The Craftmans Shop > New from Old

Resurrecting a Portakabin

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awemawson:
Well 18 months have gone by, and at long last I have installed a new ceiling in the Portakabin.

The original one had suffered very badly from a leaking roof, rotting the thin ply ceiling and also the rather thin joists and I was at a loss to think of a good way of replacing them. When built in the factory they had laid extra large (10 x 5) ply sheets from wall to wall, then laid the joists over the ply, finally adding the essentially flat galvanised sheets to be the waterproof part.

I say essentially flat, in fact there was intended to be a slight curve to shed water, but all the joists had sagged, so that their upper curved face was in fact flat, and their lower (theoretically flat) surface sagged downwards!

I hit on the idea of adding 'sister joists' along side each joist, but jacking them up so that the curve was correct before joining the sisters.Then I had to adapt the joists and wall timbers to accept standard 8 x 4 sheets as the 10 x 5's couldn't be fitted (walls in the way!)

I chose 4 mm "hardwood throughout" ply as a compromise between longevity, weight, and price. Even so installing 6 off 8 x 4 ply panels to a ceiling single handed was quite a challenge  :bugeye:

It got a 'cat lick' of white emulsion paint to reflect a bit of light. I had intended to over line the walls and floor in 18 mm OSB but frankly the cost isn't justified for what is after all only a storage shed.

The entire ceiling (bar the ply of course) I re-milled from shuttering left over from building the Tractor Shed, and indeed finishing this off was prompted by having to empty the Tractor Shed and re-house all the 'stuff' that had been pulled out when the roof started leaking.

Yesterday I put a handy bench down one side using timber left over from the Scraping Class that we held here a few years back, and today I finished the electrics - a 'job done'

Pete.:
Be alright when you get the carpets in :D

awemawson:
Pete, that bench top is the somewhat cut down 8x4 of 18 mm ply that you brought to potentially make bench tops for the scraping class! I think that we eventually used shuttering ply?

The floor has a rather sad dip in it at one end, where I had been storing several tons of Blasting Grit. When I costed the 18 mm OSB3 to overlay it it came out at about £180 - just not worth it !

RotarySMP:
I read the thread title and expected this...

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