to install and whilst you might get cheaper running costs (with solar and battery storage) you have to pay for all that extra gear and it doesn't change the fact when you want the most heat output you have the least light on the panels and the lowest efficiency from the heat pumps.

Our heat pump installer (we do a lot of commercial work which use a ton of combined heating/ air-conditioning units) has just removed the system he installed in his own house and put an oil boiler back in, got tired of his wife moaning it wasn't warm enough whilst it was using a fortune in electricity.

Plus to not be disappointed with heat pump heating you need to be very well insulated and draft free, plus make all your radiators larger.

I really would get a diesel generator for 3 phase if the utility wants silly money for a connection, because you can run off it when there's a power cut, which is going to be much more common in the future.

WRT building control, haven't used the council ones in years, went with a private provider about as soon as they started (an ex council guy) much more helpful, wants to help find solutions to problems.

appreciate the real world experience. We are connected to mains gas here, which is quite the novelty having spent the previous 12 years on oil. If you get it right, with a decent sized tank and buying at the right time, i think oil can be cheaper - or at least you can shop around or bulk buy (via the oil clubs etc). With gas you just have to pay when you use it…

the 3ph se generator is till looking favourite tbh,

 

[dutchgray]

Since October 2023, building control cannot be and mustnt be helpful. If they are, they run the risk of being struck off. After October 23, many private building control companies have ceased trading. You may find things are rather different future.

I dont, and i suspect the OP does not have access to mains gas. So oil or heatpumps are the only viable options.

Im well aware of heat pump shortcomings, or rather the shortcoming of the skills base to install in the uk. The product itself is fine. Though still pricey to run compared with oil.

Anyway, im hijacking the the thread

Read OP's post #156
Clearly states current boiler in mains gas, stupid to do anything else IMO

Maybe things are different in commercial construction, haven't done anything residential that required building control to sign off in several years.

We installed a ground source heat pump in a new build in 2007, never gave any trouble for the first dozen years or so, then the owner sold the house, haven't been involved with the house since and it heated the house brilliantly.

 

[dutchgray]

appreciate the real world experience. We are connected to mains gas here, which is quite the novelty having spent the previous 12 years on oil. If you get it right, with a decent sized tank and buying at the right time, i think oil can be cheaper - or at least you can shop around or bulk buy (via the oil clubs etc). With gas you just have to pay when you use it…

the 3ph se generator is till looking favourite tbh,

It may be possible to occasionally buy the oil cheaper, but if you factor in the boiler costs a little more, oil tank and pipe work cost, then I really doubt you will ever get ahead.
There is also the constant risk of oil theft, which in my area happens to someone on a near weekly basis, if you go oil do as much to secure the tank as you can.

 

[roger440]

It may be possible to occasionally buy the oil cheaper, but if you factor in the boiler costs a little more, oil tank and pipe work cost, then I really doubt you will ever get ahead.
There is also the constant risk of oil theft, which in my area happens to someone on a near weekly basis, if you go oil do as much to secure the tank as you can.

Id missed the OP has gas.

Id have gas over oil everytime.

 

[roger440]

appreciate the real world experience. We are connected to mains gas here, which is quite the novelty having spent the previous 12 years on oil. If you get it right, with a decent sized tank and buying at the right time, i think oil can be cheaper - or at least you can shop around or bulk buy (via the oil clubs etc). With gas you just have to pay when you use it…

the 3ph se generator is till looking favourite tbh,

I can see a generator being cheaper from an up front cost, but the running costs are high to put it mildly as you are almost never running at peak efficiency. Or are you planning on tying this into to batteries?

Its something id discounted previously, so interested to see how you make it work.

 

[VolksWomble]

3-phase use is very bursty and sporadic, and whilst it would be a pain to start and stop, the generator wouldn’t be on for long periods of time, so efficiency would be poor, but not really on for long enough periods to matter.

The appeal of the battery bank with a 3 phase inverter is the on demand nature of it. Neither solution would see a huge continuous load. The cost of the batteries and inverter might well price me out though, unless it can be done as an incremental additional cost to the wider solar scheme.

ultimately, buying individual single to 3 phase VFDs for the various machines might prove cheaper than either solution, but doesn’t have the flexibility.

 

[Dixie_Flatline]

Ground-source heat pumps are okay, my dad has had that in his house for probably twenty years now. Obviously not the same unit, it has been replaced with the same equipment as it wore out over time. In my previous home we had gas heat and it was lovely, but our current home is a heat pump, which I have grown to hate. The old man's electric bill is a lot lower than mine using ground source vs our "conventional" heat pump.

You'll have to excuse my ignorance, but why are you involving the government when installing solar on your property? If you aren't tying it back into the grid then I see no reason why they would have any say in the matter. Wouldn't a wind turbine be a better choice for your location? I'd think you had more wind than sun!

 

[VolksWomble]

Round here if you want to install ground mounted solar arrays over a certain size you have to apply for planning permission. No problem if you want to put the same amount on your roof, but on the ground needs permission.

Looking at a grid tied system for the house primarily because we have space to have a decent sized array, and won’t use all that could be generated, so would like to offset the cost by selling the excess back into the grid. The complication is that I’d like to get 3 phase out of the system too, which is problematic as we don’t have a 3 phase grid supply. We aren’t especially remote, so don’t need an off-grid solution.

And I have considered wind too - PV only needs light, although peak generation is in direct sunlight. The light is reasonably reliable, the wind less so…

 

[gren_t]

Great thread , interesting to note you need planning for ground mounted Solar array but not for a roof array.

 

[Dixie_Flatline]

According to the Which survey Octopus energy was rated number one! Listening to commercials from the UK raises questions sometimes. They play that one quite often on Radio X, which makes me wonder how can you change energy providers? Do they physically come change out the lines, or is this merely a clerical/billing change?

 

[dutchgray]

According to the Which survey Octopus energy was rated number one! Listening to commercials from the UK raises questions sometimes. They play that one quite often on Radio X, which makes me wonder how can you change energy providers? Do they physically come change out the lines, or is this merely a clerical/billing change?

Merely a billing change to the new provider, though early smart meters often wont work on a different provider so sometimes need changing, you can buy electricity from whichever provider you wish, completely unrelated to which utility installed and maintains the grid in your area.
Infact the utility in my area no longer provides electricity to domestic customers, they sold that part of the business on.

 

[roger440]

According to the Which survey Octopus energy was rated number one! Listening to commercials from the UK raises questions sometimes. They play that one quite often on Radio X, which makes me wonder how can you change energy providers? Do they physically come change out the lines, or is this merely a clerical/billing change?

As dutchgrey said, theres companies that sell electricity (and gas). The company that makes and distributes electricity doesnt sell it to you, though it may have a subsidury that does. This structure is just one of the many reasons why our electricity is the most expensive in the developed world, and more than double the cost of yours. Lots of sticky fingers in the pie.

As a fairly have user, its murdering me, so im considering all options as bills at the current level is not sustainable longer term.

 

[VolksWomble]

having built the Mezzanine last year, I have been going round in circles looking for a good way to get up to it without losing too much space from the floor, which was the compounded by height issues with the trusses which I had not anticipated in my original thinking.

I am aware that this should have been a more primary design consideration, but hey, things look a lot different when standing 8’6” closer to the roof…

i have acquired a set of frames for some stairs intended for stacked shipping containers used as site offices or storage. Lovely and sturdy, but occupying nearly 5m of linear floor space to get up to the mezz. This would have been ok without the truss interference, but wasn’t going to work well otherwise. Coupled with the fact I had no tread material, meant I was scouring FBM for another solution.

I fairly quickly struck on the idea of using a set of warehouse steps as the staircase, which whist they are steeper, will be fine for infrequent use. They are also on wheels so can be pressed into service doing other things, like washing van roofs…

I managed to find a rather grubby set quite locally, so went and grabbed them on Saturday.



despite being promised by the seller they were 8’6” to the top step, they turned out to only be 8’, but that actually worked out fine



after a good blast with the pressure washer they passed the health and safety inspector’s checks, despite being a rather nasty green colour under all the muck



the two cross bars at the top have been removed, with very little effect on the rigidity of the hand rails and it is now in its temporary home (per the second picture) while I sort out the second phase of this solution,,,

[note that the plan is to make the removed cross bars into drop in bars so the steps are ok to use elsewhere…]

 

[Mr onetwo]

They are perfect

 

[Dixie_Flatline]

Now that's a great find, and an awesome idea!

 

[roger440]

Good thinking. Nice solution to a problem and useful elsewhere.

 

[VolksWomble]

So, a few things to update on, mostly progress, and an oh sh!t moment…

I previously hinted at phase 2 of the mezzanine steps plan - the position I had them in was very convenient whilst I was mucking about wih the mezz, but ultimately it’s going to be storage rather than needing to be accessed all the time. Also I want to put the 4 post lift in the spot the steps were in in that picture. Ideally the steps need a bit of edge to dock into, so I had been toying with the idea of an extension on the mezz to provide a landing. When i got the steps I also settled on the idea of using a bay of pallet racking to provide said landing, with the steps ’docking’ into the end.

having checked my stock of random bits of pallet racking, none of it was tall enough (!) so some scouring of FBM yielded a bay of orange racking.

As you can see from the picture, the uprights in the steps actually come forward of the top platform, so I needed to make an extension to the extension… to cantilever out and provide a safe step across…


(Note, the wheels are inside the frame…)



I was planing on using 900mm wide racking for this job, but the only stuff I found (available, close by and sensibly priced) was 1100mm wide - which I decided was just a bit too much span for the 40mm flooring I was using.

I repurposed a random single pallet racking beam that was kicking about to be a central spine, and extend that into space to provide the extension for the steps. That and some stupidly over speced angle steel…

end result seems to work ok



And with some added decking, and stupidly over specked shelves (using up spare flooring)



the bottom shelf should make a good tractor stuff bench as this end is where the tractors now live, having finally got them both inside (the blue one has spent the last year living outside) and in thier proper place…

 

[VolksWomble]

I recently acquired another mower for the tractor - having run the flail last year, whilst effective to get things under control, I wasn’t really happy with the finish. I know, it’s a field, not a lawn, but I still want it not to look a mess…



this is a 6ft finishing mower, again found on FBM relatively locally for half the price I had seen anything else at - I was quite pleased!

so, this should be a ‘look how well my new acquisition performs’ post… and it does…

it sits nicely behind the Iseki



and does a lovely job cutting the grass…



its just a shame about the idiot tractor driver getting too close to the nice new barn siding with the front loader… :’(



I was absolutely gutted after having just got it sorted

A week or so later, my dad and my brother took pity on me, leapt in the car and we set to repairing the mess. Luckily I had over ordered when I bought the sheets and timber and had spares - yes, I even managed to wreck the 6x2 wall plate…

sadly no in progress pics, just the finished, repaired section…



since they were here - and actually fixing this didn’t take too long (but did need several pairs of hands) - we also set to and sorted out two of the remaining three corners…

as a reminder, the front tight was done a few months ago



so the front left was done to match, which was long overdue



the rear left was done by repurposing a piece of aluminium ducting - I didn’t get as far as painting it all by the time my sos call got answered, so it will be two-tone for the time being…



corner number four is rather more involved, and needs some thinking about - there isn’t much structure above the door and I want to redo it with the green siding vertically like the rest. I also need to rebuilt the person door arrangement completely…



so, having got the mezz stairs sorted, and repaired the gaping hole in the side of the barn, I have also been getting the racking installed on the mezz too. I will do some updates when I get some pictures…

 

[VolksWomble]

Since people asked for house extension updates too, we also had a visit from the structural engineer as part of the detailed drawings process. Having convinced him that we wanted functional load bearing oak trusses (not just steel with oak for show) he also wanted to measure the current 1930s-ish footings on the house, so I dug a hole…



found some footings…



and he went away happy.

frustratingly little progress on the house front beyond that tho :/

 

[jollygreengiant]

Hey any forward progress is still progress lol.

And re the incident with the tractor and your shed, I think everyone will do that at some point. I know I nicked the corner of my big door frame with the bucket on my loader tractor. But I wasn't brave enough to post evidence of that here.

 

[VolksWomble]

But I wasn't brave enough to post evidence of that here.

ah, well I don’t post all my mishaps...

 

[roger440]

I look the mower. Sadly, im on the 3rd year and still on the flail. Mainly because i just cant get out there often.

Right now, i lost the ride on in the mud, no chance with a tractor! I think ive got springs.

 

[VolksWomble]

This year has been soooo much drier than last year, I couldnt have run the tractor this time last year. It also helps that I have finally convinced the tractor to be in 2 wheel drive too - by virtue of a bit of scaffold bar on the lever!

 

[VolksWomble]

Bit of an odd one, but figured you guys might appreciate it…

went to pick up a load of railway sleepers advertised in a local group for a project. Ended up taking the whole lot as they are a bit rotty… but that’s not the interesting bit. Got talking to the chap, and it turns out he does rubbish collection and clearances for the council. Recently he found a complete traffic light but didn’t have a use for it, so would I like to take it away??? hell yes, it will look great up on the wall in the barn!



its not old, the lamp units are led but having told me they wanted replacing they actually just needed wiring up.

now to figure out where to put it, and whether to make some kind of programmable chase unit…

 

[dutchgray]

Barn looking good, apart from the damage, what I would do is have a gravel or concrete path all the way round so you don't need to get too close with the tractor. What the guy I work for does is walk round with a sprayer of roundup and kills off the first little bit against the wall.

A guy at my local boot sale has had a bunch of traffic lights recently, they seem to sell pretty well so I guess there's plenty of others out there with ideas to reuse them. I have a suspicion that in the modern way the world works (considering its all done by contractors) that they fit a new set at every opportunity so they can charge for fitting a new set.

 

[VolksWomble]

Barn looking good, apart from the damage, what I would do is have a gravel or concrete path all the way round so you don't need to get too close with the tractor. What the guy I work for does is walk round with a sprayer of roundup and kills off the first little bit against the wall.

I do have a vague plan to dig a 2ft wide French drain all around 3 sides of the barn as I still get water ingress when we get heavy rain, so backfilling that with gravel would do the trick. In the meantime im just going to do the edge with the ride on mower rather than the tractor, that seems to deal with it.

I havnt been to any boot fairs since we moved over here - I’d like to get back into them tho

 

[VolksWomble]

It’s been a little while since I posted an update, have had to deal with some medical issues which has slowed things down a little, along with a couple of weeks in the US for work… however, in no particular order, here’s a few updates…

my cunning plan for the mezzanine stairs worked very well, and is now in regular use. having added the decking, I felt I should probably add some handrails as a nod to safety - what I seem to have created is a tractor viewing platform…





Whilst the rail ist just some reused 2” square timber, it’s actuallymore solid that I was expecting. It makes a real difference when walking up the stairs to the mezz. I have some bits of military Cargo net that I’m thinking of hanging in the gaps, just for fun more than anything else…



Having got the stairs and the railings up i also got the rest of the racking erected up there







now I just nee need to bring up all my junk up and get it off the floor downstairs…

 

[VolksWomble]

Whilst sorting out the side of the barn we noticed that the winds over the winter had taken their toll on the larger conifers in our top field. They were rather sickly anyway, but one of the main stems had snapped, so we arranged a visit from our neighbours - who happen to be in the forestry business…



they made very short work of the five trees and ground the stumps down too



and they cleared up after themselves too - I would happily keep hardwoods, but these leylandii are no use for burning.



I don’t like cutting trees down, but these needed sorting, and I’m glad they aren’t there anymore - the field feels much larger now!

 

[VolksWomble]

House Stuff is progressing, albeit very slowly… one of the things we will need during the work is a temporary kitchen and bathroom. Whilst recuperating from my first surgery we mage the decision to bring forward our plans to replace the static caravan that we inherited with a more substantial timber building. That will become our kitchen and bathroom whilst the house is being extended, and will then revert back to being a workshop/studio for my wife.

we decided on a log cabin style room, and ended up settling on a modified design available as a kit. We placed the order for the kit, and were given a very pleasing lead time, with delivery expected in late may. The only slight issue being that I was due to be thousands of miles away in the meantime.

Cue some fun remote builder management…

Anyway, despite having put some effort and materials into the caravan last year, it was never ideal, so it got unceremoniously dragged back up into the field…



If anyone (in the U.K.) wants a static caravan for nothing, let me know…

Caravan was just sited on bare earth, so that was dug out and a new base laid for the new building











so, we now have a nice concrete base - but so far no log cabin kit to erect on it… I am expecting it at some point in the next week or so…

hopefully it will look something like this…



despite ordering a kit, we have chosen to do the roof material and insulation ourselves. I have already been stockpiling material



For the roof, I am using the same green metal sheeting that we did the side of the barn with. Eventually the tin shed in the pictures will also be rebuilt and probably timber clad with green steel roofing so it will all look intentional…

 

[VolksWomble]

i have also been trying to get a bit more organised in the barn - although the pictures dont really evidence that…

i finally got round to attacking one of my snap-on boxes that I acquired before we moved. I knew it needed a clean, the drawer slides and gas struts replacing when I bought it. Having had no joy with SO customer services, I reached out to a friendly, if rather remote SO man. He ordered the bits up for me, but they were on back order. Once they did land I had to get my very busy SO man to post them down to me…. Fast forward nearly 2 years, and I finally had the slides in my hands… only to discover they were the wrong ones

So, I tried my.luck with SO customer services again, and managed to get 5 of the correct slides sent out next day

Old before pic - it looks far better here than in person! But I rather like that genuine patina look…



After cleaning, and adding new slides





the new gas struts are rathe enthusiastic, and for some reason the locking bars are missing, so it lives with the top open for now…

I have moved the toolboxes and benches around, to where I think I want them. Luckily they are on wheels, as I still need to run electrics and lights…



everything is still chaos however….

the compressor now has a home for the time being, and i also started unpacking boxes of things into cabinets



however, I then picked up some better cabinets for this position… so this will all change again!



I am sure other stuff has happened, or is in progress… but that’s mostly up to date…

 

[BORING HOP YARD]

Very nice progress, looking forward to future updates.
Thank you for sharing.

 

[VolksWomble]

So, not really much to tell with the barn recently - very little has changed there.

we were* getting rather closer to kicking off building work on the house, and the new cabin build plays a key part in that, so attention turned to getting that progressed.

i already put pictures up of the base work, and of the planned cabin, so here’s a few of it going up.

work has been slowed by my having 2 operations during the period, after which I’m under doctors orders not to do much - although I did nearly convince Mrs Womble that building cabins was known as medically therapeutic…

also worth noting that this has been the hottest summer I have ever known. some of the pictures were taken on days when I got out there working at 6am and had to stop by midday…

anyway, caveats aside,here’s some pictures…

90% (100% of the kit…) was delivered on 3 big pallets all the way from Lithuania



the remainder, for the roof covering and insulation, was my own choice and additional, to the kit…



some of that pile is for the cabin - the front stack of PIR, the steel roofing sheet, ridge and corner profile. The rear pile of PIR is for other projects…

base construction





starting to pile ‘logs’





ooh, a very rare action shot…


it really is building by numbers, all the logs were individually labelled and so were all laid out in numerical order…



the walls got higher…



until i could eventually put the roof rafters up


i had built a cabin using this sort of construction, about half this size, previously along with a friend. It was quick and relatively easy to put it together and my memory of that is what influenced us to go down this route here. c.early my memory wa rather rose tinted, as whist construction was really very quick, every log had sufficient twist in it to make them all a bit of a fight. I suspect the long uninterrupted lengths played into that - the total length is 10.5 metres (~35’).

TBC…

* were, in the past tense… the house extension project has had to go on hold as MrsWomble got made redundant at very short notice :/ hopefully only a short term glitch…

 

[VolksWomble]

anyway cracking on with the roof - the kit supplies tongue and groove boarding over which you are expected to put a felt or plastic (EPDM) roof. I wanted insulation and a steel roof to match in with the barn siding we had done last year - eventually the long shed next door will also get re-done with the same sheeting… this meant adding some additional edging, PIR and OSB before then adding membrane and sheeting over





ends used the same steel material for capping



at this point we had to treat the timber before adding doors and windows. MrsWomble fancied a light green hue which goes nicely with the darker green of the roof so we colour matched it, and used for the doors and windows - yeay RAL codes…





there is still a fair bit more light green to go on the back, and those capping strips you can see, but I am focussing on getting it weathertight at the moment.

the inner threshold of the door frames cover over the floor edge, so the floor needs to go down first. Again, we wanted some insulation in the floor, so another slight modification to the kit was to put PIR, spaced up off the floor, in between the floor joists





so, that last picture is from today - the door frame and doors are all in the barn having been painted, and tomorrow I will go trim the expanding foam and continue to lay floor planks until I get past the door aperture,,,

still need to run electric and water to the building, but that’s another day… at least.

 

[f121]

are you lining it? If so expect it to shrink/grow with the seasons and don’t screw lengths across the boards vertically. Ours currently has gaps big enough to get your finger in where it’s contracted this year, on the list to fix before winter.

 

[VolksWomble]

are you lining it? If so expect it to shrink/grow with the seasons and don’t screw lengths across the boards vertically. Ours currently has gaps big enough to get your finger in where it’s contracted this year, on the list to fix before winter.

The current plan is to paint the inside, and rely on the log thickness for insulation. One reason is exactly as you describe - the vertical movement in the logs. The need to avoid mounting across vertical boards has thrown up a few challenges…

By way of an update, I got the doors fitted today as we are forecast rain for the next 2 weeks… the floor is ongoing.

 

[Mr onetwo]

Looks great!

 

[VolksWomble]

Looks great!

Thanks

 

[f121]

The current plan is to paint the inside, and rely on the log thickness for insulation. One reason is exactly as you describe - the vertical movement in the logs. The need to avoid mounting across vertical boards has thrown up a few challenges…

By way of an update, I got the doors fitted today as we are forecast rain for the next 2 weeks… the floor is ongoing.

Looking good! Glad you haven’t made the same mistake I did