Outdoor covered storage area designs...

[judge_l]

I have a two plastic sheds that I bought at Sam's Club. There are doors on the front, as well as on two sides. We use one for wood and other junk and one for the lawn tractor and snowblower off season. They've held up relatively well. One was pretty much destroyed during a huge windstorm, but it blew down tree's and lots of other stuff, so I can't really fault it and I was able to cobble it back together. They come with there own floor and snap together.

They are not nearly as big as your pole shed, but they are alot easier and cheaper.

 

[beelzerob]

They are not nearly as big as your pole shed, but they are alot easier and cheaper.

Heheh...well, ya, anything smaller would be easier and cheaper. I think that may be the direction we're heading....not a store-bought shed, but a much much smaller version of what we've been designing. Possibly even building "half" of what we want this year, and then adding on in the future as needs and $$ warrants. Half of a pole barn is basically just a lean to.

 

[beelzerob]

Well, it's coming together nicely so far. We got the area cleared and leveled, and now we can visualize the structure much better. I think we're going to end up with a "pavilion" basically, instead of a pole barn. That's because I'm leaning towards using built roof trusses. So that means I'll just need to put in the posts and beams.

For those with any knowledge in this, I have 2 questions:

1) Of course the posts will be pressure treated...do the beams have to be also? They should be sheltered enough by the roof so that decay isn't an issue. I know the roof trusses won't be pressure treated...so just checking about the beams.

2) I have some spare 1" underground conduit, so I had planned to bury a line going from my house to this pavilion so I can put in lights, and should the need arise, also run some cat5 maybe for a little weather station on it. For power for the lights, I was just going to run a line from my nearest GFCI outdoor outlet on the house. Is that a bad idea? I'm not going to be putting outlets in this thing, this is only for lights. I'm pretty sure I don't need a subpanel for this, but I didn't know if grounding was another issue. So basically, is it ok to power lights in this external pavilion (about 50 ft from the house) from a house outlet?

Thanks for the helps.