Siding material, ventilation, and other coop questions.

[3KillerBs]

I realized an issue when I was checking over how I was planning to frame up the walls: Do I have 6 feet between the two ending 4x4s, or including the two ending 4x4s?

When doing building you measure the outside of the walls including the thickness of the lumber.

If I end up using roofing material that is not shingles, would it be ok to just have the roof have a 2/12 pitch? What do you mean by cladding?

The need for a given roof pitch is most dependent on your climate. The more snow/rain you get the steeper the roof should be so as to shed it easily. Shoveling your roof after a blizard is NO FUN.

BTW -- If you find that you really enjoy drawing up plans you might consider CAD, Computer Aided Drafting, as a potential career path. My daughter has three A.S. degrees Architectural Technology, Civil Engineering Technology, and Geomatics and now, less than 5 years out of school, has a job where she makes more than my husband and I combined.

 

[black_cat]

When doing building you measure the outside of the walls including the thickness of the lumber.



The need for a given roof pitch is most dependent on your climate. The more snow/rain you get the steeper the roof should be so as to shed it easily. Shoveling your roof after a blizzard is NO FUN.

BTW -- If you find that you really enjoy drawing up plans you might consider CAD, Computer Aided Drafting, as a potential career path. My daughter has three A.S. degrees Architectural Technology, Civil Engineering Technology, and Geomatics and now, less than 5 years out of school, has a job where she makes more than my husband and I combined.

So I want to have 6 feet total, not 6 feet between the end posts. Thanks! I get quite a bit of rain, but a lot less snow than I used to. (yaaaaaaaaaaaaay global warming)
I do really enjoy drawing up building plans! I was worrying about going into something like that because A) there is a lot of extra schooling involved, from what I understand, and B) it sounds like it would take up a lot of time and possibly not allow me to have my hobby farm. (chickens, ducks, quail, pigeons, horses, sheep.....I want all the animals!)

 

[3KillerBs]

I do really enjoy drawing up building plans! I was worrying about going into something like that because A) there is a lot of extra schooling involved, from what I understand, and B) it sounds like it would take up a lot of time and possibly not allow me to have my hobby farm. (chickens, ducks, quail, pigeons, horses, sheep.....I want all the animals!)

My daughter did her program at a community college. The basic drafting program, Architectural Technology, is a 2-year degree but they'd streamlined the three related degrees, which is highly desired by employers, so that the full program can be done in only 1-2 extra years.

It's actually a field with a lot of work-from-home and independent contractor potential.

 

[aart]

A) there is a lot of extra schooling involved, from what I understand, and B) it sounds like it would take up a lot of time and possibly not allow me to have my hobby farm.

Well, you need a job t pay for the farm.

My daughter did her program at a community college.

That's exactly what I did, 30 some years ago, did an internship and ended up working there for 20 years.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

What you lose to the slope of the roof is pretty minimal. A 12' sheet with a 3/12 pitch covers 11' 7 3/8", measured horizontally. An 8' sheet would cover about 7' 8"

The recommendation from all manufacturers is 3/12, metal, polycarbonate, or shingles. You can do less, just understand that they won't shed snow, ice, rain, or anything else as effectively, which increases the chances of repairs down the road. Ultimately, its a roof. You WILL be doing repairs down the road, the question is only whether it will be 10 years,15, 20, or 30+. If that timescale is fine with you, then yes, anything over 1/12 will work (assuming you don't expect piles of snow or leaves to sit on it for months at a time.

Cladding is simply the outer skin of the building - plywood, vinyl siding, whatever.

Yes, 2' centers means each rafter would be spaced 2' apart, center to center (not a 2' gap between them - the gap would actually be about 22.5". Closer is better (stronger, more roof attachment points for wind loads) but not necessary except for high winds or walking on. If you are attaching plywood decking, 2' on center also means your 4' wide board will fall on a rafter, so you have a (narrow) nailing surface. You also see 16" on center designs, for the same reason - ever third rafter is 4', providing that deck nailing surface....

 

[U_Stormcrow]

and you can likely download a free CAD program, run it on your computer to draw up plans. I taught myself the basics of one in a few days, drafted up my whole house that way - only for my architect to redraw it wrong. Of course, used to teach CAD, back in the 80s when it first came out. New CAD is NOTHING like what I used to do - the vast majority of the programs now are what we used to call Parametrics. (Don't ask - the point is that I was essentially learning something brand new, my old experience was more of a handicap than a help)

If you go that route, use the layers function in the program, so you can turn on and off the display of different layers to show just the framing, or just the plywood, or just whatever... Trust me, it will help to visualize, and help with the materials list when you go shopping.

Or stick with paper and a straight edge, which was perfectly adequate for 1000s of years. If it was good enough for Notre Dame and the Hagia Sophia, its good enough for a hen house.

 

[black_cat]

My daughter did her program at a community college. The basic drafting program, Architectural Technology, is a 2-year degree but they'd streamlined the three related degrees, which is highly desired by employers, so that the full program can be done in only 1-2 extra years.

It's actually a field with a lot of work-from-home and independent contractor potential.

That sounds really great! My main qualm about going into something like that would be that it would take up a lot of my time (which I suppose is the drawback from any substantially paying job lol) I've been looking at colleges with good architectural programs, but I haven't decided on one yet.

 

[aart]

Please ignore some wavy/weird lines, I don't always have steady hands.

Looks fine....you could always use a ruler/straight edge.

(Don't ask - the point is that I was essentially learning something brand new, my old experience was more of a handicap than a help)

BTDT.

 

[black_cat]

and you can likely download a free CAD program, run it on your computer to draw up plans. I taught myself the basics of one in a few days, drafted up my whole house that way - only for my architect to redraw it wrong. Of course, used to teach CAD, back in the 80s when it first came out. New CAD is NOTHING like what I used to do - the vast majority of the programs now are what we used to call Parametrics. (Don't ask - the point is that I was essentially learning something brand new, my old experience was more of a handicap than a help)

If you go that route, use the layers function in the program, so you can turn on and off the display of different layers to show just the framing, or just the plywood, or just whatever... Trust me, it will help to visualize, and help with the materials list when you go shopping.

Or stick with paper and a straight edge, which was perfectly adequate for 1000s of years. If it was good enough for Notre Dame and the Hagia Sophia, its good enough for a hen house.

I tried using the free version of sketchup and I was just so confused on how to make it look like an actual building instead of a weird giant box.

I aspire to do something like that (from the wichita cabin coop article ^) and I end up with a large grey square. I can't figure out how to properly do materials and the like. I'd love to figure out how to do something actually like that because you're right, I'll almost definitely forget something that I need otherwise. I'd like to get some of that isometric (I think that that was the word) graph paper so I can properly scale things on paper. I literally have a ruler about 2 feet away from me, but didn't think to use it as a straight edge...you can see I'm great at logical thinking

 

[black_cat]

While I'm working on drawing out framing, I've realized that there are some things that I don't know how to frame:
-doors (not around the door, but the actual physical door)
-windows
-nesting boxes