Building The Shed

Well the shed arrived last Thursday, direct from Shire.

I have to say that I wasn't impressed by the delivery service. The driver pulled up and had the shed wrapped up on the back of a truck, with a crane. It took him around 45 minutes to unload the shed. Towards the end I had to go and help him as he very nearly dropped it on my Dad's car, despite me asking the driver if the car needed to be moved, which he said it did not. He used two large bands around the palet containing the shed, and as he lifted it, the shed nearly slid off the end. A very poor start, but we got there in the end.

After he left and I started unwrapping I noticed a lot of broken pieces. Thankfully as it turned out it wasn't as bad as it looked, and there were ample spare parts.

One thing I will say: Shire sheds have the WORST instructions ever, they really may as well not bother sending them out. The entire instructions seem to be the same for their entire product lineup as many of the points were totally irrelevant. The wording was pretty poor (e.g 'Drill hole aprx 50 centers from the side' and 'Place WT next to WA and line up WC at the end', without any instructions saying what 'WT' 'WA' or 'WC' was).

Had the instructions been written by someone a little more competent, the shed would have been up within 2 days. As it stood, it took three.

The actual building went together fairly easily. The logs locked together well, and I was very glad that I had opted for the thicker wood (44mm instead of 34mm) as it provided a fantastic seal. I highly recommend going for 44mm or thicker wood. The walls are solid.

A few minor annoyances I found were that the window only has a standard latch at the bottom, with no handle to lock it further up the window, meaning someone could easily get a crowbar in the top of the window and pop it open. I've bought a few extra locks to secure the window properly.

I've also got to sand a little off the window and door as they catch ever so slightly, nothing too major though.

If you take a look at the photos (on the right of the blog, or directly at flickr by clicking HERE) you can see the photos so far.

At this point the basic shell is complete, the shed is up and painted. Next I'm going to be adding insulation to the floor. I was going to go for 100mm Celotex but the floor isn't thick enough for that, so have opted for 50mm which should still be plenty thick enough. That's arriving tomorrow and once laid I can put the floor boards down and then start work on the stud walls.

To wrap a few points up on the actual shed. It is a Shire Dean Log Cabin at 12ft deep by 8ft wide. I purchased it from Elbec Garden Buildings, but it is also sold by Summer Log Cabins and a few others.

Would I recommend Shire again? Yes, however be prepared to get VERY frustrated with the instructions, and also be prepared to help the delivery driver who seemed a bit flustered (wasn't really his fault, his truck had clearly been overloaded).

Ideally Shire need to work on both the packaging and documentation side of things. There were a number of dents and minor splits. Thankfully I was able to make sure there were on the inside (as they will be covered by the insulation/plasterboard) however I can imagine that there are likely a number of times that the boards arrive badly damaged beyond being usable.

Anyway, in my next post I'll be going through the floor and then the stud walls!