The Shed Phase 1

Phase 1

The Shed project, Phase 1, this is all about the Design, Engineering and Council approvals that were required for the Shed to happen. As always there was a lot of work involved with this part of the project. It all had to start with a basic concept on paper and then work it's way up to full engineering drawings.

The problem was, I did not know Autocad that well, but the drawing had to be done as fast as possible, so the only way that could happen is to get someone else to do it for me. I enlisted the help of a professional it was a good thing, as a neighbor down the road took a couple of years for him to get his plans drawn up. It is just a matter of not having enough time to do the job. Keep in mind I have a 9 month dead line as well, this one can't be shifted.

The Design / Drafting person I used was Manuel from MASA, he did a fantastic job of the plans. With every detail of the shed frame covered, so if you can follow a set of plans you can build it no problems at all.

The next job was to get it all engineered and checked against the Australian Standards and relative building codes for the area. The council for West Croydon in SA is Charles Sturt, and with two departments you have to please, the planning and the building.

A quick check of their web site, and you can find lots of good stuff there. I think in some ways, they don't like to tell people that the information is available on their web site, as too many people will start to put in applications for things that cover all the required points.

Charles Sturt Council web site: http://www.charlessturt.sa.gov.au

As West Croydon is a heritage area, with most house have a house of interest listing, the house next door to us is on the State Heritage listing, which makes it a lot harder to get planning approval for a new shed.

A quick chat to a planning consultant that a friend knows, and he gave me a few helpfully hints on what to put in the covering letter.

The job of doing all the engineering for the Shed Project was given to Sandland Consulting, on Kensington Road Norwood SA. Their web site is as follows : http://www.sandland.com.au

The two main parts they had to work on was the soil report, and the design of the cellar. As well in the end the checking of the design of the shed frame / design. As usual I wanted a copy in autocad so I could print off a page if I needed to. Also make changes if required.

The council wanted two copies for the application. After you copy all the plans twice, as well as the site plan and not to mention a copy of the site plan and side elevations that all the neighbor have signed off on. The document was quite large, 56 pages in all. Some would say that is a lot just for a shed, but well there was a lot of information to be included in the document.

I think I had all the questions answered, so the council would not ask me anything, well I was wrong with that thought.

It seemed that some of the council questions related to they had not read my cover letter, or even looked at the 56 pages of document, as I just had to say, well that information was all ready provided. When was that sir, it was provided when we logged the application, and if you just look on page # you will find the info you require. Other questions took more effort than that. In all some 12 week later we got the letter of approval.

Now we could move to the next phase, please check out some of the drawings for the shed and cellar, or as the council put it, "Large Shed with cellar", please keep in mind the Drawings are copyedited, and shall not be used with out permission.

Shed Drawings

Site Plan - Location of the new shed in relation to the house and other neighbor

Sheet 2 - Elevations Side and End Views

Sheet 3 - Floor Plan / Footing Layout and Truss / column attachment details

Sheet 4 - Front Elevations layout and bracing plan

Sheet 5 - Columns C1, C2 and C3 Details

Sheet 6 - Column C4, C5 and C6 Details

Sheet 7 - Column C7 and column braces detail

Sheet 8 - Truss South and Truss North Details

Sheet 9 - East Wall, West Wall (South), West Wall (North) and West Side Roof Purling details

Sheet 10 - Roof Purling Details

Sheet 11 - Stairs Elevations and fabrication detail

Sheet 12 - Column Bolt Layout

Cellar drawings - Cellar footing plan and reinforcement layout