Hi all!
We are picking up a free used 8x10 metal shed tomorrow, and will be converting it to a coop for my 7 hens - it will be divided, one half for the coop, one half for storage of chicken supplies.
I would love some advice on how to go about cutting and framing windows and ventilation in a structure like this - general placement, and also specifics on the process. Of course, all openings will be covered in hardware cloth. I have some old large windows (2x3') that I plan to use, so that the windows can be closed down at times (although I plan to leave them open in all but the worst weather); I would also like to incorporate some higher-up ventilation openings. Pictures of what others have done would be appreciated!
FYI, we live on Vancouver Island, where the weather is generally mild - warm, dry summers, and cool rainy winters.
Thanks!!
I can't see the interior structure of your shed, so I'll imagine it's a lot like one a neighbor gave me years ago that I made a few changes to to make a better tool shed out of. These are just some ideas to think about, not instructions of what you must do. I'm sure no two people would ever fix this the same way.
Well for starters, I am 6'4" tall and my free shed wasn't, it also had some rust on the piece of square tubing frame that contacted the ground. I poured a small concrete pad mostly 4" thick, but around the perimeter inside the form it was dug deeper to 8" or 10" for a square shovel width (about 10"), and poured a monolithic floor/footer combo like this. The shed was light and would of been fine on a pad, but I was going to use some block too. When I'm not herding chickens, I am a mason, so I always have plenty of block, brick, and stone around anyway. I laid one coarse of block around to set the shed on 8" taller, and rather than make new doors, and figure out how to redo the tracks that the door slid in the bottom, and all that, I chose to run the block right through the door opening and step over the 8" at the bottom of the door. This was no problem, I just wished later, that I'd of went two coarses, 16", for head room. Getting the bottom of the frame up off of floor level also keeps it away from the moisture that rusted it in the first place. (I had went over all this with a wire wheel on a grinder, and repainted it with Rustolium spray paint).
The shed that I had was on the flimsy side already, I was concerned with snow load and wind. It turned out that, I never had problems here, but the way I saw it, there wasn't that much integrity in the structure to begin with, they build these bare minimum, so I reckoned I'd best not cut into any framing at all, or if I did, to over build a replacement. For more light, instead of windows, I replaced a couple of tin sheets on the roof with green house type transparent panels. I just bought them the width that I needed to screw them right back in place, and only had to cut lengths.
Also, it got hotter than heck in my shed, and the factory ridge cap leaked like a sieve when it rained and a small breeze. The roof wasn't very steep, and the ridge cap only covered a few inches on each side. I made a new one, 2' bent in the middle, that overhung 1' each side of the ridge. The original roof sheets didn't meet at the top, and someone before me had shot a lot of that sticky spray foam in there and just made a mess that still leaked. I scraped all that off and cut a few vents about four inches wide and a little less than the length of between roof structure. I didn't cut any framing, just some tin off at top between framing structure. These holes were about an inch under the new ridge cap that was spaced above the old roof. The ridge cap was over 8" wider than the vent holes in the peak. They still leaked only once in a while, not as much as before, and only with more wind and more rain. The wind had to push water uphill to the vents, but it had to push it 8" first. A down pour wouldn't leak a drop without a good wind. If I'd of only put the end of the building rather than the side into the prevailing winds, I'd have eliminated most of this, hindsight. But still it's concrete and metal inside and only drips occasionally, so nothing is really getting ruined when it does drip a bit.
I didn't make that shed for chickens, but I think the same ideas could make plenty of vents. The ridge cap could be a lot wider, it could be spaced further from the roof, all the spaces between all the roof trusses could have vents cut, and the vents could be wider, all without having to cut the shed frame or fabricate new structure to strengthen where such cuts were made. If you have a double sliding door, you could probably figure out how to put windows, or plexiglass, or hardware cloth, on them, as long as nothing protruded into the place that slides over the smooth fixed wall, or you may decide to use smaller windows than you have, that fit between framework of shed. Not that it can't be cut, but I just think cutting the frame may turn into a lot more work and/or integrity issues than it's worth. If it were me, I'd avoid it as much as I could, and try to work within their frame rather than fight it, and keep my eye open to spots where it could be beefed up while I was working on it.
