Not dead; just kind of creaky!

I just figured out that I haven't posted in two weeks!  Bad Don!  I haven't been just sitting around though I am awfully good at that.  While my wife was gone I decided to put up a metal shed that we bought an embarrassingly long time ago.  Well, I decided to start putting it up anyway.  The kit came in this large box; the size you have to unpack rather than try to move around.

The first few steps are where you get a nice level surface for the frame and put together some other parts, like rafters, that you’ll need later.  I spent a couple hours each day getting all that done.  Getting the frame perfectly level was a lot like hard work, I must say, but it really paid off because later in the construction we had very little trouble getting things to fit just so.  Then I got to Step 6 in the instructions (of 20 steps).  Let me quote the note preceding Step 6.

“The remainder of the building assembly requires many hours and more than one person.  Do not continue beyond this point if you do not have enough time to complete the assembly today.  A partially assembled building can be severely damaged by light winds.”

I was alone so I needed to stop then once my wife returned to assist/direct me, the wind started.  Grrrr!  I had the individual sheets of metal all set out on the ground divided into piles according to the instructions and couldn’t do anything.  There were 12 different types of panels and 23 other braces, trim strips, brackets, channels and frames.  It wasn’t until Monday of this week that we got calm conditions.  By then a few of the panels had been blown around and a couple had dents even.  But what can you do; just make it happen.  So that’s what we did.

I must say that the idea of completing assembly in a day seemed pretty optimistic; and it sure was!  We worked about 4 hours on Monday; 5 on Tuesday and another 5 on Wednesday.  We finally finished the thing with an extra hour or so this morning.  That’s a total of 15 hours (30 since there were two of us working) in addition to the 6 or 8 I’d already put in. 

So what do we have?  It is a 10’ x 11’ (3.04m x 3.35m) Arrow storage building that mostly just covers our well and the associated parts:  the control box, pressure tank, etc.  There is room for some other things but not a whole bunch.  You can however get all around the well should you need to work on it.  Another part of the reason for such a large building is that the pressure tank is over five feet tall and smaller buildings just weren’t tall enough.  In the end, the fact that we had a couple of dented panels didn’t really matter a lot.  It made fitting the panels a bit more difficult but it wasn’t that bad.   Most of the requirement for a second person was to stabilize the building while the other was putting in a screw or to tighten a bolt that the other person put in.  We managed it ok and we are both in our sixties so it isn’t all about strength.  

I must say that the kit was complete and the instructions quite good.  We ran out of the little plastic washers near the end but that was about it.  We had extras of the screws, nuts and bolts used.  They did have a habit of saying something like ‘only put one bolt in the beam at this time’ but not saying WHY you were only using one.  There was always a reason that we discovered some way down the line but it was kind if disconcerting to leave things half done hoping to find a finish later.  You also had to be very attentive to the instruction AND the diagrams; one of the reasons we stopped work after 4 or 5 hours was because we were getting tired and making silly mistakes:  like losing track of which end of the door was the top.  Still, I’ve got to say it is a pretty good product and it’s ‘Made in the USA’. 

Photos?  Ah, well, my wife took a few but hasn’t downloaded them yet!  The good news though is that it will make for another post.  LOL  Have a good one!