Make a shed from wood in woodland or buy cheap wooden one?

[William_Montgomery]

The Kris Harbour videos are really interesting and worth a watch. From what I remember he went into it pretty green, but created an excellent set-up. Loads of learning curves and hard work, and well worth it. If you're looking to make a live-in set-up it could provide some good inspiration. He's probably not a hard person to get in touch with either.

A totally different environment, but if you haven't seen it, I'd recommend watching Dick Proenneke too. He built a cabin in Alaska which he lived in for 30 years or so. I think he was a carpenter by trade. As I say, totally different, but inspiring.

 

[Stew]

Has he met ben law or any of the other gurus of the field do you know or learned everything from online?

I know very little of him except people singing he praises and the odd snippet I have seen and the general story of him giving up the 'high life' in london if favour of a simpler life in wales.

You should atch his youtube videos. I've no idea who he has met -= sorry.

 

[Dave Budd]

I'm assuming by 10x10 you mean 10 feet by 10 feet rather than 10m by 10m? I have a cheap shed that is about 3mx10m from somewhere like sheds direct/sheds uk (one of those imaginatively named online places!) and is what I meant about replacing the roof with steel instead of the felt and needing to upgrade a few beams because the originals were a bit on the feeble side, but it's been up for about 15 years now. It wasn't treated timber, so had to buy treatment paint and I added insulation, extra floor and plasterboard inside, oh and added skylights to the roof.

An alternative that I've not mentioned for the support is logs. That cheap shed is on a hill, so one end is about 60cm lower than the other. it along with several other sheds of mine, has the base raised on oak logs where you might think to use tyres filled with clay/concrete. The sap wood rots in a few year but the heart wood is good for decades, especially if you char it. I did this because I had a lot of oak trees and tyres would need to be brought in, take more work, last potentially less time, break down into rubber and wire, etc. hard plastic like pallets or those shed grids are much more stable, easier to use, better environmentally and will last longer than tyres.

As to the problem of moving large trees should you ever decide to have them down, I do that all the time and I haven't either a telehandler or a hernia! You simply have to process the tree as far as possible where you drop it ;-) I have a couple of different chainsaw mills that I can use to break the tree down into manageable planks without needing anything other than a lever and a hand winch if it's large. Or split it with wedges, I've processed an 80cm diameter ash tree into bow staves with nothing but a hatchet and a sledge hammer that way. Of course if you are doing much heavy work in the woods a compact tractor does come in handy and means I can move small trunks and a number of planks at a time, but I also work on my own the whole time.

 

[GreyCat]

@bushcraftlearner83729 : I have a feeling that you're possibly overthinking this.

Go take a look around a non-posh allotment. Allotmenteers are old hands at knocking up shelter with scraps and imagination.

Tyres: I guess you've been looking at rammed earth stuff, great in a drier climate but I fear it would end badly in soggy Wales.

Pallets- yeah, eBay is your friend if you want decent unbroken ones. Maybe snag some old wiggly tin sheet. Handy stuff for walls and roof.

Also, you could have a go at making some hurdle/wattle type panels from hedge brash especially hazel.... and I suspect you have a fair bit of that potentially available...... If you have hedges in south west Wales, chances are it's mainly hazel (in Carmarthenshire, typical hedge is mainly hazel, some thorn, oak and holly mixed in), and starting to lay your hedges is a great way of extracting useful stuff for hurdles/wattle- and making neglected hedges neat might make you more popular with the locals. (Tools needed: billhook, hand saw and axe).

A few poles (tree stakes? Brush/broom handles, join with a sheer lashing) and paracord, some builders tarp (or a proper camo camping tarp if you want to hide the shelter), some wattle sides from fencing brash, a big roll of cheap hairy gardening string and you have some shelter. It's not fancy but it's cheap, is good fun bushcraft practice to build it and it will last long enough.

GC

PS wooden broom handles are an underrated source of cheap poles, if you bulk buy on Amazon they come out as pennies and with some hairy string for sheer lashings and square lashings you can have some proper bushcrafty fun.
PPS a bag of broom handles, a Hubs geodesic dome connector kit, some chunks of wood for piles and some tarp and you have a rather natty dome shelter.... here's the Hubs dome kit link: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Hubs-Geode...lpcontext&ref_=fplfs&psc=1&smid=AZ7TJ6YS68KMU

 

[bushcraftlearner83729]

He's probably not a hard person to get in touch with either.

Not sure about that. He has millions maybe billions of views on his videos at this point so probably gets fan mail all the time.

A totally different environment, but if you haven't seen it, I'd recommend watching Dick Proenneke too. He built a cabin in Alaska which he lived in for 30 years or so. I think he was a carpenter by trade. As I say, totally different, but inspiring.

Yea I have seen more of his videos than kris's. The house he made was with roundwood so as people have said probably not something I have the luxury of doing with my few trees as it is not an efficient use of wood.

I have had another suggestion on another forum to use firewood to make a cordwood building. This has several advantaged of firewood being in abundance due to time of year and probably year round, already dried, and also easily moveable on the site by just myself.

 

[bushcraftlearner83729]

I'm assuming by 10x10 you mean 10 feet by 10 feet rather than 10m by 10m? I have a cheap shed that is about 3mx10m from somewhere like sheds direct/sheds uk (one of those imaginatively named online places!) and is what I meant about replacing the roof with steel instead of the felt and needing to upgrade a few beams because the originals were a bit on the feeble side, but it's been up for about 15 years now. It wasn't treated timber, so had to buy treatment paint and I added insulation, extra floor and plasterboard inside, oh and added skylights to the roof.

An alternative that I've not mentioned for the support is logs. That cheap shed is on a hill, so one end is about 60cm lower than the other. it along with several other sheds of mine, has the base raised on oak logs where you might think to use tyres filled with clay/concrete. The sap wood rots in a few year but the heart wood is good for decades, especially if you char it. I did this because I had a lot of oak trees and tyres would need to be brought in, take more work, last potentially less time, break down into rubber and wire, etc. hard plastic like pallets or those shed grids are much more stable, easier to use, better environmentally and will last longer than tyres.

As to the problem of moving large trees should you ever decide to have them down, I do that all the time and I haven't either a telehandler or a hernia! You simply have to process the tree as far as possible where you drop it ;-) I have a couple of different chainsaw mills that I can use to break the tree down into manageable planks without needing anything other than a lever and a hand winch if it's large. Or split it with wedges, I've processed an 80cm diameter ash tree into bow staves with nothing but a hatchet and a sledge hammer that way. Of course if you are doing much heavy work in the woods a compact tractor does come in handy and means I can move small trunks and a number of planks at a time, but I also work on my own the whole time.

Thanks. More great practical advice.

Yes 10ft x 10ft.

It is good to read how even the cheapest sheds are by no means sunk cost as most here would have you believe as it seems you patched any you have up as the need arose to give more faithful service.

Why would you consider plastic pallets or shed grids more environmentally friendly than tyres? Plastic takes 10000 years to rot doesn't it whereas tyres rot within 50 years so the latter seems more environmentally friendly to me. Even the wire will rot in some years after that. Depends what your definition of environmentally friendly is but I would have defined plastic as some of the worst.

That doesn't necessarily mean I wouldn't prefer using that over tyres, getting rid of it responsibly if there was cause to down the line. Just that other factors would play into the decision.

Now you mention it, when I volunteered I did chop down some hefty branches/trunks to allow light for the beds and myself and other volunteers had no issues moving them about. We would just cut them in to manageable chunks where they lay, as you note.

 

[bushcraftlearner83729]

@bushcraftlearner83729 : I have a feeling that you're possibly overthinking this.

Go take a look around a non-posh allotment. Allotmenteers are old hands at knocking up shelter with scraps and imagination.

Tyres: I guess you've been looking at rammed earth stuff, great in a drier climate but I fear it would end badly in soggy Wales.

Pallets- yeah, eBay is your friend if you want decent unbroken ones. Maybe snag some old wiggly tin sheet. Handy stuff for walls and roof.

Also, you could have a go at making some hurdle/wattle type panels from hedge brash especially hazel.... and I suspect you have a fair bit of that potentially available...... If you have hedges in south west Wales, chances are it's mainly hazel (in Carmarthenshire, typical hedge is mainly hazel, some thorn, oak and holly mixed in), and starting to lay your hedges is a great way of extracting useful stuff for hurdles/wattle- and making neglected hedges neat might make you more popular with the locals. (Tools needed: billhook, hand saw and axe).

A few poles (tree stakes? Brush/broom handles, join with a sheer lashing) and paracord, some builders tarp (or a proper camo camping tarp if you want to hide the shelter), some wattle sides from fencing brash, a big roll of cheap hairy gardening string and you have some shelter. It's not fancy but it's cheap, is good fun bushcraft practice to build it and it will last long enough.

GC

PS wooden broom handles are an underrated source of cheap poles, if you bulk buy on Amazon they come out as pennies and with some hairy string for sheer lashings and square lashings you can have some proper bushcrafty fun.
PPS a bag of broom handles, a Hubs geodesic dome connector kit, some chunks of wood for piles and some tarp and you have a rather natty dome shelter.... here's the Hubs dome kit link: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Hubs-Geode...lpcontext&ref_=fplfs&psc=1&smid=AZ7TJ6YS68KMU

Yes, I have mentioned already I made one wall/hurdle to test the method. There is a big pile of old brash but hard to separate now as it has been piled up for nearly a year and all interwoven to itself. I had thought of using this for the gaps in the hedge, which there are quite a few, some of several metres, where one could just walk in from the road.

I thought this would be a good use of that otherwise wasted bio matter but as mentioned it is tough trying to separate it apart! Also doesn't help there is some barbed wire mixed in there with the wood matter.

I had looked into billhooks a while ago but after a while I thought what is the advantage of them vs, just a handaxe? I know there is a hook on it but on a couple of the videos I watched most of them just used the flat bladed side anyway which made me think why bother with the billhook at all and do everything with the handaxe?

 

[Toddy]

The thing to remember is that we have a temperate climate......that fluxes constantly.
This past fortnight we've had freezing temperatures and up and down over 0˚C for days and nights, then torrential rain and now we're sitting at a balmy 7˚C.

Anything organic suffers in that. Even the rocks suffer in that kind of weather.

We don't get the long hard cold of continental winters, we don't get the long dessication of the deserts. We're always a bit damp, and everything rots.

Tyres in those situations are not stable. That's what folks are trying to say to you. Fill them with concrete....in time it'll freeze, it shatter, it'll just become crumbly, the tires rot down and you end up with a mess of rotting rubber, chemical leach and metal wires......fill them with soil and it flexes a bit but it makes for shifting foundations...great if your a farmer and just want to throw them over the tarps on a silage pit....pity about the flies breeding in the water pooling inside them, but it's on a farm.
Do you really want mozzies at your camp ?

I'm all for recycling, very much pro use what you have to best effect, but sometimes we need to think ahead a little. The hardest recycle clean up is of mixed material products.

I think you need to suss out your watery issues and maybe organise a clear out. But I'm not the one living there or having to do anything but sit and comment Easy to say stuff, but harder to do the work necessary.

I hope we're not discouraging you; that you have a lot of pleasure out of making something really special of your land, a haven and a place where you can breathe and just belong.

If you have a water course, then perhaps focus a bit on channeling that. Defining edges a little, create a foundation type area at a nice spot, someplace that would give you sound access...if it's clean, you can grow water herbs, that sort of thing ? Someplace to sit and chill out ?

Just ideas, every body's got them

Cheap sheds are fine in gardens or where you don't have any issues with security. If you're leaving stuff unattended in them, then the doors are so flimsy a child can rip them open.

If you have a quiet place and no bother, just paint the shed often, do a decent job on the roof and make sure the foundations aren't sitting wet, and it'll be fine. I have one that I bought twenty five years ago and it's still sound...it has had decent roofing fitted though. Felt is carp and rots in our climate. I bought the corroline roofing sheets and used them. Brilliant.

I have a friend who lives inside a green house he made from the clear corroline roofing panels that he got given from an old barn. They must be thirty years old and they're still sound.....worth finding contacts in your local area for farmers, builders, etc.,

 

[TLM]

There exist several models of hot dip galvanized steel "screws" that one puts into ground for a foundation. They are mainly used in gravel but some work in finer grades too. They are meant for fairly light weight structures. On suitable ground it takes 15 min for one. They are not subject to frost jacking in most cases.

 

[bushcraftlearner83729]

The thing to remember is that we have a temperate climate......that fluxes constantly.
This past fortnight we've had freezing temperatures and up and down over 0˚C for days and nights, then torrential rain and now we're sitting at a balmy 7˚C.

Anything organic suffers in that. Even the rocks suffer in that kind of weather.

We don't get the long hard cold of continental winters, we don't get the long dessication of the deserts. We're always a bit damp, and everything rots.

Tyres in those situations are not stable. That's what folks are trying to say to you. Fill them with concrete....in time it'll freeze, it shatter, it'll just become crumbly, the tires rot down and you end up with a mess of rotting rubber, chemical leach and metal wires......fill them with soil and it flexes a bit but it makes for shifting foundations...great if your a farmer and just want to throw them over the tarps on a silage pit....pity about the flies breeding in the water pooling inside them, but it's on a farm.
Do you really want mozzies at your camp ?

I'm all for recycling, very much pro use what you have to best effect, but sometimes we need to think ahead a little. The hardest recycle clean up is of mixed material products.

I think you need to suss out your watery issues and maybe organise a clear out. But I'm not the one living there or having to do anything but sit and comment Easy to say stuff, but harder to do the work necessary.

I hope we're not discouraging you; that you have a lot of pleasure out of making something really special of your land, a haven and a place where you can breathe and just belong.

If you have a water course, then perhaps focus a bit on channeling that. Defining edges a little, create a foundation type area at a nice spot, someplace that would give you sound access...if it's clean, you can grow water herbs, that sort of thing ? Someplace to sit and chill out ?

Just ideas, every body's got them

Cheap sheds are fine in gardens or where you don't have any issues with security. If you're leaving stuff unattended in them, then the doors are so flimsy a child can rip them open.

If you have a quiet place and no bother, just paint the shed often, do a decent job on the roof and make sure the foundations aren't sitting wet, and it'll be fine. I have one that I bought twenty five years ago and it's still sound...it has had decent roofing fitted though. Felt is carp and rots in our climate. I bought the corroline roofing sheets and used them. Brilliant.

I have a friend who lives inside a green house he made from the clear corroline roofing panels that he got given from an old barn. They must be thirty years old and they're still sound.....worth finding contacts in your local area for farmers, builders, etc.,

Well security is not much of an issue. Theft might happen around there, and I did see a facebook post about it on a random local site warning of such with some recent attempts, but I have very little of worth and not really planning to.

Won't have any power tools, just some ancient hand tools.

As I want to focus on natural building and that kind of thing I do not foresee much of value. I might make a 12v electrical system with solar maybe in future which of course would then have the possibility of being stolen but a long way off that yet.

 

[bushcraftlearner83729]

How much would a cordwood 10ft x 10ft structure compare to a cheap shed? Seems the equivalent shed, even the cheapest variety, will run near a grand.

I have no idea how much firewood logs would be required to make a cordwood 10ft x 10ft structure and price and how much mortar would be required? Anyone with a better idea able to give estimated figures?

Also forget about the tyres, seems people get stuck on that comment and it keeps resurfacing, I do not have my heart set on it. I can find some other use for the 10 or so I have still.

 

[Toddy]

10 x 10's a big shed.....and if it's made of cheap stuff it's not forgiving if it's to be moved later. Neighbour tried shifting his 8 x 7 and ended up with a bundle of sticks and firewood.

I'd say get the foundation sorted, the site, before you build. Otherwise you'll forever be trying to adjust stuff.

I think you might do well to try tarping and shifting that around through your woods to see what suits best.
You can make a shed shape very tidily using tarps, they provide a fair load of shelter too. Not just from the rain, but you can adjust for the wind, for smoke, for the view, etc.,....and cheap tarps do work for a while. Long enough to decide if you want better, bigger, etc., They give you potential dry space to work under, to sleep under, set up an easily moved camp space.

Just another idea

 

[British Red]

How much would a cordwood 10ft x 10ft structure compare to a cheap shed? Seems the equivalent shed, even the cheapest variety, will run near a grand.

I have no idea how much firewood logs would be required to make a cordwood 10ft x 10ft structure and price and how much mortar would be required? Anyone with a better idea able to give estimated figures?

Also forget about the tyres, seems people get stuck on that comment and it keeps resurfacing, I do not have my heart set on it. I can find some other use for the 10 or so I have still.

Assuming you want the walls 7' high and 10' long you are into 280 square foot of logs plus the roof. Assuming 1' thick walls 280 cubic feet of wood. That's 8 cubic metres but nearer 10 because firewood isn't tightly packed. Seasoned firewood is at least £100 per cube here so you are looking at £1,000 just for firewood to make the walls.

 

[Broch]

The cheapest 10x10' shed would be a metal one, and that will cost about £450 right at this moment, with a 15 year guarantee (but that is probably on the basis you erect exactly as the supplier stipulates).

10' x 10' Yardmaster Green Metal Shed (3.03m x 2.98m)

15-year anti-rust guarantee Built from hot-dipped galvanised steel 7 protective layers to prevent corrosion Lockable sliding double doors include anti-tamper bolts Completely maintenance-free

www.buyshedsdirect.co.uk

 

[bushcraftlearner83729]

10 x 10's a big shed.....and if it's made of cheap stuff it's not forgiving if it's to be moved later. Neighbour tried shifting his 8 x 7 and ended up with a bundle of sticks and firewood.

I'd say get the foundation sorted, the site, before you build. Otherwise you'll forever be trying to adjust stuff.

I think you might do well to try tarping and shifting that around through your woods to see what suits best.
You can make a shed shape very tidily using tarps, they provide a fair load of shelter too. Not just from the rain, but you can adjust for the wind, for smoke, for the view, etc.,....and cheap tarps do work for a while. Long enough to decide if you want better, bigger, etc., They give you potential dry space to work under, to sleep under, set up an easily moved camp space.

Just another idea

Yea but how long will tarps last in these fantastic gales we have been having this weekend? Don't know about where you are but it has been yellow whether warning all weekend here on the west.

I know this is exceptional but even in more normal gusts I would not trust that to give much shelter.

I am guessing the tarp I had lashed down with a few brambles and a couple of twigs I had left there will be miles away hanging out of a tree somewhere by now. I am not sure what I am to find when I go back with all this wild weather we have had.

My poor hand tools will have been out in the elements for weeks. I left them in the small bit of woodland so maybe that sheltered them a little. I had not planned to be gone for so long, had only envisioned a few days when I left, but this long run of bad weather as well as a string of van issues has made it so.

Well if I go the cordwood route I would just smash up the building if I had to, or have a bonfire, and rebuild again as mortar is not of the moveable type but the other benefits of cordwood building outweigh that aspect.

 

[Toddy]

Yea but how long will tarps last in these fantastic gales we have been having this weekend? Don't know about where you are but it has been yellow whether warning all weekend here on the west.

I know this is exceptional but even in more normal gusts I would not trust that to give much shelter.

I am guessing the tarp I had lashed down with a few branbles and a couple of twigs I had left there will be miles away hanging out of a tree somewhere by now. I am not sure what I am to find when I go back with all this wild weather we have had.

My poor hand tools will have been out in the elements for weeks. I left them in the small bit of woodland so maybe that sheltered them a little.

Well if I go the cordwood route I would just smash up the building if I had to and rebuild again as mortar is not of the moveable type but the other benefits of cordwood building outweigh that aspect.

Okay, I wouldn't leave handtools out in our climate, not at all. Even coated with wax or WD40 they'll suffer.

How many hand tools are you leaving anyway, because a pack is pretty tidy to take back and forth.
That's why I suggested the tarp. You can adjust, and by the sounds of it you don't know your land well enough to make a decision yet as to where you wish to build.....that can take time. Ca' canny as they say.

Bushcrafters use tarps, chutes, etc., pretty much as standard kit, so they come to mind as being really useful. Surprisingly robust, and they're really the route to benders and the like anyway.

 

[GreyCat]

Other thing to consider is getting materials to shed location.

About 3 weeks ago, I'd put some permeable membrane down at the place we're renovating to get ready for fruit tree planting, it was all taken up in storm Bert (thankfully stayed pegged one end so didn't lose it). With the next storm on the way in, on Friday I went and relaid it, and as well as using 3 times more pegs, the builder had a stack of 8 pallets that I used. I had to move 8 pallets into position...... they are not the easiest thing to drag over lumpy soggy field. I was glad of the weight once I had them in place but not whilst I was getting them there! (Hindsight: I broke the allotment polytunnel cardinal rule: don't leave an edge unsecured!)

Billhooks: they had a thinner flatter profile than a hand axe and are just the right shape and heft to cut pleachers for hedge laying. The bigger stuff you would tend to start with an axe, but the billhook is very good at what it does. It's the right time of year to find a hedge laying course (south west might be closest), try it and see.

Tarps: they last OK if you locate and pitch them right. Like any structure really (when i was on an exposed allotment, my polytunnel outlasted several "stronger" more structurally robust greenhouses and even sheds because of how and where I pitched it). My builder doesn't have any issues with his tarp blowing away ether, he just secures them properly.

There's a lot to be said for getting a builders tarp, some paracord or blue rope, cutting a few poles (or getting a handful of broom handles), setting up a tarp and getting out on your land. Pop the tarp up, potter around, tidy a bit, make a fire, watch the sun/rain/wind and the wildlife, talk to the trees. Get to know the lay of the land. By all means plan, but be prepared to change the plan and/or the first two or three plans not to work.

There's a saying about not letting perfection be the enemy of the good.......

You could be out there in a week, enjoying things whilst you work out how to put a better structure up.

GC

 

[Dave Budd]

Plastic pallets and shed grids I expect are made largely from recycled (and therefore further recyclable) plastic anyway and are much more stable when in contact with the wet ground than tyres are. As Toddy points out, the tyres break down into nasty mush and fragments too, hard plastic doesn't. I've got some that have been bases for log stacks for about a decade and all are in good condition despite having a tonne of wood on for a year and then moved to different locations for another tonne of wood.

Another shed alternative that I didn't mention before is the old fashioned bender. Before I got the pop up garage tents I used poles and tarps to make benders. The ones I made from hazel poles lasted maybe 5 or 6 years before the poles gave way to rot. I have one underneath a fallen tree that would still be OK had the tree not flattened it. That one used scaffold pipe offcuts driven in the ground and then blue poly water pipe to make the hoops, stock fence to give the roof more support and then a standard plastic tarp over the top. Basically like a poly tunnel but smaller. None of them ever had trouble with wind taking the tarps off either.

 

[demographic]

Personally I'd be sizing this hypothetical shed in plywood sheet sizes. 8'x4' or 2440x1220mm for plywood or 1400x1200 for most OSB boards.

then given the choice I'd be making the walls and roof out of SIPS panels for strength and insulation, cladding the walls over it with tin sheets and over the sips panels on the roof.
French drains round the bulding so it shouldn't need gutters (which catch leaves and clog anyway).
There's a way of baling tyres and using them for building/road foundations in wet areas and as long as they're underground theyre stable, however the machinery required will be beyond the scope of this building.

 

[bushcraftlearner83729]

Tarps: they last OK if you locate and pitch them right. Like any structure really (when i was on an exposed allotment, my polytunnel outlasted several "stronger" more structurally robust greenhouses and even sheds because of how and where I pitched it). My builder doesn't have any issues with his tarp blowing away ether, he just secures them properly.

There's a lot to be said for getting a builders tarp, some paracord or blue rope, cutting a few poles (or getting a handful of broom handles), setting up a tarp and getting out on your land.

Can you point me to some resource to show how to tie them down securely as I can only envision them becoming like a sail and be liable to lift off as soon as a strong gust gets under them?

Even so if I want some shelter in colder months I don't think they will be much help at night time. Shed seems best bet.

Pop the tarp up, potter around, tidy a bit, make a fire, watch the sun/rain/wind and the wildlife, talk to the trees. Get to know the lay of the land. By all means plan, but be prepared to change the plan and/or the first two or three plans not to work.

There's a saying about not letting perfection be the enemy of the good.......

You could be out there in a week, enjoying things whilst you work out how to put a better structure up.

GC

You think I haven't set foot there for fear of the perfect structure? I was there before but the long run of bad weather is what has kept me away for several weeks.

I am able to be there and plan structures as well. Not and either or thing.