Storage building and shop – foundation

zieak ♦ June 26, 2011 ♦ Leave Your Comment

Since we are renting out the house while we’re in Mongolia we need to move much of our stuff into storage. Sure, we’re going to have a massive garage sale and we’re taking 12 large bags of stuff with us. But we’ll have a house of furniture, books, toys, puzzles, tools, kitchen stuff and clothing to leave behind. So we could rent a couple of storage units but I think we’d need about $200 a month in storage unit fees. So I decide the most pragmatic thing to do is to build a building behind the house to keep our stuff in. I’ve always wanted a large workshop so the long-term idea is that this will serve as the future workshop.

But we could also use storage if I have a workshop. So we decided to go with a two-story 15×25 foot building.

A week ago I had piling driven for the foundation and then on Saturday Keith, Orin and Seth helped me move and place the foundation beams. I spent a few hours on Sunday squaring, leveling, cutting, and strapping down the beams.

An excavator used a huge spike and a vibratory head to punch a pilot hole into the earth. Then piling were pushed into the pilot holes and vibrated in until stopping.

Jordan and I then marked the height that the piling should be to level them all. I cut them off with a chainsaw that I borrowed from Seth.

the right side of the building will have a 4 foot covered porch that I’ll undoubtedly end up using for storage. I imagine I’d store lumber there… The left side will have a ramp that leads to a door and the ramp will continue on to the existing covered porch on our house. That will let us use hand carts to wheel things into the storage building instead of carrying everything.

I’ll be using windows and doors that I replaced on the house. They are perfectly serviceable but may not be the most energy efficient choice. I think I’ll frame the front entry for a double door even though I only have a single. It would be nice to have a large door for getting big projects in and out of the shop.