Replacing the Chook House

[Lionelgee]

Hello All,

After 70+ years of faithful service the old chook house has succumbed to termites. A couple of years ago a number of previous owner's grandson came around to my house and said that his grandfather had built an incubation shed and an egg laying shed. The grandson must be in their 70s. The chook house was made out of corrugated iron and a hardwood frame. The chook house is still fulfilling that role it was built for.

So after a pullet which Leeann my wife had raised as a couple of days old chicken disappeared overnight I was tasked to replace the chook house.

The presence of termites ruled out replicating a timber frame. Out of interest I priced different varieties of steel frame systems. I drew up a design - heavily influenced by the original chook house and then priced the materials cost. I then went online and had a look at different shed - animal enclosure - aviary - poultry structures. I found a kit for a "Skillion Shed" that was actually cheaper than my design. The factory is two hours drive south of home so I hooked up the trailer and picked up the shed sticks: wall plate, studs and noggins.

Over the past couple of days I have assembled the frame sides and I am now in the process of modifying it.

The shed will be divided by a petition wall 1/3 for the chooks - actually bigger than their old home. Then 2/3 garden shed and storage for the ride-on mower. The adaptations from the original manufacturer's design are: conversion from a front entry to two side entries, One side will be a security screen door for access to the chooks. The other side that faces the open yard will have a 1500 mm opening so the ride-on can be driven inside and out. The chook access just required an additional stud. The ride-on side will be minus 3 studs and a setting in of two studs to a narrower spacing to provide the 1500 mm access. I am getting two lengths of 50 x 50 4 mm thick square hollow section that will be concreted into the ground and span floor to ceiling. There will also be a lintel over the door span.

Today the extra materials arrived for the petition wall and filling in the old front entry. All the materials arrived as described. Then I went to use the same style of fitting the noggins and the studs. The shed kit had a system where the studs slid through pre-punched holes in the noggins. I went to try the same approach to the newly supplied studs, noggins and wall plate. Surprise!

It turns out that there is a variety in approaches between shed steel frame manufactures. The steel that arrived from a local supplier has the noggins fitting inside the studs. The studs then fit inside the wall plate - just like the other manufacturer'. There was I expecting uniformity within a building system. It had me a bit miffed for a while and a fair amount of head scratching - did I order the wrong stuff? Was I sent the wrong stuff? Check - Check - nope all is as it should be. Well there you go: one mob uses 1.0 mm thick steel which has roll formed ribs. This material must have enough give to allow their studs to slide inside noggin. Whereas the stuff I bought locally is 1.2 mm thick steel and the noggins fit inside the studs and there are no rolled ribs.

Welll it is time to get back into it. Photographs to follow...

Kind regards
Lionel

[Lionelgee]

Hello All,

With one frame with my modifications completed and a bit of lunch under my belt I will be conducting an experiment. I will use a bit of scrap noggin and cut out a hole for the stud. I with only the sides being retained on the noggin at the stud hole I may be able to persuade the sides out enough so it could along the noggin to slide through. The steel frame I bought is un-punched.

The good thing about the kit I bought is that all the noggins are cut out. Each screw hole has been countersunk. All the corners on the studs have been bent up at the corners slightly so it fits into the wall plate easily. Okay their ability to label correctly was found a bit wanting. The top brace and the bottom braces were not labelled properly. Took me a while to just look at which brace had the round holes for electrical wire or water pipe. The front face and the back had the conduit holes at the top section of the frame. So braces with holes went that side of the noggin regardless of how the brace had been labelled. The sides had the conduit holes below the noggin.

There was a bit of overstatement about how the diagonals must be equal for each corner when the sides were pitched so one side was longer than the other. No comment about measuring the height of the shorter stud for the pitch in the roof and marking this length on to the longest stud and taking the diagonals from the shorter stud and the mark on the longest stud. No all diagonals MUST be EQUAL when taken from the outside corners.

Also, some panels on the plans should have shown a mirror image of the other panel to represent bracing on the opposing corners of the side frame. There were three panels - Left corner panel - Centre panel and Right Corner panel.

Another manufacturer actually shows how the C shape of each stud should be arranged at the bottom of the elevation for each side. That would have been really handy on the kit I bought.

That is it for now. Off experimenting I go...

Kind regards
Lionel

[OldGuy]

When I built our school shed which was much more simple than your requirements. I ended up buying a kiddies play house, les than half the price of commercial backyard chook enclosures and worked a treat.
Guess it is good to look outside the box. 🐔🐔🐣🐣🐣🐓

[Gillie]

171476

Maybe this might help?

[DiscoMick]

Sounds like a good project, but the variations in the steel must have been frustrating for you.
Can I ask if the mesh is snake-proof? Snakes seem to have a magnetic attraction to our chooks. It has taken several goes to make it snake-proof.

[Lionelgee]

Hello All,

An update on the noggin size on the locally sourced steel frame. With some careful cutting out with an angle grinder of some suitably sized notches, in the main face of the channel, accompanied by the judicious use of a hammer and a block of wood to stretch the notch's sides, I was able to expand the noggin enough so the studs could slide through. This stud through noggin style is just like the shed kit used and so too did another Australian brand of steel framing that I saw on YouTube. It is amazing what can be achieved with a big enough hammer and a block of hardwood - teehee!

It is also pretty amazing how much more weight 0.2 of a mm makes when spread over a whole shed side's frame. I made 2 side frames of the same dimension using the kit which was made of 1.0 mm thickness metal. The locally sourced material was 1.2 mm. The 1.0 mm stuff you can feel slightly flex when you carry a side. The locally sourced stuff is more hefty and has no flex at all.

I have now made all the frames. This consists of a formerly double sliding glass door entry point that has been covered in. One original side which only had a window opening now has a security screen door entry point to get in and out of the chook house section. The other side which also featured the same sized window now has a 1.5 metre double swung door entry point for my ride-on mower. To divide the chook house from the mower storage area I made a new petition wall from scratch.

The next task will be to prune some overhanging branches. The old chook house was a bit lower than the new one. Then the old timber framed corrugated iron chook house will be demolished. There is a steadily growing bonfire waiting for the timber frame.

Once the slab is cleared I will start to join all the panels together. The chook house door side; the front and the back sides and the petition wall will be the first priority as this will secure the chooks. Plus the roof. The cladding and finishing of the mower and garden tool section can take its time. The Number 1 priority was the welfare and safe keeping of the chooks.

Yes - photographs to come.

Kind regards
Lionel