Building a Storehouse

Stuart Ablett said:

... but you also have to understand that this is Tokyo and I could easily rent out this space for storage and collect $500 or more. This space with the fittings, as in gas, sewer, water and electrical would go for an easy $800 a month. So you see, if I wanted to rent a space this big for storage, I'd have to pay $500 to $800 a month, plus two months damage deposit and most likely at least one month gift money to the landlord, that would be a two year lease.

I'll have enough space to store ten iCarvers in cartons, that should get me started.

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Hmmm.... my suspicious nature detects a hint there on Stu's new business venture.

More done.....





Have to be careful using this stuff, it sure breaks easy

My Festool saw with a non-Festool cement siding blade cuts through this stuff like a hot knife through butter! and with the vacuum hooked up, little to no dust!

The top and bottom horizontal will get caulked, and all the vertical joints too. Glad I bought a lot of caulking!

Cheers!

Stu I been following along and i like your way of thinking. The little extra $$ you could have saved on the bits and pieces mentioned i think aint worth the added benefit of the piece of mind and excellent quality of the job. That exterior finish really looks proffesional and blends to the building very well. Very nice even if it is only a storage area no need to have it look like a make shift shed. Well done. Oh and best of luck with the new business idea. Just a word of caution try pre sell all the units so as not to get stuck with stock at all. Only stock i would look to have on hand is that required for accessories and spare parts for service warranty backup. Margin on machines pretty slim in my view but training, programming and support well there you have a service business you would do very well in given your abilities in so many departments and your relationship with manufacturer. Just get a very good distribution contract going although it will all come down to relationship which it appears you already have well in hand. Dont think you can go wrong really. It will really be a question of working capital more than anything else. Typical small business problem.

Stu, how do you attach this cement board?

Bill Satko said:

Stu, how do you attach this cement board?

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Long ring shank nails into the studs. That is the way I am doing it, you can also use these clip things that you nail or screw on to the wall and the siding is held by the clips, but they are expensive, about $3 a clip and you need about 10 for each board, that would be a lot more money. The thing is with my application there is little need for the clips, the clips hold the siding off the wall by about 1/4" this allows air to circulate a good thing in a house, but not really needed for my storehouse.
The other thing is the guy at the DIY place told me that the nails certainly hold the boards up well (each board kind of interlocks into the one below it and seals along the horizontal) but when you add the caulking to the whole thing, it will become one larger flexible (think earthquake) surface which is also good. The siding is kind of stippled, has a surface to it, the nail heads are the same colour and have a matching stippling, once driven flush, the kind of hide.

Cheers!

The nails... the freaking nails....

I was told that you need one nail into each stud, there are 14 studs on the long wall and 5 on the short wall. There are basically 5 panels from floor to ceiling, basic math then was 19 x 5 I rounded up to 20 x 5 = 100 nails. I did not forget the corner or the little piece over the door way, or the piece over at the top of the short wall behind the micro van, so lets say 150 nails. Now they sell the nails in two ways, one box of 3000 or in bundles of 50. I wanted to make sure I had enough, so I bought four bundles of 50 for 200 nails, I have one section of panels to do, and I'm out of nails....

I checked, I put all four bundles into my pouch when I started nailing, so the only thing I can figure is that these bundles of 50 nails were more like 25.
I'm going to count every nail and see, but the real drag is that to go and get the nails at the far DIY place, the close one does not have them, will cost me about as much as the box of 3000 in tolls and gas This is an example of me being penny wise and pound stupid, it is a trap I fall into because I get so much static all the time at how much things cost, so I try to come in a close to what I actually need and not over estimate too much, sometimes this just costs more money. I really should learn by now.

Another example;
The siding, it is 303cm which is just a little under 10' long, you have to transport this stuff flat, it is brittle and will break in the middle if not supported. It is also heavy at 24kg/53lbs for each section. It would not fit into my little van. I could rent a long truck for about $100, maybe $120 with gas etc and just go get the siding, I could have also picked up the drywall at the same time as the large truck has the carrying capacity, but I thought I'd save that $120 by getting the DIY shop to cut the panels so they would fit into my micro van. Well this was a big mistake, the guy at the DIY shop did not want to cut the panels, but I said I was screwed if he didn't so he finally did. To add insult to injury, they charged $5 a cut and I had 16 cuts to do. The guy took forever to cut the panels, there was much dust and SMOKE and I thought "what the heck is he doing...?" I checked the pieces for length and they were fine, so I loaded up my van and came home. When I went to install them, I find that they are not cut square Most are off by about 1/4" over the 18" of width. I cannot remove the panels without breaking them, and I know that the DIY place will not take any responsibility for this, so I'm stuck with it looking like a dog's breakfast.


Here you can see the two cuts, the bottom one the guy at the DIY shop did, the top one I did with my Festool saw and a special siding blade that cost about $30. The DIY shop guy had a special saw and blade, but it is very obvious that the blade was very dull.

The long and short of it is that I should have spent the money to rent the truck and then I would have been in control of everything, by letting the guy at the DIY shop do the cuts, I'm now at the point where I can gear up for a fight, or I can just suck it up and try to learn. I think I'll just suck it up and learn, but I hope I do learn, cause this really sucks.


I got the parking bumpers installed, they will stop me from hitting the wall parking the van, they give me about 2" of clearance from the bumper to the wall, not much, but enough.


A small exhaust fan will go here.

Two things I've used on this job that make life a lot nicer....


These are McGuire-Nicolas knee pads 343, they are great as they are lightweight, but they do have the hard shell on the kneecap area, this saves your knee if you happen to kneel on a nail or screw, and they are not real expensive. Sure make working this kind of job a lot easier.


These ear muffs are great, I can listen to music, or podcasts, and have hearing around me of people talking and when I make a loud noise, they save my ears, love these things!

Well, I'm off tomorrow AM first thing to get them freaking nails, and the extra plywood and drywall I need, I don't think I'll be done by Sunday, but who knows, wish me luck!

'Good Luck'
Such a bittersweet post...bitter, in that I've BTDT with the hardware/nails thing, sweet, in the fact that I'm not alone keep that chin up Stu!

Oh boy i thought i was in an exclusive club of 1 ... BTDT and still trying to learn.
Getting better though with the help of home depot. Nowdays if i need 2 and think i might run out i buy 5 and accumulate a bunch of stuff then return it all next time i go.
Your experience though has me appreciate Home Depot of one can really say that. We can rent a truck at our depots for $20 for trips to take materials home. They make it real convenient and affordable.
But....even though they have a streiburgh panel saw dont mean that the associates can all use it and cut plywood to size or square.

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Stuart Ablett said:

I'm going to count every nail and see, but the real drag is that to go and get the nails at the far DIY place, the close one does not have them, will cost me about as much as the box of 3000 in tolls and gas

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Thanks for the lesson, Stu.
(The lesson in counting my blessings.)

There are times I complain that I "have" to go to Home Depot -- it is 7km away. You see, Rona is all of 2km away. But everyone hates Rona. And it is true the HD often has better quality, or just better selection than Rona. Of course if that Home Depot doesn't have it, the other home depot is 8km in the other direction.

Should I mention the old guy who sells Hardwood Lumber on the outskirts of town? He lives 3.5km away.

Those ear muffs look great. How well do they fit around your glasses? I like my ear muffs also, but the problem I find is that I don't get a perfect seal around my ears, due to my safety glasses.

...art

ps: count those nails, and give 'em heck if the count is wrong!!

Art Mulder said:

Those ear muffs look great. How well do they fit around your glasses? I like my ear muffs also, but the problem I find is that I don't get a perfect seal around my ears, due to my safety glasses.

...art

ps: count those nails, and give 'em heck if the count is wrong!!

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They fit fine with my safety glasses on Art, I really like them, the other day I wore them for almost 4 hours straight.

I got up at 6AM this morning, and was out there just after they opened at 7AM, back into Tokyo byt 10 AM, lots of traffic on a Friday heading into Tokyo. I've had a busy day today, lots of deliveries, so I'm beat, I put in a good solid three hours on the wall today too.

I picked up two more bags of nails today, I noticed that they are a bit heftier than the bags I got the other day, I ripped one open at the cashier and counted the nails, there were 50 in it, I told the gal there that the other day I bought four bags and they did NOT have 50 in them..... she was no impressed....

I also got the plywood and the drywall I need to finish up the job.

I finished hanging the siding today.....





I still have to caulk it all, but that is not a big rush.

I'm at least a day behind, but all in all that is not bad.

I hope that tomorrow, Saturday I get a few hours in and most of Sunday I'll have to finish it off.

I have to run some electrical, not much, and then put up the rest of the plywood and then drywall over that, with the caulking as the last thing I'll do.

Very professional looking Stu. Nice job all around.

Ted Calver said:

Very professional looking Stu. Nice job all around.

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Thank you Ted!

I got all the electrical done, and all the inside plywood done....





Next up is the drywall, no mud, then all I'll have left to do is the fart fan and the caulking of the siding.

Cheers!

So do you need to replace the doors that you moved which used to cover the electrical panel, or is that not necessary since the whole room is just a big locked closet?

Art Mulder said:

So do you need to replace the doors that you moved which used to cover the electrical panel, or is that not necessary since the whole room is just a big locked closet?

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Yes, the doors will not be replaced, the whole room locks up, also the doors on the main panel also lock up, but not as well as the big steel doors that were in place. I might hang a curtain over the main panel area, just to keep it out of sight and keep any dust out.

Cheers!

Drywall is done!





No mud, no paint, no need.

I also need to put some sort of board around the inside of the door jam area, just to dress it up.

I have to cut the siding for the fart fan exhaust, and then place said fan in it's box, then I have to put the outside shroud over the exhaust hole. Finally I have to put up a bunch of masking tape and then caulk the whole outside. I can't wait to be done, this is taking too long and we are getting busy at the L shop, so I need to switch my focus to that job.



Oh yeah, here is the main panel, or at least most of it, I think you can see it will be fine as is, but a curtain of sorts would not hurt.

Fart fan installed.


Weather cover on the outside wall done.


One short wall caulked.
Takes some time that, all the masking tape, then stuffing the cracks with the roll of foam stuff, then the caulking, next the finger treatment, and finally pulling off all the caulking covered masking tape..... surprised I did not end up covered in the stuff!

Not much more to go, then I can put this one to bed!

Cheers!

Is that a tinted primer on the drywall, or some other type of coating? Looks good regardless...great job all around!

Looking great, Stu.

Ken Cook said:

Is that a tinted primer on the drywall, or some other type of coating? Looks good regardless...great job all around!

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Nope, that is just the color of the drywall here in Japan.

Vaughn McMillan said:

Looking great, Stu.

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Thanks, I got it all caulked, glad that job is done, not really a fun job.

All I have to do is the area around the door on the inside, needs a board 3" wide or so to cover up what the door jam does not cover, and then clean up and put all my tools away.

Cheers!