# Metal shed collapsed, repair or replace?



## Gooserider (Apr 6, 2011)

As I mentioned over in the "megathread" on my injury situation, I had two out of my four sheds collapse on me this winter - the survivors were my two woodsheds that I can't get into w/ the current wheelchairs...

The two that collapsed were my "portable garage" tent style building, and a 10 x 13 tin shed.

Considering that the tent garage was starting to show it's age anyway, I think replacing it with a similar sized one is my best approach.  Only question is whether I'd get any benefit from doubling up the fabric by putting the new tent on over or under the old one...

The metal shed is a bit more of a dilemma, and I'd like some advice...  It was a fairly low cost tin shed from Home Depot, that I built on a wood platform floor supported by concrete blocks.  It is located under some pretty big oaks, and I suspect what happened to do it in was the impact of a big load of snow coming off a branch.  The roof is buckled in at the center, and the seam where the panels joined at the peak is ripped apart.  The walls are still in pretty decent shape, no more than minor bending.  (I have pictures over on the other thread) Fortunately the way the roof collapsed and ripped open in the middle let the snow and rain drip into the middle of the floor, but it looks like the stuff I had stored in it, which was along the walls, hasn't been damaged much.

I could just go and purchase another shed, (for approx. $700) and put it up in the same place, but it seems to me like that would be just asking for a repeat of the same collapse.  The other option I've been considering is getting some 2x lumber and sort of framing up a roof, probably using those corrugated plastic panels for the roofing material.  (Lower cost than doing shingles, and makes it lighter inside...)

In effect, building a minimally framed shed that uses the tin walls of the old shed as siding....

Anyone see any major problems or "gotchas" with this idea?

The inside of the shed does have some "framing" members made out of metal, so I was thinking of using PT stock on the outside so that I wouldn't have to worry about doing anything with those, and so that I don't loose any inside space...  (appearance is not a major concern)  I would also need to convert the shed from a barn style roof to a simple peaked roof, again, I don't see this as a big problem...  

Other alternatives?

Gooserider


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## woodsmaster (Apr 7, 2011)

I agree that buying another cheap metal shed is asking for trouble. Most are made very cheap and typically last a few years. I have seen a few that are in good shape that are old. don't know if they were made from thicker steel or just sheltered from the weather more. I would go with a wood frame. If the walls will hold a wood roof I think that would last much longer than another cheap steel shed. Sometimes it's easier to start from scratch than trying to use whats left. Maybe salvage the floor and start over with the rest ? You may be able to use the steel siding over on a wood frame.


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## fishingpol (Apr 7, 2011)

2" x 4" wood frame with roof trusses made from 2" X 4"'s fastened with 1/2 plywood plates at the truss joints.    No ridgeboard needed, all of the trusses are made ahead of time before going up.  Toenail on the top plate and it is set for roof sheathing.  Materials would probably be close to cost of metal shed, but strength of wood.  Use T-111 siding with a good coat of primer and two coats latex exterior paint rolled on with a 3/4 inch roller to give it a good coat.  T-11 siding is both wall support and siding at the same time.


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## Gooserider (Apr 8, 2011)

A wood roof is possible, but seems to be pretty expensive for a shed.  The  "Suntuf" polycarbonate roofing stuff has impressed me considerably.  I used it on the roof of my newer woodshed, which was built to very minimal standards to put it gently - I have three 16' 2x4 "rafters" running the length of the shed, with one set of supports in the center.  I then laid a bunch of trashpicked and fairly well weathered 1x decking boards spaced fairly far apart on a diagonal on those rafters, and put the panels on top of that... The pitch is about one foot of difference in an 8' wide span. It was "bouncy" enough that I didn't want to climb on it while screwing the panels down...  I didn't see any detectable snow shedding this past winter, but it didn't give either.  The cost for the panels worked out to be less than what just the decking plywood would have cost me.

As a side benefit, the clear panels that I used let plenty of light into the shed so that it was easier to see in it.

Doing a rough estimate for the costs, the Suntuf panels and associated parts would be around $400.  The plywood would be less, but I think it would need more in the way of support, and the added cost for finishing would bring the costs up to about the same...

What I was sort of thinking in terms of doing, is to run some 2x4's, probably PT, up the outside corners of the shed, and run a band of wood around the perimeter.  From that band, run around three sets of rafters up to a peak w/ one ridge board.  I'd tie the rafters together with a few lengths of 1x4 strapping, and put the panels down on those...

Gooserider


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## fishingpol (Apr 8, 2011)

How about framing in the inside walls with regular 2" x 4"s spaced 18" to 24" on center with a top plate and putting up pre-made trusses and Suntuf on top of those?  The trusses are easy to make, using (3) 2" x 4" s per truss, plus a plywood triangle plate sandwiched on each side of the peak, and lower ends near the plate.  Do you really need a ridge board for Suntuf to be installed? I'll get a picture of the inside of my shed.  I'm struggling with Picasa on getting the pics re-sized down.  It just isn't happening.  I'll pick away and read some more related threads.  I'm wondering if I need some sort of update.


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## Gooserider (Apr 8, 2011)

fishingpol said:
			
		

> How about framing in the inside walls with regular 2" x 4"s spaced 18" to 24" on center with a top plate and putting up pre-made trusses and Suntuf on top of those?  The trusses are easy to make, using (3) 2" x 4" s per truss, plus a plywood triangle plate sandwiched on each side of the peak, and lower ends near the plate.  Do you really need a ridge board for Suntuf to be installed? I'll get a picture of the inside of my shed.  I'm struggling with Picasa on getting the pics re-sized down.  It just isn't happening.  I'll pick away and read some more related threads.  I'm wondering if I need some sort of update.



What I do for photos (on a Linux box) is use KDE's DigiKam, which allows all sorts of editing and manipulation.  I also usually set my camera to take photos at 640x480 resolution - which minimizes the amount that I have to play with them to start with.  One weirdness is that when I download the camera, the photos are all over 1-200K in size.  If I open them, and crop ONE row of pixels off, and re-save them, they come out to 70-80K.  Seems like the minor trim gets rid of an awful lot of extra data.

I would appreciate pictures of your trusses as I'm not sure just what you mean.  The Suntuf panels do need some support at regular intervals, especially at the ends, which is why I was thinking in terms of a ridge board.  However it might not need to be that much of a center support, possibly a length of 1x3 or so along the top on each side,  That might even be better if I'm using some of the preformed peak capping pieces.  

I was thinking of running the wall framing up on the outside of the walls so that I didn't have to deal with the existing interior metal framing, and to avoid losing any interior space.  There is a little bit of the floor platform that sticks out past the wall frame, and my thought was to notch the bottoms of the framing 2x4's to catch that and hang over the sides of the floor so that I could screw them into the 2x8 floor joists.  Probably just do one upright in each corner to support the banding plate at the top, then the roof members from there to hold up the Suntuf panels, probably about 3-4 sets, with 1x3 or so on 24" spacing to support the panels.  The good part is I think I have a lot of the stuff that I will need already as leftovers from building my ramp..

Gooserider


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## fishingpol (Apr 9, 2011)

Ok, cropping looks like it will work.   One picture is the top of the truss, with a sandwich of plywood.  The other picture is one lower edge where it sits on the top plate.  This particular one spans an 8' span on my shed with about 6 trusses supporting the whole roof.


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## Gooserider (Apr 10, 2011)

OK, that makes more sense to me as a possible design, though I'm not sure it would work in this case unless I rebuilt the entire shed...  The original shed has walls that only go up about five feet or so, then it had a "barn style" or "gambrel" roof where they had a very steep pitch section on each side that gave around 6' of headroom within a foot or two of the wall, and then a gentler pitch section in the middle that ended up with seven or eight feet center clearance...  You had to duck going through the door, but had plenty of standing room once inside.  I'll attach a repeat of one of the pictures to remind folks...

Doing trusses with a cross member at the top of the wall would be no problem for me in my chair, but would be a real head-banger for any of my able bodied friends that I asked to get stuff from the shed...

However it seems to me like it might work if I did a straight pitch of around 1' of rise for each 2' of run, using a plywood sandwich at the peak, or possibly some "wind beams" a little lower down.  I just punched a few numbers into my calculator.  The shed measures about 10 feet wide, and if I put the support beams up on the outside, that would make each side of the roof be about 5.25' wide.  Assuming I cut 12' panels in half, and allowing a few inches for overhang, I get about 5.75' for the roof length, and solving the old trig formula for the center height gives me about 2.5' (actually 2.34', but this is rough) for a total center height of about 7.5', so I have a safe foot or so for cross bracing without being an AB headbanger... That pitch should be steep enough to shed snow fairly well, and a panel roof is pretty light otherwise.

Gooserider


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## fishingpol (Apr 10, 2011)

A ridge board with rafters probably makes sense now, it is simple construction.   Framing strength would be lost on trying to make that gambrel roof work. If you go that route, collar ties can be put across horizontially under the ridge board to the rafters across from one another giving headspace. Some type of paneling needs to go on each end to keep the weather out.


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## Gooserider (Apr 13, 2011)

fishingpol said:
			
		

> A ridge board with rafters probably makes sense now, it is simple construction.   Framing strength would be lost on trying to make that gambrel roof work. If you go that route, collar ties can be put across horizontially under the ridge board to the rafters across from one another giving headspace. Some type of paneling needs to go on each end to keep the weather out.



I agree, the gambrel roof would be hard to make work, especially since the Suntuff panels are essentially rigid, they are not intended to bend....  That was why I'm thinking in terms of a simple roof. 

I do have a pretty good assortment of plywood scraps that I can make some end panels out of, not to mention all the scrap from the old roof.


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## woodchip (Apr 13, 2011)

If you go for a repair, it might be worth some laterel thinking.......

Do real estate agents over there use composite aluminium panels ( link here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium_composite_panel ).

I have managed to scrounge a couple of big ones that were used on large adverts on industrial land. 
They can be cut, and make great shed roofs. 
They are also quite rigid and make good topping for wood stacks if you want to keep rain off. 
Biggest advantage is they are free, which is cheaper than cheap  ;-)


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## Gooserider (Apr 14, 2011)

woodchip said:
			
		

> If you go for a repair, it might be worth some laterel thinking.......
> 
> Do real estate agents over there use composite aluminium panels ( link here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium_composite_panel ).
> 
> ...



Haven't seen anything like that in general use, though they might be used in some specialty areas that I don't know about...  They do look like they would be a good thing to use, but I have a hard time doing much scrounging these days since I currently can't drive (no vehicle, and the DMV suspended my license as a result of applying for a handicap placard and then not showing up for a competency test...  Hopefully the state rehab agency will be helping me get a van one of these days, and then I'll have to go through a bunch of retraining to get my license back again...)

The stuff I'm planning to use at least has the virtue of being available at Home Despot for a fairly reasonable cost...

Gooserider


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## Gooserider (May 17, 2011)

I put more details over on the big thread - https://www.hearth.com/econtent/index.php/forums/viewthread/53792/P440/ but it looks like I've got some agreement with a local expert about doing the repair as I suggested a few posts above, uprights and a band around the top on the outside of the shed, then rafters and 1x? topped with the Suntuf corrugated plastic.... 

Planning a work day for June 11th to put it all together, helpers welcome...  More details on the big thread, please reply over there if you feel so inclined.

I'm locking this thread just to reduce the number of non-relevant threads....

Gooserider


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