Wood shed costs... Maybe I'm better off with a pre-built versatube?

[j7art2]

I was intending on building a wood shed this spring. I started pricing out treated lumber, and realized that it's adding up quickly and I may just be better off buying a Versatube structure and putting pallet wood "slats" on each side. It would also in theory cut down my building time from a weekend to probably a day.

I'm thinking about getting one of these 10x16 ATV shelters. Anyone use these as a wood shed?

https://www.menards.com/main/outdoors/sheds-accessories/carports-portable-garages/versatube-reg-10w-x-16l-x-7h-atv-shelter-material-list/10167atvshelterwhite/p-1642874273496737-c-5860.htm?tid=-5101676961702049477&ipos=10

 

[Eman85]

You've got a picture of chainsaws, find some locust or big cedars and make a pole building.

 

[TomMcDonald]

I scrounged used building materials for mine. Most of it was free. If you keep your ear to the ground things will come up.

 

[j7art2]

You've got a picture of chainsaws, find some locust or big cedars and make a pole building.

Unfortunately neither are prevalent in my area. I'm not sure locust even exists in MI; if it does, I've never seen it, or it's very rare. Maybe I could use oak or ash though, and if I put it on pavers and anchor it, that might be better to resist rot.

I scrounged used building materials for mine. Most of it was free. If you keep your ear to the ground things will come up.

I've been looking for 2 solid years daily on FB Marketplace for roofing and building materials. Everything is either 1+ hours away, or is gone in seconds after posting. It's very frustrating, but I'm always looking. I'm trading my best friend a double wall insulated chimney with elbow (galvanized) and through the wall kit for his shop wood stove for a bunch of steel roofing scraps, but I'm not sure if I'll have enough left over for a shed when I'm finished. The chicken coop needs to be rebuilt this year and the deer blind needs a new roof; both are smaller projects but have to take priority if I intend to keep either. I'm hoping he has enough for a shed too, we'll see. This past winter I've just tarped them which works, but isn't ideal. If I had the ability, I'd tear down the shed on the other side of the property and move it closer to the house where I need it, but unfortunately that'd be a heck of a task even with multiple people, and where it's at simply isn't feasible for wood storage as it's all but impossible to access in the winter, especially with wood in tow.

 

[Max W]

You might search online for ‘cattle panel greenhouse‘ images for some ideas for your woodshed. You can get both protection for your wood and also build it to speed drying time. Short side walls can give good stacking height.

 

[Nate R]

I felt the same as you, it was expensive to do wood, AND I wanted it to go up quickly...didn't want too many hours of labor in assembly.
So I ended up doing a 7x15 last year. https://www.menards.com/main/outdoo...-reg-7w-x-16l-x-6h-atv-shelter-material-list/
I just bought extra roof sheets to go down one side. I also ordered 15' roofing material instead of 16 as the plans called for...16 is a LOT of overhang on that frame!
I set the steel tubes on plastic 2x4s on top of the ground. The plastic 2x4s just provide some separation from the tubes and the dirt, hoping to slow corrosion a bit.
Right now, I'm also using 4 ft of it as an outdoor/summer shower at my camp.

 

[GrumpyDad]

Just my 2 cents:
Use ground contact treated stuff, not just treated - for that stuff that touches the ground.
Just use standard building materials for the walls/floor/roof, there is no need to go treated there.
Build your roof like you would any other building to overhang, then either put a metal or shingle roof on.
Paint the shed paneling on the exterior with a coat or primer then two coats of exterior paint.

Dont waste your money on treated where you dont need to.

 

[j7art2]

You might search online for ‘cattle panel greenhouse‘ images for some ideas for your woodshed. You can get both protection for your wood and also build it to speed drying time. Short side walls can give good stacking height.

I've seen them used in garden trellises. Will they support a snow load? (Then again, do they even really collect a snow load if they're round?)

I guess I never considered using them as a shed. That would possibly work! Thanks for the idea. Maybe I can get a few used ones locally. I'll keep an eye out.

 

[Max W]

My friend and neighbor has had one for years. Snow load has never been a concern. Drying time has been a real plus.

 

[j7art2]

Just my 2 cents:
Use ground contact treated stuff, not just treated - for that stuff that touches the ground.
Just use standard building materials for the walls/floor/roof, there is no need to go treated there.
Build your roof like you would any other building to overhang, then either put a metal or shingle roof on.
Paint the shed paneling on the exterior with a coat or primer then two coats of exterior paint.

Dont waste your money on treated where you dont need to.

I wasn't sure if I needed treated for the whole thing or not, so I appreciate it. I'm not a builder, just a homesteader winging it. If I paint it, I'm going to likely do it all in black so it absorbs heat and bakes the contents inside.

 

[j7art2]

I felt the same as you, it was expensive to do wood, AND I wanted it to go up quickly...didn't want too many hours of labor in assembly.
So I ended up doing a 7x15 last year. https://www.menards.com/main/outdoo...-reg-7w-x-16l-x-6h-atv-shelter-material-list/
I just bought extra roof sheets to go down one side. I also ordered 15' roofing material instead of 16 as the plans called for...16 is a LOT of overhang on that frame!
I set the steel tubes on plastic 2x4s on top of the ground. The plastic 2x4s just provide some separation from the tubes and the dirt, hoping to slow corrosion a bit.
Right now, I'm also using 4 ft of it as an outdoor/summer shower at my camp.
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That looks darn gorgeous. I really like the idea of this and considered doing the ATV one. I hadn't even considered it until I was putting my cart away at my local menards and saw their cart coral was one of these, and I'm like hey, this would make a sweet woodshed.

I also have to now consider the fact that I'm going to have to pull a permit too now, the more I dig into this and plan for it. That being said, since I'm not a builder (although fairly handy with tools), I might be railroaded into this idea simply to make sure I don't get fined for not doing something properly.

 

[Eman85]

Check your power company for when they replace poles. Check metal scrap yards, plenty of pipes and poles for scrap prices. Instead of tarps they sell used billboards which are heavy vinyl and make a good covering.

 

[GrumpyDad]

Check your power company for when they replace poles. Check metal scrap yards, plenty of pipes and poles for scrap prices. Instead of tarps they sell used billboards which are heavy vinyl and make a good covering.

Id avoid using telephone poles for anything but a shed. The people that had my cabin before me, put a bedroom expansion on sitting on telephone poles as piers then telephone poles as beams. And it's open to all sides but one whereas they put a block foundation up, but it sits under the expansion so the expansion cantilevers over the block wall. It's so damn confusing, and to 'fix it', and weather proof, Id be doing way more work than it would take to just knock it down and start that part over.
Telephone emit a toxic set of chemicals, of which some cause alzheimers. The person that had my cabin before me died of alzheimers.

 

[CatfishHunter]

Your profile says northern MI, so this may not be as helpful but many larger cities have building material outlet centers. These are places where builders dump off materials that they couldn't use. This place is enormous with granite countertops, cabinets, doors, windows, pavers, etc. Anything that had to get ripped out of a project because it wasn't right. A co-worker built an entire cabin out of things that he got there.

In northern MN where my cabin is, I would talk to the local hardware / building store to see if they have leftover supplies. Home Depot usually has a cart in the wood aisle with discounted lumber - usually 40%-80% off. It's stuff that has dings or isn't straight. I buy that stuff all the time for projects that don't need a straight piece or it doesn't matter how banged up the wood is. Lots of deals out there. When I was younger, I offered to take down an old shed for a lady and haul everything away. I used most of the wood to build my own shed, and the little bit that she paid me covered the new supplies that I needed.

 

[GrumpyDad]

Your profile says northern MI, so this may not be as helpful but many larger cities have building material outlet centers. These are places where builders dump off materials that they couldn't use. This place is enormous with granite countertops, cabinets, doors, windows, pavers, etc. Anything that had to get ripped out of a project because it wasn't right. A co-worker built an entire cabin out of things that he got there.

In northern MN where my cabin is, I would talk to the local hardware / building store to see if they have leftover supplies. Home Depot usually has a cart in the wood aisle with discounted lumber - usually 40%-80% off. It's stuff that has dings or isn't straight. I buy that stuff all the time for projects that don't need a straight piece or it doesn't matter how banged up the wood is. Lots of deals out there. When I was younger, I offered to take down an old shed for a lady and haul everything away. I used most of the wood to build my own shed, and the little bit that she paid me covered the new supplies that I needed.

We have a place like this. They actually only open a couple days a week then it's a chit show. People literally almost fighting each other for overpriced scraps.
Years ago it wasn't bad then people would start to buy the stuff and resell it. For many that was their job. So the store raised the prices and then demand skyrocketed in the past years and now it's just a curiosity to walk through and people watch more than to get stuff on the cheap.

 

[j7art2]

Your profile says northern MI, so this may not be as helpful but many larger cities have building material outlet centers. These are places where builders dump off materials that they couldn't use. This place is enormous with granite countertops, cabinets, doors, windows, pavers, etc. Anything that had to get ripped out of a project because it wasn't right. A co-worker built an entire cabin out of things that he got there.

In northern MN where my cabin is, I would talk to the local hardware / building store to see if they have leftover supplies. Home Depot usually has a cart in the wood aisle with discounted lumber - usually 40%-80% off. It's stuff that has dings or isn't straight. I buy that stuff all the time for projects that don't need a straight piece or it doesn't matter how banged up the wood is. Lots of deals out there. When I was younger, I offered to take down an old shed for a lady and haul everything away. I used most of the wood to build my own shed, and the little bit that she paid me covered the new supplies that I needed.

Nothing like that around here that I'm aware of, but I guess I haven't looked specifically for them. I buy home depot discount lumber occasionally if it's in stock, ironically just bought some 70% off stuff recently to make kindling since I was running low and didn't want to venture into the woods in the 0 degree temps with 12" of snow on the ground at the time. The nearest HD to me is 20 miles away and most of their discount lumber is just on a lumber cart, so it's a bit of a crap shoot on what I get when I get a chance to get there, but it's not a bad idea to make it habit of looking when I do go.

 

[shortys7777]

My 2 cord shed cost less than $200. Find a local saw mill for lumber. Couple places near me sell extras from what they cut for bigger orders. Build it on concrete deck blocks so theres no ground contact. I have pallets on stone/stone dust. If those go to crap which wont be for a long time because it stays dry ill just replace them.

 

[j7art2]

How long will standard non-treated 2x4's last in the weather if not making ground contact? I'm surprised to hear so much use of non-treated by folks here -- I assumed it had to be or it'd rot in short order. I get about 4-5 years out of plywood decking on my trailer before I have to replace it, so I assumed that would be standard, but I guess I didn't consider that it sees every bit of rain and snow the weather produces.

 

[shortys7777]

Because the decking on your trailer is exposed to the water, snow, leaves, etc. If the untreated wood has a roof over it then it should stay dry and last a lot longer than 5 years.

 

[TomMcDonald]

5 years.
If undercover and protected with oil or lacquer indefinitely.

 

[paredown]

A couple of thoughts --- not quite the right season for it, but most of the PT wood I used for for my Okie woodsheds came from a deck demolition. You will often see people posting on FB Marketplace when their old deck gets taken down. Most reputable deck builders don't want the risk of reusing anything, so they will use all new--but quite often the weathering/rot/decay will only be in some parts--and the rest of the wood is reusable. Not readily visible--I did a rough level on the gravel, and set the pallets on PT sleepers--I think I did the assembly upside down and then flipped into place. A lot of it was screwed together with deck screws that were left over from some job or other... Uprights were more of the same salvage PT deck material.

I got shingles that some clown tossed into our worksite dumpster--I hauled them home without a clear idea of what I would use them for--but the random bundles of each style that was dumped each did of the sheds.

For the first shed, I used whatever pallets I had laying around which meant a lot of fussing and reinforcement. For Rev. 2, I got a stack of free pallets at the local Harbor Freight (not the best pallets, but you can get a set that match). Plywood--I had some laying around and I think I picked up some new, along with some 2x and the Simpson rafter ties, some #15 felt, metal trim etc. The pine edge trim was salvaged as well. I think I was out of pocket around $100. I think that was a yard of new gravel that I hauled home for $50.

I can't put my hand on pictures of the second one -- I was happier with it because I started with all the same pallets and did a better layout so there was less cutting.

This was my first one. The construction is pretty light (2x4 rafters etc) but it was solid enough that I was willing to get on top and shingle it. We haven't had many real big dumps of snow, but so far so good!

 

[paredown]

Not to go on too long, but I did find one picture of the second shed--this faces the first. (you can see the notches out of the fascia pieces--signs of their previous usage. (And I think this used up most of the PT I salvaged from the demo'd deck.) For this one, I actually got a load of free gravel--someone on FB marketplace needed it gone, and they even had a loader onsite to load it for me!

I did the same thing for the base with PT sleepers running full length under the pallets, then flipped over and levelled.

My thinking is that the next owner of this property will likely flatten everything including the house and build some monstrosity, so they will likely have no use for woodsheds, so I'm not too concerned with longevity (or aesthetics). They just have to last for the time I'm around to fill them...

 

[Ashful]

When I planned my current sheds ca.2019, the BOM cost was almost exactly $1k each for 4-cord sheds. I had a plan to build four in the first phase, so $4k for 16 cords. Then COVID hit right in the middle of production, and the price for the last one jumped up near $2k. No longer a great deal, but since I have total OCD and wanted the fourth shed to match the first three, I just stuck with the same material and method.

Plus sides of this design:

1. It only takes me 1.5 - 2 days to build each one.
2. I can pick them up and move them, lest anyone ever call me out on property line setbacks, etc.
3. They have a footprint of 96 sq.ft., with 100 sq.ft. being the threshold requiring a permit, so no permit required.
4. Each one is divided into into four 1-cord bins for easy sort/tracking.
5. I can drive down the aisle and park my wagon next to any shed to pull wood out of it, without having to walk into a deep shed. Each shed has two rows front + 2 rows back.
6. I park my splitter right next to the bin I'm filling, and fill it directly off the splitter = super quick.
7. They look nice and neat when seen from the driveway or patio. Although being PT dimension lumber rather than proper timber, they're admittedly not as pretty as some of the other woodsheds I've seen posted on this forum.