Building a shed from waste wood and other materials?

[SigridStallard]

Hello.

We have had our allotment for 5 years and we have a tiny shed on it. We are working hard to get a little bit of community spirit onto our allotment plots and for that purpose we are thinking of building a second larger shed/summerhouse that can hold a few seats and tiny table. We are thinking of using waste wood and hoping to use old techniques too, e.g. waddle and dorb (?; I can never remember the spelling of that old technique). We have tons of heavy clay on our plot and it would be nice to make something of the cursed stuff. We also would like to have a living grass roof. I suppose our design will change as we go along building it and depending very much on the bits and pieces we can find. One example of a recent idea is to make windows out of glass bottle bases in cement.

Anyway, if you could give us some tips or even websites or book titles that help with this kind of freestyle building, we would be very grateful.

Kind regards
Sigrid and Julian

PS.

If and when we get started, I promise to put up pictures. I hope it will be very much a hobbit home. ;)

[Shirley]

I'm sure you'll get someone that can help with this... but I just wanted to say hello... and welcome to Ish.

Good luck with the build - great to get the community together to do this kind of thing. I like the idea of the windows!

I can't wait to see the photographs!

[Esther.R]

Great idea. Oh and for the record its wattle and daub Your clay should make decent daub, mix some straw in with it, and ideally some horse muck or similar, put into a shallow pit and get the wellies on and mash it all together. Bear in mind in these health and safety days everyone needs to be aware of e-coli etc and do it at their own risk or with rubber gloves etc.

[SigridStallard]

I'm sure you'll get someone that can help with this... but I just wanted to say hello... and welcome to Ish.

Good luck with the build - great to get the community together to do this kind of thing. I like the idea of the windows!

I can't wait to see the photographs!

Hello Shirley.

I promise I will post pictures. We shall get started some time this year. We hope to make a record of all the successes and failures, but most of all it should be great fun, especially looking at the advice below comprising horse muck, clay, water in a pit with welly action. ;)

Sigrid

[SigridStallard]

Great idea. Oh and for the record its wattle and daub Your clay should make decent daub, mix some straw in with it, and ideally some horse muck or similar, put into a shallow pit and get the wellies on and mash it all together. Bear in mind in these health and safety days everyone needs to be aware of e-coli etc and do it at their own risk or with rubber gloves etc.

Hah. Thank you so much, I shall note it down ten times. I have seen it written so many times, but because of my rotten pronunciation I can never remember the correct spelling and am hence unable to surf the net for the term. I am quite embarrassed about it. Wattle and daub - and don't you forget it now, ....

The wonderful thing is, we do get free horse manure delivered. Right now people are fighting one another for the precious brown gold to be dug into the beds, but come summer the manure pile builds up and that is the time we should attack it and hamster all the muck we need.

Oh, and I ate dirt by the handful as a child, but I will be careful nonetheless. I find the horse flies far more worrying. We had a great invasion of them last year. I can just about picture myself doing a mad dance in the clay-muck pit to the bites of horse flies. ;)

Thank you again.

Sigrid

[caithnesscrofter]

if you want to build with earth or clay you need to build with subsoil not topsoil. But, heavy clay in your topsoil is a good sign that 1 - 2 foot down you have some good subsoil to build with. To test take a good clump of the subsoil about golf ball size add a bit of water and really work it in your hand then smooth it over and smear well over your opened palm. Put your palm out in front of you clay side down then close and open your fist and count how many times u can open your hand till the majority of the clay clump falls to the ground. 5-10 times means you have ready mix for building with clay/mud/cob. Over 10 you need to add sand and under 5 you need to add pure clay. If u have ready mix or even need to add a wee bit sand i would try it. Buy the 'handsculpted house' by my friend ianto evans. This is the fellow who taught me how to cob and it is a great book. Consider how much soil u will need with 18 inch walls! Might not be suitable 4 your situation in the allotment? If somebody is taking up turf for a new plot you could use that. It is a traditional/vernacular technique from the scottish highlands. You dont need a foundation with this method either. It would be good if u could do two jobs at once, clear a new plot for gardening plus build with the turf u take up. Simple to do. You can do this on a short foundation of stone to. If straight on the ground you want the walls two feet thick to carry the weight of a turf roof. Cut your turfs with a sharp spade. Cut them roughly 1 foot x 2 foot doing the outline of it first by digging down 4-5 inches and prying each cut a bit. Then try and cut your turf away underneath loose b4 you pull it up gently trying not to tear them. These r your bricks mind! Lol Lie it upside down next to the hole where u took it, turn your spade over and trim it to about 2-3 inches thick and till its fairly tidy and flat then put on the wall... Grass side down. After you do a lift or one layer, go round and thwack the top of the wall hard with the back of your spade !fun! to compact it and leave u with a nice flat and level surface for the next lift. For your doors bury logs or old pieces of thickish wood into the wall as you go up so the ends are flush with the opening so u have attachment points for doors or on the inside to attach shelves, benches or anything else. Lay lintels buried in the turf, buried at least one foot either side for windaes or above doors and make them beefy to carry the weight above. Ie. Sleepers. Bury your rafters straight into the walls. On the inside to lighten it up u can take a blowtorch to the grass then plaster it. For the first year keep in mind u want the grass to keep growing to knit itself together. You want your bricks to turn into a one large mass.. The next year u could plaster the outside to but frankly i think the grassy walls + grassy roof looks fab! Btw if u build straight on the ground don't forget at least a foot deep drainage ditch on the immediate exterior perimeter. You can also bury your bottles into the wall. My avatar, i am standing on a three foot thick and 3 foot high turf wall, i am doing the corner pillar in cob/mud on a stone plinth tied into the turf wall. Its a horse shelter that is why the walls r so thick! The walls r now finished, rafters in and waiting 4 its turf roof.

For cheap and cheerful turf roof. Lay your roundpole rafters roughly 1.5 - 2 feet apart. Use old rylock or chicken wire fencing over the rafters and attach with small fencing staples. Use two layers of fencing if it is thin. Or use willow over the rafters and attach with large fencing staples. Willow looks better inside! Lay old carpet or cardboard over willow or fencing then a layer of the thickest gauge dpc, damp proof coursing on loose. Start putting turves cut the same way as above on the roof without puncturing the membrane. If turves are really stoney put a cushioning layer of carpet or cardboard over the dpc b4 laying turf. Attach fascia to contain turf then pull the dpc over top of fascia, trim the dpc and tack down dpc to fascia wood with clout nails. If u get alot of driving rain add flashing tape or paint a thin strip of tar over the gap between dpc and fascia.