[Hamish Crofter]

I'm losing the will to live, well to buy a shed anyway. I'm after a large general purpose shed around 50ft by 20 ft. I have received a number of quotes from reputable suppliers but wading through the quotes is a nightmare. I asked for a quote to provide a shed and erect with full spec.
The quotes seem to imply everything is an extra, doors are extra (sliding or shutter), personnel door, extra. Foundations, extra, base, extra, roof panel colours, extra, galvanised beams, extra, skylights, extra.
Then we get into the delivery, fork lift to be on site! Toilets to be available.......gantry and all Heath and safety equipment to be in place!

I mean, really? So after that rant, who has sorted out a shed for themselves in recent times. Oh yes I'm in Scotland so it also has to come with an SER certificate. Only an extra £1000!

[Fleecewife]

....and concrete foundation slab has to be in place.

We gave up and built our own, but it certainly wasn't the speedy option.

[mart6]

....and concrete foundation slab has to be in place.

We gave up and built our own, but it certainly wasn't the speedy option.

Roughly how much did you save ?

[bloomer]

I have found a good supplier of sturdy sheds/workshops in central scotland not sure what the biggest they do is though... We do still have to sort the Base ourselves but that's easy enough..

[mojocafa]

Check out www.strathearnstabling.co.uk

[oor wullie]

I know the feeling and have just spent the last 4 months putting together quotes for a new shed.

A couple of years ago I built a 12x6m steel shed.  I bought the steel as a kit and did all the foundations and erecting myself.  Not too difficult but a lot of work.

I am currently trying to organise another one ('cos you can never build one big enough).  This time I am going to get it erected by the company that supplies it.  As you have found, there is a bunch of work other than the actual erection that needs done. 
So.... I will hire a digger to clear the site and lay some hardcore over it.
The erection company will do the founds (basically a hole filled with concrete at the base of each post) and erect the building.
When they are done I will get a load of concrete and screed the floor inside, install a water trough and a light.
As a result, although I am getting someone else to erect the shed, I still need quotes for shed (+ erection), hardcore, concrete, digger and to budget for my labour.

Why do you need a SER cert?  No need for any structural info for prior notification (planning) and no need for a building warrant (unless you are building on a boundary or using it for certain uses).  Are you doing it through CCAGS?  They insisted on structural calcs for my first shed although the the shed supplier was baffled as all sheds now have to be CE certified which, to an extent, is a structural cert (as i understand it).

If you are applying for CCAGS have you done it before? - there is a very particular way you have to write the objectives.

I have never been told that I need to supply a toilet (although we have one in the house that can be used if needed).  The quotes I received for erection included the erectors supplying their own working at height equipment (I think they use a cherry picker).
Unloading can be a nightmare.  Last time I had to hire a telehandler but I also needed it for putting up the shed so I was using it for the whole week.  If you have a few strong friends you could unload by hand (unless you are getting concrete panels!), the heaviest single item in my first shed was probably only 75kg.  You would need a few people as lorry drivers do not like hanging about.  Alternatively they may be able to deliver on a lorry with a hi-ab (for an additional cost and they may say they can do that anywhere in the country.....except the highlands.

I now have the additional problem in that you can't get an arctic up our road (we are 1.5miles off the tarred road) so I am thinking about getting the next shed unloaded at a friendly farmers a few miles away using his tractor (with front loader).  I will then, bit by bit, put it on my trailer (should mostly fit on my 4m trailer, anyway the roads are quiet!) and move it to mine.  Will take a day or 2 but I don't see many alternatives.

[IretonsFarm]

Try speaking to some local farmers as there will no doubt be someone who does a lot of the work in the area.

If the locals are using him usually means he will be keen on price and able to call on a few nearby farmers to borrow kit for unloading etc.

[Fleecewife]

....and concrete foundation slab has to be in place.

We gave up and built our own, but it certainly wasn't the speedy option.

Roughly how much did you save ?

Not sure as there's no direct comparison.  Our edifice is now insulated, and lined with boarding, with metal cladding on the outside.  There are double glazed windows and door at my end  a loft and various other extras.  We did get contractors in to lay the concrete floor, partly because there's no access for a mixer lorry to the shed, so it had to be moved load by load with a dump truck.
Mr F did all the other work, with an occasional hand from me, for example to get the roof trusses up.  The main frame is made from 12 telegraph poles and hefty lumps of wooden boards. We have run power up there too, so we have lighting and can heat or dry out the place.

I'll ask when OH is about how much we've spent on it.

[Hamish Crofter]

Thanks for the replies. I am going to speak with a couple of the local crofters who have had new sheds recently.
I'm told I need the SER as yes it's through CCAGs. That's another story as many will know, in fact getting quotes for ground works for CCAGs has proved so difficult I have admitted defeat and just paid for the ground works myself, I'm determined to get CCAGs for the shed though as its £20k!
I have only submitted one small CCAGs application before for drainage but this is altogether different so any advice would be welcome.
Prior notification, planing ect is all approved and sorted. I know the toilet issue sounds daft but we are currently having a house built on the croft and as yet there isn't a toilet. Access isn't easy but any decent artic driver will manage, if not I'll do it for him as I have a class 1 licence!

[oor wullie]

I know it is not much help but have done CCAGS applications and a SRDP application (to create woodland).  Relative to the SRDP process the CCAGS is system is quick, simple, user friendly and designed for normal punters to use.
SRDP applications are more or less inpenetrable to anyone who is not a professional consultant with years of experience in doing them.

I didn't see anywhere that you need a SER cert on the application but I am now expecting mine to come back because I haven't included it in the quote (I handed my application in on Wed this week).

On the application they want you to be very specific in quantifying (with numbers whenever possible) how you will meet the objectives (section 5.2) even though you and I  (and the agricultural officer) knows that sometimes this can be total guesswork.  For example;

  To reduce production costs you need a shed so you can buy feed in bulk.  Call the feed company and get a price for 1 bag of feed and a price for a ton.  Work out how much you would save a year buying in bulk and use that number.  (an exact calculation)

You want to lamb indoors.  Find a way of putting the benefits into numbers.  "by keeping sheep indoors during lambing the business will save 2 man hours per day (due to not having to walk round fields looking for sheep every day) and will improve animal welfare by preventing the death of 2 lambs per year by being able to keep weaker lambs indoors" (an educated guess based on what you did last year).

"Wintering cattle indoors will prevent poaching of 1.2ha field that they would otherwise have been outwintered in (improve natural environment).  This lack of poaching will allow grass to grow 6 weeks earlier in 1.2ha field, this means I will need 6 less round bales of hay per year saving £150 (reduce production costs) and will be able to fatten 20 lambs in that field over winter that would have otherwise been sold for store (improve/redeploy production)."  (a total stab in the dark at how much difference taking cattle off a field for the winter would make.)

"keeping my tractor indoors will extend its lifespan by 5 years and will reduce maintainance costs by £150 per year"  (a totally made up figure but you can justify it by pointing to a rusty fergie that your neighbour abandoned in a field in the 1970s and say "that's what happens if you leave it outside")

[Hamish Crofter]

Really helpful this, thank you!

[Sudanpan]

We built our own shed - 12m x 8m. We poured the foundation slab, with extra pads under each column position. We bought the structure (steel frame with metal cladding and metal roof) from Capital Buildings and then erected ourselves - me and OH using a tractor with loader to help hefting up the frames.
From memory the structure was about £10000 and we were quoted same again for it to be erected which is why we did it ourselves.
We poured the foundations over 4 long weekends (we were still in London at the time) then erected the shed in 1 week.

[stufe35]

I'm losing the will to live, well to buy a shed anyway. I'm after a large general purpose shed around 50ft by 20 ft. I have received a number of quotes from reputable suppliers but wading through the quotes is a nightmare. I asked for a quote to provide a shed and erect with full spec.
The quotes seem to imply everything is an extra, doors are extra (sliding or shutter), personnel door, extra. Foundations, extra, base, extra, roof panel colours, extra, galvanised beams, extra, skylights, extra.
Then we get into the delivery, fork lift to be on site! Toilets to be available.......gantry and all Heath and safety equipment to be in place!

I mean, really? So after that rant, who has sorted out a shed for themselves in recent times. Oh yes I'm in Scotland so it also has to come with an SER certificate. Only an extra £1000!

I can't see the issue, do you think doors are free.?...or do you expect people who just want an open sided shed to pay for doors they are not going to get. ?

Where do expect the poor people who are going to build it for you to go to the loo ?
It's the law for their employer to provide them with welfare facilities so either you provide them or pay your builder to.

Decide exactly what you want..doors roof lights side paneling, concrete floor or not...then go out for quotes you can actually compare.

You will get cheaper quotes by using standard configurations...30ft deep by 15ft bays. 4 bay 60x30ft shed is a popular configuration.  How much it costs depends on the spec you want.

[Hamish Crofter]

Stufe,

Thank you but I think the content and context of the post went over your head. Thanks anyway

[cloddopper]

Oor Wullie . When I constructed our 60 x 40 foot portal shed
 I found it much easier & faster to construct the 6 " thick x two massive  labs first using  my own home made steel side " U " channels &  anchor pins to get the shape so that the whole floor size was  1 mtr smaller all round than the finished building
 One slab was cast one wek end and the second was done the next .

 This allowed  me to bring in  big lorries of ready mix . Alison & I used a 6 mtr vibrating beam to tamp it as the lorry was discharging . I then spent the next 15 hours doing the power floating & spray wetting to get a mirror like  finish on each the slab.
A month later whenthe slabs were cured to a reasonable degree I used a mini digger to make the holes for the up rights & cast the foundations containing the floor bolt in them
 A month later when they were set a local farmer brought in his tele porter to lift the portals in place and hold them up whilst I bolted them down .

Having that clean cured smooth concrete floor pad was an absolute godsend as we were able to work without mud being all over the pace.

 Once I'd got it clad & roofed I barrowed in abut 45 barrows of hand made  quality volume measured concrete mix to fill in the rest and then hand floated it flat, done in  three metre sections .
It certainly beats trying to push hundreds of full barrow loads of hand made sloppy concrete over a sub base , tamp it down & float it smooth.