Shed* (Workshop) Advice

[Joshyouare]

Hi everyone, rather than revive old threads thought I'd start a new one.

I have just moved into the dream home and now have a 6x6m insulated shed, and have started collecting timber. I am based in Brisbane, so often the humidity can get quite high.

Does anyone have any tips on humidity control? I am thinking of buying a dehumidifier, and suspect I will need to make a more sealed off area for glueups etc.

Essentially, what are your must haves for your shed for storing timber? Are the particularly dehumidifiers that are the best?

Thanks in advance,
Josh.

[kiwigeo]

If humidity is an issue then you have a choice of controlling same in the whole shed....or isolating a small part of the shed (ie a cupboard) for humidity control at critical stages of guitar construction.

I obsessed a bit about humidity here in The Adelaide Hills and started off with a dehumidifer running 24/7 in the shop. I found that without the dehumidifier the swings in humidity weren't that huge...the workshop is well insulated.

If I was building my shed again I'd take the same approach to my new house.....make it highly insulated and air tight (double membrane) and have an HRV ventilation system handling ventilation.

[nkforster]

Depends on how much time and money you want to spend. If you can, insulate and seal the whole thing, buy a really good dehumidifier like a Thorair. For a smaller cheaper unit, I've heard good things about the Midea Cube. At the least, make a small room you can get a gobar deck in, along with whatever wood you'll be using. Make a wood frame, cover it in plastic (like a greenhouse) and put the defuhidifier in that.

I have a room small enough to control and big enough to store most of my timber in it. The machine runs year round. Only being turned off when circumstances allow. The floor is sealed, and the walls and ceiling is lined with plastic sheeting. Works well. Most my tops, backs, sides, necks and fretboards are on the opposite wall. Sitting on a set of floor to ceiling Bunnings Rack-it shelves and air can circulate around.

[Joshyouare]

Thanks guys - your solution sounds like what I should go for Nigel. Wish I’d sealed the floor of the shed before I moved all my crap in last week haha!

Josh.

[WJ Guitars]

When I built my workshop I insulated the floor ceilings and walls. The workshop includes an assembly room with a dehumidify with a drain pipe outlet through the wall. See photos below.

Wayne

[kiwigeo]

Wayne writes up a detailed plan complete with full scale drawings before eating breakfast each morning

Love the attention to detail.

[Joshyouare]

I think my partner would have a heart attack if I said that was my plan. So cool Wayne!

[kiwigeo]

We're using the word "shed"......a term that conjures up images of cobwebs, dust and piles of stuff you should have thrown away years ago.

Workshop is a better term....

[Joshyouare]

There you go, I fixed the thread title

[TomBicknell]

I'm following this one with interest. I'm currently trying to get a 5x5.5m workshop built, but I'm having a lot of trouble getting a tradie to do it.

I want to build it out of insulated panels - think what coolrooms are built of. The basic version is two sheets of Colorbond with 50mm of polystyrene between them for insulation, but you can get versions with PIR foam, which dramatically improves the insulation. They're self-supporting so you don't need a frame, and apparently you can hang stuff off them OK if you use metal screws. I'm thinking 100mm PIR for the walls, which gives me an R value of 4.45m, and the thickest I can for the roof. Not sure about the floor.

There's lots of people in Melbourne offering to build 'backyard pods' out of the stuff, but they only want to build under 10m2, for which you don't a permit in Victoria. Once I ask about something a bit more difficult, they all seem to have something better to do.

But as far as I can see, it's the cheapest and quickest way to put together a decently-insulated workshop. If I can find someone to do it for me.

[kiwigeo]

I want to build it out of insulated panels - think what coolrooms are built of. The basic version is two sheets of Colorbond with 50mm of polystyrene between them for insulation, but you can get versions with PIR foam, which dramatically improves the insulation. They're self-supporting so you don't need a frame, and apparently you can hang stuff off them OK if you use metal screws. I'm thinking 100mm PIR for the walls, which gives me an R value of 4.45m, and the thickest I can for the roof. Not sure about the floor.

You're basically building with a cheap version of a structural insulated panel (SIP).....a common way of building overseas but in its infancy here in Australia. A proper SIP has a high R value and is also air tight. Air tightness is very important if you want to control moisture within a building. By making a building highly air tight you are better able to control moisture within the building. You achieve this by using a mechanical ventilation system with a heat recovery core. In humid regions you'd replace the HRV core in the ventilation unit with an ERV..an energy recovery core which will remove moisture from the air passing through the unit.

[TomBicknell]

Yes, I’d looked at full-on SIPs, but I haven’t found someone that builds simple buildings with them. One of the local manufacturers makes SIPs with fibro sheet on the outside and OSB on the inside, which would be ideal for screwing things onto walls.

Re climate control, I want to install a split system A/C, most of which have a decent dehumidifier function, plus a basic humidifier to go the other way when it’s too dry.

[nkforster]

You might want to ask your insurer about what effect building with SIPs might have on your insurance. Some really don't like them.

[kiwigeo]

The issue here is cheap mainly Chinese made SIPs that don't meet the building code as far as inflammability rating of materials used in the SIPs. Of particular concern are panels with inflammable skins as well as internal insulating styrene that doesn't have a fire inhibitor added.

Prior to construction of my Passivhaus I looked into SIPs in great detail.

You might want to ask your insurer about what effect building with SIPs might have on your insurance. Some really don't like them.

[TomBicknell]

Good point about the insurance, Nigel. There’s a number of fire resistant panels on the market, thankfully.

[kiwigeo]

I reckon most of the bad workshop fires involve paint thinners.

Good point about the insurance, Nigel. There’s a number of fire resistant panels on the market, thankfully.

[TomBicknell]

I’m sorta surprised you don’t hear about people blowing themselves up spraying nitro, to be honest.

[peter.coombe]

I built my workshop from a shed frame. It has Hebel panel cladding that is screwed onto the shed frame instead of colorbond steel. The Hebel panel provides insulation and is fire proof, but you need to make sure the foundations are big enough to support the extra weight. I lined it with insulation and Gyprock. It is basically a 3 bay shed frame divided in the middle with a wall made from Hebel panels. One half has an air conditioner and dehumidifier, the other half has all the dusty machinery stuff. Hebel panel is one of the best, if not the best, sound insulating building materials so I can make as much noise as I like and the neighbors won't hear a thing. I can build year round and into late at night with this setup. I am a night owl so this suits me very nicely.

[Taffy Evans]

We're using the word "shed"......a term that conjures up images of cobwebs, dust and piles of stuff you should have thrown away years ago.

Workshop is a better term....

Hey Martin, I read this and thought you might have called around to my place whilst I was away, that's me to a Tee. However, I do have two air conditioners [refrigerated], two Evap coolers, a DeLonghi dehumidifier, and three pedestal fans.
Cheers taff

[nkforster]

I built my workshop from a shed frame. It has Hebel panel cladding that is screwed onto the shed frame instead of colorbond steel. The Hebel panel provides insulation and is fire proof, but you need to make sure the foundations are big enough to support the extra weight. I lined it with insulation and Gyprock. It is basically a 3 bay shed frame divided in the middle with a wall made from Hebel panels. One half has an air conditioner and dehumidifier, the other half has all the dusty machinery stuff. Hebel panel is one of the best, if not the best, sound insulating building materials so I can make as much noise as I like and the neighbors won't hear a thing. I can build year round and into late at night with this setup. I am a night owl so this suits me very nicely.

Would Hebel panel work for soundproofing a basement workshop? I'd like to move to a place with a bigger shed, but what I keep finding are nice houses with massive workshops on the ground floor. The Mrs isn't having the notion of me working downstairs with machines. So if there is a better way to sound proof, I'm all ears. Pun intended.

[kiwigeo]

Would Hebel panel work for soundproofing a basement workshop? I'd like to move to a place with a bigger shed, but what I keep finding are nice houses with massive workshops on the ground floor. The Mrs isn't having the notion of me working downstairs with machines. So if there is a better way to sound proof, I'm all ears. Pun intended.

Hebel panel has a fairly good sound insulation rating. Its one reason I used it on my Passivhaus. The Hebel does a good job of blocking much of the noise from the street in front. Walls are timber 90mm timber framed with bulk insulation in the wall plus an extra layer within the 35mm service cavity on the inside of the external walls.

You can also buy bulk insulation with a high sound insulation rating. https://www.bradfordinsulation.com.au/h ... oundscreen.

[TomBicknell]

I did lots of reading into building a soundproof recording room a while back, Nigel, and I watched a new soundproof booth being built at a local recording studio.

The guiding principles seem to be mass and isolation.

For proper soundproofing, you essentially have to build a room within a room, so you have inner walls, ceiling and floors with as minimal a structural connection to the outer walls as possible. But anything that prevents the vibrations from travelling from the inner surface to the outer will help.

One partial solution I came across that didn’t seem too difficult to retrofit (albeit not cheap) was to glue sheets of mass-loaded vinyl to your existing walls and ceiling (limiting the transfer of vibration), then glue/screw two layers of the thickest plasterboard you can find on top of that (the extra mass taking more sound energy to start vibrating), making sure the sheet seams don’t line up between layers. Ditto for the floors, but with yellowtongue chipboard instead of plaster, plus whatever floor covering you want. Ideally don’t screw those inner layers into your studs, because the screw is then an acoustic bridge, so I’ve seen people screw one layer on, then just glue the second layer to the first.

For normal insulation, rockwool has much better acoustic insulation values than fibreglass or foam, so that seems to be the preference.

Unfortunately the SIPs I’m looking at provide fairly ordinary acoustic insulation, because they’re essentially a stiff, lightweight soundboard.