New Tractor Shed

[awemawson]

Thanks Phil 

No progress today - rain stopped play - anyway Darren had a Perkins engine in a JCB Loadall to put back together.

Looking at the photos above, what amuses me is how easily that 8 Wheeler Ro-Ro lorry fits inside the shed - infact two would go in with ease 

[SwarfnStuff]

"Looking at the photos above, what amuses me is how easily that 8 Wheeler Ro-Ro lorry fits inside the shed - infact two would go in with ease"

So Andrew,
       How long before it becomes too small as seems to be the lot of all sheds?
To be fair to the sheds though it is mostly due to the stuff we keep cramming into them somehow thinking the walls are elastic perhaps?
 Seriously, it's a great building for the purpose you describe and hopefully you will get it finished soon without any more of the drama and hiccups so far described. Then  time.
Congrats and thanks again for the interesting read.

John B

[Pete W.]

"Looking at the photos above, what amuses me is how easily that 8 Wheeler Ro-Ro lorry fits inside the shed - infact two would go in with ease"

SNIP

Congrats and thanks again for the interesting read.

John B

I'll second that.  Oh, and   

[Will_D]

Whats your equivalent to a "Barn Topping Out" party?

Just like to say that the amount of work you put into your projects (say nothing about the farming aspect) and then documenting them here inspires me to get on with my humble do-list

Cheers

Will, Malahide

[DICKEYBIRD]

Just like to say that the amount of work you put into your projects (say nothing about the farming aspect) and then documenting them here inspires me to get on with my humble do-list

+1000 on that one Will !

[Pete W.]

Thanks Phil 

SNIP

Looking at the photos above, what amuses me is how easily that 8 Wheeler Ro-Ro lorry fits inside the shed - in fact two would go in with ease 

 

Does that mean that your tractor shed might become the 'Area 51' of South-East England??             

Better make sure the front doors aren't visible to the Google Streetview camera!!!             

[awemawson]

So yesterday - fine all day - sun shining - no Darren 

However one more 8 wheeler with 20 ton of earth came in stockpiling on the field to move round the back of the shed to fill and level up the void 

Today - drizzling - not very pleasant - the occasional heavy shower - but Darren has finished re-assembling the JCB Loadall and is back working here. So far the remaining concrete panels have been fitted to the front and rear walls, all the 'Z-Purlins' have been fitted to the walls (the sheet cladding screws into these) and the cross bracing bars and wire cable have been fitted but not yet tensioned.

As I type he is fitting the remaining  Z-Purlins to the roof. When all these have been fitted he will 'square up' the building then finally tighten all bolts and tension the bracing cables. I'm quite impressed by the design of this framework - better than I had expected.

Also today another 8 wheeler put another 20 tons of earth on the stock pile - and I'm promised another two or three next week which should complete the levelling up.

I'll post photos when he's finished

[awemawson]

Well as promised here are the pictures. All concrete panels, Z Purlins, braces and anti-twist bars fitted except for the short ones round the doors on the front face.

No play scheduled for the weekend, anyway the weather is forecast to be lousy, but hopefully Monday will see a resumption.

[Pete W.]

It's looking good, Andrew.

I'm sure you've got plenty of things to do during your enforced weekend break.

So I'll be patient until this project resumes. 

[awemawson]

Yes Pete, I schemed and plotted working out what I needed in the electrical line (3 phase distribution board, MCB's, RCD, 100 watt LED floods x 3 inside, 100 watt PIR outside and a few switches and sockets plus a roll of 3 core Hi-Tuff cable) and nearly bankrupted myself ordering it all 

Not a huge lot to show for progress today, but progress there has been. Darren has torqued all the structural bolts and squared the frame up and tightened the cable pulls that stop the horizontal Z Purlins sagging.

Hopefully if the wind is kind to us he can start sheeting tomorrow

[awemawson]

Major progress today 

We started shifting two 8-wheeler lorry loads of soil round to the back of the shed to form a platform that Darren can run his access platform on when putting up the side cladding.

Then at last the roof - hooray 

First shift all the sheets from where stored on my loading bay, then bit by bit, sheet by sheet, the roof began to grow

[awemawson]

Where four adjacent sheets overlap, at the corner you would end up with a treble thickness, whereas two layers are what we want. The solution is to cut the sheets at an angle

[awemawson]

Then it was onwards and upwards sheet after sheet.

By the end of the day (21:30) the roof is practically finished except for the sheets at the extreme front where they need to be cut to size along their length.

Also extra screw down fixings needed to make everything gale-proof.

Forecast for tomorrow is fine early on and rain later so time only will show what we can get done

[charadam]

Tell you what - it was bloody boring over the last few days!

Welcome back.

[awemawson]

As I feared the weather was not kind to us today - drizzling from the start. Before the rain got too bad (luckily) I took delivery of the 6"x 2" timbers to form the shuttering around the outside of the shed for when the floor is poured, fifty 'ground pegs' to locate the shuttering timbers, and three more lengths of underground drain for the gullies taking the rain from the roof. Also an 8 x 4 of 'water and boil proof' 18mm ply to mount the electrical distribution board onto the Z Purlins.

Quite to my surprise Darren arrived and started cutting sheets lengthways to finish off the bit at the front of the shed that we left last night.

He got them up and fixed but the rain then became somewhat heavier so he went home to do some book keeping.

[awemawson]

While Darren was roofing, I unpacked an electrical delivery that came yesterday - the 3 phase distribution box and it's entrails, and also the three internal and one external 100 W LED flood lights.

I'd worked out that I needed eight electrical 'ways' in the board:

1/ 50 Amp 3 phase feed to external electrical distribution point
2/ 32 amp 3 phase 'socket 'radial'
3/ 16 amp 3 phase 'socket radial'
4/ 16 amp 3 phase service for  roller shutter door
5/ 32 amp ring for single phase sockets
6/ 16 amp ring for single phase 16A 'commando' sockets
7/ 6 amp internal single phase lighting circuit
8/ 6 amp external single phase lighting service

Although 8 way boards are available that would leave no 'expansion capability' for the future so I am installing a twelve way board.

I am also incorporating a 30 mA RCD which involves installing a conversion kit in the board to couple the RCD to the bus bars hopping over where a simple isolator could have been fitted. I've fitted several of these kits in the other buildings, but this one proved a pain until I realised that the "ISOLATE BEFORE REMOVAL" label had been stuck on upside down 

Then I went on to test each LED floodlight - all worked 

[awemawson]

The eagle eyed amongst you will notice that there's an extra 3 phase breaker in that panel - I had it - it may as well live there unused - and it save blanking off another way 

So weather permitting tomorrow brings a bit more roof sheet screwing down and hopefully some side sheeting going on - watch this space 

[Pete W.]

SNIP

So weather permitting tomorrow brings a bit more roof sheet screwing down and hopefully some side sheeting going on - watch this space 

 

The forecast (BBC) for your area looks good for tomorrow until Saturday, except for a brief shower at 06:00-ish on Friday.

If Darren fixed all the roof sheets from above, how did he know where to drill the holes?  Did you help him from the underside?

[awemawson]

He's a canny lad and has been doing this for years 

Actually, as you lay the sheets on the Z Purlins, you can see the Purlin line on the uncovered side, so a quick tape measure from the top or bottom of the sheet gives you the place to drive your self drilling screws .

[hermetic]

The weather scuppered  my brothers roofing job as well, so it's not just Suffolk suffering! Interesting the way you have done your Disboard, I was faced with this dilemma, and avoided doing it the way you have to save "ways" On my dis board, I used a 45 amp sp breaker to feed a seperate consumer unit with a couple of rcd's for the single phase, thus ensuring all the single phase was on the same phase. Apparently the "electricians" today don't bother ( I asked a few). just slap three sp mcb's in the same way, and put a warning sticker on (if they remember). Don't like that at all!! I would have got hung If I had done that! Aren't they just expensive!! Mine including breakers was about £400, and then I got home and realised there would not be an "incomer" (ridiculous term) in the board. The single phase consumer unit was £30 from fleabay, already well populated with 2 rcd's. Job looks well Andrew, a couple more good days and she will be clad.
Phil.

[hermetic]

 Sorry about huge size and sideways pic, it were reet when I posted it guv, onest!

[awemawson]

I keep all single phase kit on L1, which obviously means an unbalanced load across phases. I'd rather that than have 415 between extensions run from different buildings into the yard (for instance)

I think the board, lights and a few ancillaries like light switches, cable & junction boxes is running at just shy of £900 

Luckily no labour to pay for installation or that would be doubled !

I have an isolator board in the main shop that feeds three phase to three other buildings, and could find no compact 3 phase board to house things, so mounted the appropriate isolators in a single phase metal clad consumer unit with a proprietary three phase bus bar and loads of suitable labels - worked out very neatly

[awemawson]

After a few days of inactivity due to too much wind, or too much rain, or too little Darren, or a combination of all three at least today we started going forwards again 

Starting in the south facing wall he fixed a baulk of timber on packing pieces that I cut to bring it's upper surface to finished lower edge of the sheets. Then manhandling the sheets into place one by one the side slowly grew into the finished item. These sheets were all pre-cut to length but needed notching to go around the gutter brackets that protrude from the Universal Beam uprights.

Then it was a case of 'rinse and repeat' on the North side.

Having done both sides he moved on to the front, which is a tad more complex with all it's various openings. It's sheets will eventually be trimmed to the roof angle before the capping goes on.

[awemawson]

While this was going on Gary ran a further four 8 wheeler loads, (or eighty tons  ) of "top / sub soil" into the field awaiting shifting round the back to complete the leveling of the little paddock we are creating there. Quality doesn't matter much as we have enough good topsoil stockpiled to cover it over. It only needs to grow a bit of grass !

And there was a minor pig interruption   

Work on the front hopefully resumes tomorrow.

[Will_D]

Making Bacon