Building a Plastic Shed Day 2: The Puzzle Comes Together
Thu, 16 April 2009, 7:04 am
We finished our build of a Lifetime LTM 60005 plastic shed on April 5. It was the only sunny day squeezed in amongst some really crummy early Spring Rochester days. Thank goodness we started early because it took us all day to complete.
Raising the Walls
We started by laying down the plastic floor onto the very solid base we had already constructed out of stone. Then came the wall raising. Each wall section requires the strength and weight of a full-grown human to get to clip into the floor. When I say strength, I mean herculeanstrength. Every muscle in my upper body (my gluteus ribimus, or whatever) was pulled. This is, in fact reassuring because you don’t want your building separating from the floor in the future.
There were a couple of key things we learned at this stage that weren’t in the directions.
- When putting up the first few walls, make sure to brace them with a 2×4 or something. We were doing this on a breezy day, and a few gusts came up and blew the house down.
- You really need access to the outside of the walls to easily get them into the base. Since we had our shed up against the house we couldn’t get at the outside of the back walls. That made it much more challenging.
Tricia uses the force to install one of the sidewalls
Installing the Trusses and Roof
The next step was to install the trusses and roof. This was actually pretty straightforward by reading the directions. This building has a complex roof line, but all of the pieces went together with little trouble. The biggest issue was the carpal tunnel we got from screwing in hundreds of screws.
The trusses and roof installation signal the end is in sight
How Far Away From the House?
Once we got some of the roof on, I had an Aha! moment. I had planned the shed to butt up to the back of the house. I figured I’d save some yard space, and would not allow a haven for any critters to get behind it. When I saw my plan come to life though, I immediately realized the error of my ways. First, having it that close to the house left just enough of a gap to allow a mouse to make a comfy home. My second vision was that of ice and snow falling off the garage roof and piling up on top of the shed. Then it would probably dam up between the shed and the house causing my siding to buckle. Of course this could have been prevented if the directions would have advised against putting the structure too close to your house.
So, we stalled the project a little bit to add an additional 24″ of stone base in front of the shed. Then, we were able to pull it away from the house leaving an alleyway of stone between the house and the shed. This will allow a good amount of space for snow to go and actually give us a place to store some extra junk that will inevitably spill over from the shed.
An extra 2 feet of stone base allowed us to move the shed away from the house
Parking the Tractor
The rest of the shed construction was straightforward by following the directions. The trickiest part of the final stages is to get the doors installed and aligned. You end up using shims to raise and lower 2 corners of the shed to get the doors aligned. The latch that the doors comes with is not the best either. I had to grind off a little of the metal on the latch to get it to work without sticking. After all that, it was finally time for the moment of truth; the inaugural parking of the tractor…
Pulling into the doghouse. Should I put a kegerator in here too?
We’re Not in Kansas Anymore
When my neighbor stopped over to look at our handiwork he decided to burst our bubble with a story. You see, back in the day, his old metal shed was lifted up and tossed across the neighborhood by a wind storm. He said he even had it anchored down, and suggested I do the same. The shed instructions do tell you to anchor the floor down. Think about it, though. If I put some anchors through the plastic floor into the ground, will that do anything more than having an 800 pound tractor sitting on it? In my opinion, nope. What I really needed to figure out was how to get the top of the building anchored to the ground. What I came up with was pretty simple, and I think (fingers crossed) going to do the trick in the heaviest of winds.
I bought ratchet straps at Harbor Freight.
I pulled the plug from 2 of the roof truss channels in the end walls of the shed, and hooked one end of the ratchet strap there. Then, I put a heavy hook into my landscape timber, and ratcheted the sidewalls down.
It makes me feel better to have the shed securely anchored to the ground
I cut the plugs a little bit to accommodate the ratchet strap hook, and then reinstalled them. I really didn’t want a hole in the side of the building.
A couple of cuts in the plastic plug allows the ratchet strap hook to fit underneath it
We are very pleased with the shed’s look and functionality so far. We’ll give it some time before we pass our final judgement.
Posted in: Home Improvement, Life
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