Stevo's Playhouse

doormat

The shed is about 100' from the house. The path is not always the cleanest or driest.

This is my goto shed / workshop thread :) I've got my new, much more modest, shed arriving in a couple of weeks. Did you insulate yours at all?

In my old one I had a small heater to keep it above the dew point. I just covered the walls in polystyrene and forgot about them but I'd like something a bit better in this one. I'm not sure about vapour barriers / insulation / breathable barriers and the order that they have to go on.

Did you insulate yours at all?

No, it came pre-lined but I've not bothered to insulate. If it were an office or something I would be more inclined but I'm generally doing something manual in there and I've not had a problem with condensation on tools or anything as there is good ventilation and I don't close the sky lights all the way.

Actually managed a pretty full service of my road bike with the new clear space the other night. Including drying the washed/cleaned chain in front of the patio heater (if I'm in there in winter doing something where I'm not moving around as much, it is more than enough to point towards me and keep me warm, I heat myself rather than the space).

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Also, I don't have permanent power to be able to run a heater anyway. If I'm still here in another 5 years I'll probably replace it with an insulated, pent roofed version. But level this time...

Thanks for replying. You're is a great size, mine's going to be a lot smaller - just about big enough to fit a guitar on the workbench I'll build.

I had a heater / thermostat set up in the last one which I'll reuse, just want to make sure I'm not allowing the insulation (which might be wool, maybe PIR) to get damp from trapping condensation in the wrong places.

Yeah, all those details put me off. I'm not really noticing any real downsides a couple of years in which would have made the effort and cost worth it to me. No green death on any of the wiring. Smart TV is unaffected.

What are you going to be doing in there?

For a home office type space you need to think about how you insulate. But if it's just a shed/workshop I don't think you need to go overboard. Personally I'd grab a load of that silver bubble wrap and maybe sheet the inside if you want it to look nice. Then make sure there is ventilation.

(this is what I will do eventually)

If you can give up the height you can also get quite thin combi hardboard and insulation floor.

I build guitars as a side hustle, and it's main use will be as my workshop for that.

Ideally I'd like to get to a position where I could leave my wood / work in progress in there without their moisture content changing too much, but I don't think I'll ever get there with the cheap /small shed that I'm starting with.

However, I do definitely want to stop my planes and chisels from getting dew forming on them, which means that the temperature can't be allowed to drop too low. That means that I'll definitely have a heater on a thermostat, and given that I feel therefore I should insulate it as much as possible to keep the running costs low.

It'll also help with not annoying the neighbours with keeping the noise down at the weekend.

I'm almost certainly overthinking it, just that since I'm setting up a new shed now and I won't be doing this again in the next ten years I want to do it in the correct way.

edit: Hardboard sheets are a good call for the walls / ceiling. I'll likely use that, with some ply for the main wall that I'll hang tools off

If you wanted to take an iterative approach you could do the foil thing like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mQuX83jIog

Then add the insulation and boarding if required.

I've only got 25mm Celotex insulating my shed and combined with a couple of thermostatically controlled tubular greenhouse heaters, it's kept my chisels dry for the past 10+ years

Adequate ventilation is provided by my half-arsed external cladding installation...

Adequate ventilation is provided by my half-arsed external cladding installation

I've just been going down the rabbit hole on this and I think you either have to heat to above the dew point or have ventilation. Some people on pistonheads have bathroom fans with humid stats, which sounds like a neat solution.

Adequate ventilation

The two side walls have a screened/meshed off two or three inch gap at the top and I keep the two sky lights on the "just open a crack" latch setting. I assume there's enough of a cross breeze to help as I've had no issues with rust on tools. There is what looks like water damage on the doors but that is from splashback in rain as the deck outside it comes pretty much right up to the threshold. It's done nothing more than discolour the wood at this point though. I tend to treat the front face of the shed when I'm doing the annual deck oil though which helps with beading a lot of that rain splash off.

Ok, thanks. I think I might go with that. My understanding is the foil on those sheets acts as a vapour barrier if they're taped up and facing inside, and the 25mm stuff will be an acceptable cost, there's quite a few skips around here at the minute as well, so might be able to find usable offcuts or second hand stuff.

Just to continue with the overkill, I like the idea of humidity control. I use a thermostat meant for terrariums (to keep lizards and snakes in a given temperature range) to turn my radiator on / off. I think it might have humidity control on it as well so might investigate that too.

You've already surpassed the quality of mine just talking about this so will obviously need your own thread to stop shaming me!

Sorry! I'm derailing yours :) mine is going to be nothing special for a long time. We moved house recently, it'll be thrown up over a weekend, then I'll be able to move all my tools out of our new sitting room :)

All shed chat is good shed chat in my book.

Mine got the tools out of our dining room.

A big litmus test I was putting off was do I have enough space to service the cargo bike comfortably. Gave in this evening and, yes, I do.

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I see you got a round tuit. Envious of that space!

I see you got a round tuit

Ha, came from my grandparents' shed.