# Forum Home Renovation Structural Renovation  How To Design A Simple Shed?

## abrogard

I want to design a 10 x 6 shed.  Steel.  Corrugated iron roof, corrugated iron cladding. C section frame. 
No experience. Never done anything like it before.  
Seems sensible to me to start from the top - the roof - and work downwards so's I know the roof is adequately supported. 
So I've got Lysaght's 'Referee' and I look up corrugated iron and I discover what area it will cover and I discover it needs support at such and such spacing. 
So then I look up supports - C sections - and I see all kinds of information specifying exactly what each product is - but  nothing to tell me what weights, loadings, they can carry. 
So I think I'm missing a book or something.  What should I use to enable me to design a shed so's the framing will adequately support roof and walls, allowing for wind, etc., and yet not be ridiculously over strong? 
For instance if the roof needs supports at 1200mm that's say seven supports over a 10 metre length.  They'll be purlins? Right? Whatever, they'll be resting on another steel member at the top of the wall.  How strong does that member have to be to support the roof?  How many supports does it need? 
What steels can be used as supports for it? 
regards, 
 ab  :Smilie:

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## Ronaldo451

That's a fair size shed for a first time construction effort. Even if you are in the bush it is going to require Council approval which will be dependent upon approved Engineering drawings and certification. 
I suggest you enquire about buying a prefab from one of the shed mobs - that will include the engineering specs you will need and you can also be sure it will be safe without being over-engineered. I understand pricing is very competitive so check out The Land and online for supply only pricing of the size and configuration shed you are after. 
On our rural property I built a 12 x 6 garage from the leftovers when a neighbour had a big shed crunched by a falling tree during a storm. Years later I built another residence on the site - when the Council did their inspection for an occupation certificate they also gave me a demolition order for the garage as they had no record of it! Managed to work around it but was a bit of fooling around and pricey to go through retrospective approval process.

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## Cooky

Hi there   :What he said:  
Where are you by the way? I can only see location as Australia? 
Perhaps you could see council first, find out what requirements they have, then decide whether you want a prefab or go with an engineer. 
If you want an engineer, let me know... cos I am one. Depending on where you are, I might be able to help, and I have building surveyor who might be available who's pretty flexible with small jobs like this. 
Regarding your questions like, where's the book I need / what steeel beam is strong enough - it's not just a matter of looking at tables and picking a beam size. That only works for very standard scenarios. For a shed wind will govern, and the height makes a big difference. If don't go with a pre-fab, you'll need to get it designed properly in my opinion. 
Do you want a mezzanine floor? Might be handy, and I reckon it adds a lot of value, when you only pay a bit extra. Note that you can have the floor in timber if you want, with the rest being steel. 
Cheers
Cooky

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## abrogard

HI... 
 something funny here... I wrote a reply a couple of days ago, but it's not there... maybe I'm dreaming... 
 thanks for the offer but I don't want to hire any engineers or quantity surveyors or such - I want to learn to do the job for myself. 
 Not to design a multi story building, just to design a shed. A small shed. A 10 x 6 shed. 
 There's no problem finding a design. I've only got to go look at any standing shed hereabouts. South Australia. Near Adelaide. 
 No problem. I could digital photo it and come home and work it out. 
But I want to know why they've done it the way they have. Why they chose that size of material and why at those spacings. 
That kind of thing.   :Smilie:

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## jimc

I had some luck with Stratco..they sent me some engineering drawings of their shed options....I told them my council took ages to get through planning approval process and needed to tender these as well. 
I did not buy a Stracto shed instead a Ranbuild version but engineering was all the same for shed size etc. 
Be wary though as engineering is specific to wind zoning, foot size/type and is reasonably customised to your build. 
anyway good luck..the only way to learn is to do it yourself.

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## abrogard

Well good on you, Jim, you understand where I'm coming from. 
Seems to me the fine nuances of wind loadings etc., might be too much for my non-engineering brain during the course of this self-instruction, but I'd hope to get around that by deliberately over-engineering. Guided by what I see around me. 
I don't suppose you've got those Stratco drawings scanned in and could/would email them to me? 
They won't teach me why designs are the way they are, but they will show me what an engineering drawing for the council looks like.   :Smilie:  
p.s.  Cookie...  a mezzanine floor? In a shed? A 10 x 6 shed? Fair dink? How would that work?  Have you got a drawing/sketch for that?  And 'adding value'.  How much value do you think it would add above the value added by having the basic shed? 
And on the same subject I was wondering the other day - surely there's a point beyond which adding sheds and such to your (suburban house block) property fails to increase the saleable value?   
Like the majority of buyers would be looking for only a house, carport, small shed and the rest garden, recreational space.  Filling it up with a large shed they'd never have a use for, complete, of course, with thick slab for it to sit on and which would comprise an expensive obstacle to removal - might all be counter productive, economically speaking.  
What do you think? 
Any real estate agents here?

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## BRADFORD

Are you talking 10 x 6 metres or 10 x 6 feet? 
Would make quite a difference. 
Regards Bradford

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## abrogard

Metres.  Sorry.  I should have said that.   :Smilie:

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## jimc

I dont think I have original drawings..the whole approval process scarred me and I had  a ritual burning after shed was built. Some councils are way too hard to work with. 
As I mentioned, you need to get some engineer or draftsman to design appropriatly for you wind zone, height and span size..even cladding type..ie 5 rib or corrugated...etc 
The will then sign off on engineering spans and you then have insurance coverage...in case it blowns over..or worse falls on your head if you hang too much weight from the roof frames. 
I told Ranbuild I may want to hang black and tackle to remove standard car engines at some stage..up to 200kg..so they designed that into one section of my shed..in fact two frames back to back..good for 400kg apparantly. 
I would suggest you go to your local shed place and take loads of photos of their sheds including their barns...they have mezzanine floors. It will give you a good grounding on basic design..and you will get engineered plans and insurance. 
One tip is to get standard 4 sided shed and roller doors...you can add your own windows, personal access door and source laserlight far cheaper than throught the kit.

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## abrogard

That sounds like a good tip to  me, Jim. I'll go to wherever/whoever I can find sheds of the right size and I'll photo them. 
I got a couple of drawings sent to me. One from Widespan sheds and one from another place. Nice of them. But noticeable that their 'drawings' were simply sketches of the outline of the shed. No constructional details at all. I can't tell from those drawings whether the thing is built of steel, wood or paddlepop sticks. 
I asked one of them about it and they told me they don't do the drawings until the shed has been ordered.  How am I to order it before I have seen how it is made? 
What's the problem? Why isn't it simple to get complete engineering drawings of sheds showing all constructional details? 
Is someone trying to save money, or make money? Like they sell these drawings so they won't give them away? Is that it? If so you'd think there'd be a brisk trade in 'second hand' drawings or a whole category of 'sample' drawings. You can't call the things sent to me 'sample' drawings when they're just outlines. 
Is it a legal/professional thing? Like every single shed has to be drawn to specification taking into account where it will be constructed?  So an approved shed in this place won't be an approved shed in that place? 
Well if that's it, how come they sell identical kit sheds for construction all over the place? 
Why can't a shed be designed that is safely over-engineered so that it can claim to be safe for construction anywhere in Australia? ( I mean the drawings. Such physical sheds are currently trucked all over Australia.  Not just 'sheds' but steelbuilt  homes.) 
Why don't councils have a set of plans showing an approved shed for construction in their local area? 
Why don't steel manufacturers give away sets of plans showing how to use the building products they sell to build all kinds of different sheds? 
No argument about a shed  not being designed well enough for this or that area, this or that wind loading, this or that slab, foundation, holds any water when you consider the possibility of (1) over engineering and (2) adding complete information to the plan as to what loads the structure is intended to take. 
It is all a tremendous mystery to me.  I well believe you got stressed out and had a 'ritual burning' - I'm feeling like that already and we've got no further than merely thinking about it. 
I'm glad you mentioned that 'hanging loads' aspect. I hadn't thought of that. I'd want the ability to do the same thing - pull motors out.  I'll make sure I specify it when I get to where I'm issuing specifications. If I ever get that far. 
regards, 
 ab   :Smilie:

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## Dan574

Are you able to weld?  If so i have a set of plans I can email you for a steel shed, trusses and pillars made from 40x40 angle.  I made a 6x4 for my back yard.   Send me your email address if you want a copy of the plans

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## jimc

You can see he people think one shed is the same as the next...in fact they vary widely. 
Differences you will never see... 
thickness of c channel
depth and type of footing..as in chemset to slab or cast in place U footings etc
depth design of slab
thickness of tophat battens
thickness of cover panels 
as an example one of my sheds had span of 3 metres between frames while the rear had 2..tophat batterns specced for each was different..one 1.2mm and the other 0.6mm...the list goes on. 
Suggest you bite the bullet and buy a kit,,,check out the framing design as all are not are equal. 
anyway best of luck

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## intertd6

abrogard, individuals, commerce, industry, the arts & media to name a few, rely on copyright to protect their interests & investments in whatever they have produced, so if your dead set keen on copying another design without permission you should know that you could land in court & lose some serious $.
regards inter

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## DNL

Abro - firstly well done for wanting to build your own shed from scratch...I too wanted to do that but in the middle of Canberra - I thought it best to buy a kit shed and have all approvals in place.  
My comment is that a 10mx6m shed is not small....I built my shed which is 9x6 with a 6m garaport extension on the front. When the truck rolled in - it was packed to gunnels with sheets, trusses, boxes, doors, framing, footing brackets etc. When laid out on the ground I really didn't know where to start. Logic kick in though and it was all sorted. The problem was made even more complex by the boxes of hardware and fittings. All laid out neatly in their bags with tags....now all I had to do was find out in the manual what they belonged to! Technical writers must be confused buggers! 
Anyway, I built my shed from a kit from scratch and have never done anything like it before. It has come up a treat. I'm not sure I would say a simple process, but certainly not complex. I'll post a couple of pics so you can see how things progressed. 
These first few make it look pretty simple. 1st pic is the all wall and roof sheeting, witht roller door. Rear roller door at the back of the photo with insulation.  
Second pic shows initial construction of side wall. We had to do it on the ground as I am only 450mm (coucil approved) off the boundary...keep the neighbours happy! 
Third pic shows wall being raised into place. We had to move that entire 9m length of wall around 200mm to the rear of the slab...the boys wanted to grunt it...but we put a couple of fridge rollers underneath and then just gently eased it into the right position....have a lot of obscure gear on standby to tackle the little obstacles.

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## DNL

In reality, this is a basic C section and top hat design and construction; the shed tek-screwed together. There are a number of little features to strengthen and reinforce but all could be overcome if you think about it logically. 
Note the ever increasing amount of gear and pieces on site.

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## DNL

We kept plugging away and finally, the entire frame work of the shed was completed. All bays are just under 3m - top hats are fixed so as not to exceed maximum span requirements, trusses are squared off and unfortunately the walls are slightly out of square...1mm on the left and 2mm on the right....spose I'll live with that!!  :Biggrin:  Actually was offered a job by the company to install sheds...that was a couple of years ago and I might still take them up on it part time.

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## DNL

With the frame completed, all we had to do was the walls, doors, window, insulation and roof. The pace picked up during this phase.  
My conundrum though was how to lift a 5m roller door while getting out of bed with the mother of all flu's, with a couple of older blokes and my best mate who is always willing to lend a hand and who had been on the project from the start.  So we hired the lifter. Water level to level off and lift and manouvred into place, fixed and operational in about 60 minutes. My wife was giving me curry for working in the rain!!!  :Mad3: but as I explained, the quicker I got it done the quicker I'd get out of the rain!

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## DNL

Abro - bottom line mate is you will never do anything more satisying than building something yourself. If you piece together all the bits of info you should be able to come up with a design and build; however, the job is made much simpler if you buy a kit. 
With that said, for a corrugated iron shed, just go and look at some of the older ones around the place if you can....there is not much too them. 
One thing to remember is the height of door opening. My door heights are 2.4 - therefore wall height needed to be 3m to gutters. this allows for various truss angles and bracing across the top of the door opening. If I wanted a 2.8 door, I needed to go to 3.5 or 3.6 walls....too high. I am now looking to rertrofit a mezzanine for storage in one corner....I'll let you know how that goes. 
Final pic is finished product, moved in, bike with intruder alarm attached!!!  :Biggrin:  
Hope this helps you to visualise your project mate. If you have any questions just keep asking. 
Dave

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## Cooky

DNL, that's pretty awesome what you've done. Nice job. 
Abrogard, a couple of answers that I'm sorry I didn't reply to earlier.  
For the mezzanine, I was more meaning it adds practical value. I've got mates with em, and my dad-in-law is dying to get one. Depends on what you use the shed for. If you're thinking about dollar value, I'm not the one to ask, but your thoughts of it being 'over-done' is probably right. 
And about 'designing yourself', you can do a lot of the grunt work with designing it yourself, but at the end of the day the job has to be signed off by someone to say it has been been designed to Australian Standards. That signature is your warranty. For a shed like that normally it's an engineer, so if something fails the responsibility is on them, not you. And to my knowledge the laws says that just about any construction works must be approved by a building surveyor - so they will probably demand an engineer is involved anyway.  
All the best

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## abrogard

Hi all, 
and thanks for your interest and input. 
I was just thinking it'd be too low for a mezzanine.  What height shed are you thinking of? 
I certainly agree there's nothing more satisfying than building yourself, that's why I'm trying to do all this in this environment (suburbs, local councils, drawings, etc.)  I've done a couple of bush cabins before and roofed and clad an 8x16x4 and all of that was very free 'bushy' work. 
Now I want to know how to do it in an 'engineering professional' kind of way, sort of. 
I got the SA Housing Code and it turned out to be of virtually no use. For this task, though useful enough to have around for future works on the home etc.  All it did was refer me to AS4100 for steel framing and when I googled that I found they want nearly $200 for a copy of the Standard.  How the hell can the government demand we meet Standards and not make them freely available? 
Ignorance of the law is no excuse. Knowledge of the law is available only to those that can afford it.  How fair is that? 
I guess I will finish up buying a kit. But hopefull it'd be a kit put together from my design.  Even if not so it'd be a kit designed in a way that I understand and approve of. 
Met a guy just yesterday who told of his brother in law buying a kit and going down to pick it up and being offered only three roof trusses, where his drawings showed four. Had a mighty hassle getting the fourth one but he got it in the end. How fair dink is that?  
I got 'drawings' from some suppliers - did I mention this already? - that were mere outlines with no indication of what the thing was built of  ('scantlings' as they say in the boat business) or how well. 
Pushed one of them for more detail and he said they don't provide drawings until you've purchased the thing!  Buy a pig in a poke! 
Plus I'm really, or used to be, in the computer game. I'd like to master one of the drawing progs and I want to use this exercise as a beginner's step. Maybe AutoCad or maybe something more modern, slicker and (hopefully) easier. I'll happily listen to any ideas anyone has on that subject.  And I'll do my own drawings. 
Then I'll be happy to put them before an engineer for his approval. 
If I can do all that I can demonstrate it all to my children and they'll have a far better lesson put before them than I ever had. 
DNL you've done a mighty job. Just what I want to do. But you perturb me a bit. 1mm and 2mm out of true?  Mate, I don't think I can measure to that kind of accuracy.  
Or maybe it's something else about it: whatever I measure in the field to that kind of accuracy always turns out to have more slap in it than that.  I dunno.   
regards, 
 ab   :Smilie:

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## DNL

Abro 
Was moving stuff around in the shed yesterday, I found my installation book. Happy for you to have it. I can send it across to you if you like. 
cheers

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## abrogard

Hi DNL,  
and thanks for the offer.  I wouldn't like to take it away from you but I would be interested in seeing it. Maybe I could borrow it and return it, or maybe you could scan it in? 
I see you had a slab poured before you started. Do that yourself or get it done?  
And I notice you put the first wall up complete with cladding but from then on you just put up the frame.  Was that according to their instructions? Or your experience with the first wall (you mention the hassle of moving it 200mm) made you modify the technique for the better? 
And I see wall cladding sticking up at the end of the shed there, waiting to be cut down to fit, is that standard procedure with these kits?  You cut the sheets to size yourself? 
And one big roller door?  Reckon that's the best way? I've been thinking an important point may be not being able to have the door conveniently ajar - only open a small way - on cold or windy days - and you get them in Canberra, don't you? 
So I've been tending towards sliding doors. You can't use the full width but you can have it only open a little. 
You seem to have quite some height there, too. Just what height could I ask, are the walls and the apex? 
There is a kit I could buy, if I finish up abandoning designing my own until some later time, for only $5500 that is 6x9 but the walls only 2metres. 
I've had no success, really, in answering my question on 'how to design a simple shed', neither here nor on another forum I've asked it. 
And I think the problem is I haven't posed the right question, or haven't posed the question the right way. 
The problem is not designing a shed, as such. That's easy enough to do.  You can do it straight off the top of your head or you can quote a copy of something you've seen. 
No, the problem is how to check the viability of the design?  How to do some part of the job the engineer will do when he looks at your design with a view to passing or rejecting them? 
That's what I want to know.   
I'll find the way, somewhere, somehow. 
ab   :Smilie:

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## DNL

> Hi DNL,  
> and thanks for the offer.  I wouldn't like to take it away from you but I would be interested in seeing it. Maybe I could borrow it and return it, or maybe you could scan it in? - You can have it mate...I've finished with it. I'll see if I can scan it in for you and email to you. 
> I see you had a slab poured before you started. Do that yourself or get it done? - I had the slab layed professionally...it is not something I have done before - my concern was actually having the slab the right size so the wall sheets went down the side of the slab to keep water out. 
> And I notice you put the first wall up complete with cladding but from then on you just put up the frame.  Was that according to their instructions? Or your experience with the first wall (you mention the hassle of moving it 200mm) made you modify the technique for the better? - I needed to construct the wall first due to proximity to the fence, ie: I was only 450 off the fence. If I put the frames up first I would not have enough room down the side to to the sheeting. I had to move it on the slab so it was in the right position. We tried to lift it but that was no good. Then I thought about the fridge rollers - made out of light steel and we put one under each end and just gently pushed it along the slab. We adjusted the angle of the rollers to move across the slag into position. I also fitted the gutter on that side while the wall was on the ground. Much easier in the end 
> And I see wall cladding sticking up at the end of the shed there, waiting to be cut down to fit, is that standard procedure with these kits?  You cut the sheets to size yourself? - yep cut is all down myself. Pretty easy really. I used the gable as the straight edge. I think you could ask to be cut down - but it would cost more. Once it is up it is nothing to cut down.  
> And one big roller door?  Reckon that's the best way? I've been thinking an important point may be not being able to have the door conveniently ajar - only open a small way - on cold or windy days - and you get them in Canberra, don't you? - I wanted one roller door - or more importantly the wife did, so we were not constrained by having the two single rollers....It is great. We do get windy days, there is another roller door at the rear of the shed going into the back yard. A personal access door and a small window. I can close it all down turn the lights on or open all up. 
> So I've been tending towards sliding doors. You can't use the full width but you can have it only open a little. This is a good option. My mate had this on his shed and lost nothing. 
> You seem to have quite some height there, too. Just what height could I ask, are the walls and the apex? Height of walls are 3m...to the apex I'm not sure but it is tall! I would have to be at least 4.5m 
> There is a kit I could buy, if I finish up abandoning designing my own until some later time, for only $5500 that is 6x9 but the walls only 2metres. - that seems pretty small. It must be a standard double? I've a 4WD that stands 1.9m so wanted the extra height. 
> ...

  cheers mate
Dave

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## abrogard

I got notification of a 'linkback' to this thread, that's what's brought me back. I don't quite understand those 'linkback' things - I think it is where someone in another thread has posted a link to your own thread.  
 But there's an 'associated message' which suggests I read the whole thread! Well, of course, I've read the whole thread. Was that message meant for someone else ( in that 'other' thread)?  Well then why does it talk to me specifically " ab, read the....." ? 
  Anyway...  I see I can add a comment to the thread now, more having happened and much having been learned. 
  My shed is up.  Not roofed, not finished, no slab, but up.  Picasa Web Albums - david 
 I discovered a lot of things, here's a couple of them: 
. Even a shed of this size at this price is built with 'monocoque' construction, to my disgust.  My shed doesn't achieve rigidity and full strength until it is clad. 
. The roof 'trusses', if that's what they could/should be called, flop around like a broken wing until the purlins are up to support them. And then the whole top end flops around until the back wall and centre column is up to still that movement. ('Still' it a bit. Not stop it). 
.  The centre column at the back rises high enough so's it covers one of the bolts in the bracket, thereby forcing that bracket out of true some 5-10mm, pushing it back away from the shed, effectively lengthening the roofline there for the purlin to fit. The pre-drilled purlin fits, therefore it must have forced the back wall and column inward to enable this fit.  A clumsy and horrible looking thing.  And an indication of the whole general attitude. 
. The 'drawings' that the vendors are so coy about on the one hand, protecting them like crown jewels and so vociferous about on the other - a 'selling point', 'we provide full drawings',  turn out to be about one half of an A4 sheet of paper in size, at best, with details that cannot be distinguished on them. 
  A main obscured detail being the listing of the Australian Standards that the drawing meets. Or that's what I think it is, anyway. 
 . And I learned much about the actual techniques of erection but I don't need to go into that here. 
.  So what I learned concerning my question in this thread was that to design a shed you need to know what Australian Standards you are going to have to meet. 
  And they won't tell you.  There's no one to tell you.   
 And if you knew then they won't tell you what the Standard is, what it says. Until you buy it. You've got to buy them.   
 This is part of our society's apparently inexorable move towards an oppressive, authoritarian, kafkaesque 'big brother' society, where you must obey a plethora of laws that you are not aware of. 
 And what local rules and restrictions you'll have to meet. 
 Then you can find load tables, if you're lucky or have an in somewhere, that will enable you to know what loads different steel products (or timber, for that matter) will take. 
 Given this information you can begin to design a simple shed. 
 And know as it goes how strong it is, what loads are imposed here and there and what safety margins there are. 
 And the safety margins, one would expect, would be incorporated within the Australian Standards one is meeting. 
 But you've obviously want to far exceed them. For if the monocoque construction of my shed meets them, which it presumably very easily and satisfactorily does, then they're not up to my standards. 
 So I'd design a shed with every column and truss section free standing and rigid, for instance.  A roof with bracing integral and not waiting on roof sheeting. 
 And that's how it is done.  
 I talk too much. Always have done. 
 To reiterate and simplify: 
 How to design a simple shed? 
 1.  Get council requirements.
 2.  Get ASA documents.
 3.  Get load tables and whatever else you can about construction, materials, products, methods.
 4. Design it.
 5. Check it.
 6. Get it looked over by a qualified person for this task as specified - probably you'll need an engineer or maybe an architect.  Get them to sign it. 
 It's done. 
 Submit the signed, approved drawings to the council.  
 Thanks everyone for their interest and help in this search. 
 The 'drawings' of my shed are available for anyone to look at if they're interested.   
  regards, 
 ab   :Smilie:

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## Need help

> Are you able to weld?  If so i have a set of plans I can email you for a steel shed, trusses and pillars made from 40x40 angle.  I made a 6x4 for my back yard.   Send me your email address if you want a copy of the plans

  
Dan, can you pleae email me a copy of your plans.. 6 x 4 size is perfect. ismeok@hotmail.co.uk
I can weld ...abit
thanks

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