The concrete floor is hardened enough to work on. Time to start building the solar shed timber framing. The angles and lengths are largely pre-determined by the solar panel lengths and the way we have set out the concrete blocks, but there is plenty left to confuse even the most seasoned home builder.
The front wall is to be angled at 30° off vertical. This is the best angle for us to catch winter sun. The roof is to be angled at 30° off horizontal. This is a good compromise between not being too steep as to make the building too high, and not being too shallow so as to not catch any winter sun.
It probably helps If we revisit our original drawing.
The difficult part here is actually with all of the overlapping sections at the mid join. The drawing doesn’t show the third (base) layer on the wall/roof. Under the steel is a layer of chipboard to support the steel roof sheets.
The top chipboard has to overlap the bottom chipboard, but not interfere with the top steel sheet, which needs to overlap the bottom steel sheet, but not interfere with the top solar panel, which needs to overlap the bottom solar panel. Clear as mud huh?
The idea here is that the steel sheet is a water tight roof structure, but the solar panels will actually be the main roof structure, with just small gaps in between them where rain water will get through. Don’t worry, it’ll make sense as this build progresses.
The wall plate timber.
The wall plate timber is the first timber laid flat on the concrete blocks. This layer is really just so that we have something that we can screw or nail other timbers to.
We sandwich a layer of plastic as a damp proof course between the brick and the timber. Then we drill holes though the timber and into the block-work. There is liquid resin squirted into the holes, and then bolts are pushed in. Once the resin is set, we can tighten down the nuts, and the wall plate board is securely held.
Lets put up some framing.
Some careful measuring and angle setting is required for the first truss, but once it is all worked out, we can use that as a template to cut and fit most of the rest of the trusses.
Within a couple of hours, we have the basis of our shed structure. Well, half of it at least.
On the above picture, you can see some support timbers in the corners. These are to support external rafters so that we get a large eave overhang. That way the roof can sit hard up against the existing shed, but the wall will not. It’s a little easier to see in the picture below.
You can see in the above picture, the inset wall and the external set of rafters that will create the extended eave.
Enough for today
By the end of play, the internal area is starting to take shape. You can see the back half is without central support. There is an idea to perhaps make use of that space, and not having timber supports in the middle will certainly help.
We should finish building the solar shed timber framing tomorrow in a couple of hours work.