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  • From: Scott Chilcote <scottchilcote AT earthlink.net>
  • To: "Internetworkers: http://www.ibiblio.org/internetworkers/" <internetworkers AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [internetworkers] building a shed - how would you do it again?
  • Date: Tue, 22 May 2007 18:00:19 -0400

Hi Tom,

Just a couple of points.

Make sure you either have a building permit for a shed that large, or don't need one. Cary requires one for sheds larger than 12 feet on any dimension, or did when we built ours. The requirements differ by municipality.

We ordered a prefab 8x12 wooden shed through Lowes, and it turned out that the company they work through is right here in Raleigh. This let us go to the display site and fine tune our order. We're quite happy with the shed. It was quite a chore to paint everything inside and out, but looks great after a few years of service.

The foundation is probably the biggest thing to focus on. Our yard seemed pretty flat in the area we chose. We paid a professional grading service to flatten it "within 6 inches" over the whole area, and lay down a few inches of "road bed" material for support. This cost around $650 I believe, they also removed a few small trees.

When the shed builder arrived, it turned out that the surface was off level by over a foot and a half at one corner. This required me to dash out to the store for several cement blocks with which to build support piers. A couple of these have cracked since then, but our shed is light enough to lift with a car jack and replace them. For a much larger shed this wouldn't be possible.

The grader also came the day after a heavy rain (don't they always?), and their little tractor left deep grooves across our yard and around the side of the house. The grass still hasn't recovered. I don't know if there's a way to keep that from happening. The same thing happened to one of our neighbors when they had some trees removed recently.

Best of luck,

Scott C.

tkarches AT imapmail.org wrote:
I'm about to have a 16x16 foot shed built in my backyard. The plans have been drawn up and I'm waiting for a lumber list from the builder. It will be used for storage of outdoor tools, bikes, etc and workspace for me.

For those of you that have taken on such a project, what would you have done (or not done) if you had to do it over?

Thanks,
Tom






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