Advice for a saw shed for a 20' WM

[Gilman]

It's been over a year now with my mill sitting out in the elements and I figure it's time to finally build a shed for it.  I have the 20' mill + 30' of extensions. For those that have a saw shed I have a few questions.

1) What is the size & height of yours,
2) What is the size and height you would realistically like to have?
2) If you did it over again, what would you change?
3) Since even Bibbyman adds on  , what is your advice for being modular, or planning from the beginning to add on?


Thanks,

David

[ely]

mine is a stationary mill, concrete is 8 feet wide.21 feet long. building is 12 feet wide with 21 foot opening. actually it is a cover only with no sides. 9 feet up to the bottom of trusses. i like mine the way it is except i should have allowed about 3 feet more on the upper end for a roll out so i could get a full 20 foot log in with no prob. as of now i have only 12 something capacity on a log. need to build my extension and roll out.

[Norm]

David mine is in a 3 sided shed 30x60 12' tall. One of the problems with it is the dust always swirls around in it no matter what direction the wind is in. Either have two sides open or all enclosed would be my advice. The size is about right but the opening between supports is too narrow. Next one will be wider, most likely 42'. Also gonna have big slider doors on each side for easy access to the mill.

[Bibbyman]

We built all the shed we'd ever need in 93.  It is 20' wide by 40' long with 12' eve height.  There is a 19'-6" openings on both 40' sides and 12' openings on the 20' ends.

It was designed so we could pull the mill in and set it up to saw under roof and then pull it out to do mobil sawing.  It had room for workbenches and such in each corner. If all you have is a sawmill of the LT40 size and are doing mobil sawing too this size worked well.  It worked well for us for a couple of years but then we got an edger and had no space to put it under roof.  We added 16' x 16' sheds on each end.  That worked well for awhile as we could park the truck under one end and off-load onto it.  The edger was under the other end.

But we had no place to stack lumber under roof that was in process.  Last fall we took off one of the 16' sheds and added a 32' extension to the length.  Now we have room for the edger and to work around it and a couple three or four stacks of lumber in process.

We still have a little bit of a bottle neck where we're working through the 12' opening between the old 20x14 section and the new 32' extension.  But it's a lot better than it was. 

[Percy]

It's been over a year now with my mill sitting out in the elements and I figure it's time to finally build a shed for it.  I have the 20' mill + 30' of extensions. For those that have a saw shed I have a few questions.

1) What is the size & height of yours,
2) What is the size and height you would realistically like to have?
2) If you did it over again, what would you change?
3) Since even Bibbyman adds on  , what is your advice for being modular, or planning from the beginning to add on?


Thanks,

David

Every one has different needs/expectations as far as a building is concerned. For me , I like the 360 degree access I have to my mill. It gives me options as opposed to having walls. When its blowing and cold, I wish I had walls but when Im adding a resaw attachment or need to remove a rotten log without sending it to the cant pile, I love the access it provides. My roof is just high enuff that my exhaust pipe dont hit it. Never been a problem. I wish Ida made big trusses and had fewer poles to get in the way and limit my options on improvements and I wish I had about two acres of covered area so as all my stuff and boards could be outta the weather, not realistic but a wish for sure..heh...

[pigman]

My saw shed is 108ft X 28ft and 10ft tall. It started as a 7ft high hog house and I had to raise the roof 3ft to get my WM in it . Took me all day to raise the thing. It works , but if I was building new I would build it bigger. ;) It has a manure pit under one side for when I have customers and it gets really deep. :

[Percy]

It has a manure pit under one side for when I have customers and it gets really deep. :

hahahahahahahahahahahaha :D :D :D :D :D :D :Dhaahahahahah :D :D :D :D :D :D

[Bibbyman]

It may be of value to go to the inage archive and search on shed.  I did and it comes up with about a 150 of them. 

If you see one of interest, you can do a search on that picture and read the post it came from.

[OneWithWood]

Gilman,
check out this thread

https://forestryforum.com/board/index.php?topic=1400.100

I am currently wiring the building and will be updating the thread in the not to distant future.

Patience is a virtue . . .

[Gilman]

Thanks All,

This is exactly the info I was looking for.

I think I'll start with the shed being open on 3 sides.  It gets cooler here in the winter, but not at back east type of cold.  Summer may get hot, but not for very long. What we have plenty of though is rain.

I think the only major difference I need to plan for is handling long beams.  With the douglas fir, there is a good market for long beams.  The part I don't like is handling them and the slabs once cut.  I'm starting to think about having an overhead 1 ton crane.  Or, making sure I can add one later.

Thanks again, great advice.

p.s.
Dang Bibby, I thought you'd finally made a mistake, but I was wrong again.  ;D
OneWithWood, "Wow" Like I said before.

[Percy]

Heya Gilman.
Read your thing about processin long stuff. Ckeck this out. It works quite well for the long flitches and beams.
https://forestryforum.com/board/index.php?topic=10763.0

[Norwiscutter]

If you really want to do longer stuff than I suggest you situate the mill parallel to the Gable end.  Use a longer truss(40-50 ft.) and just leave that end open. If I was going to build a sawmill building I would go with the max height feasable, as the 10 ft I have is not high enough for comfortable manuvering with the skid loader.  I have the option of loading with an Iron Mule which is no longer possible with the mill under cover.  I think you should first sit down and draw out your plan for machinery location and material flow.  Where are you going to stack your boards that need to be edged? Will you have an edger? Are you going to sticker right off the mill or do it somewhere else? What will you do with different length boards if you are going to sticker off the mill?  I just build a small shed for the electric mill I bought from kirk(24x16 with 3 open sides) and see now that I could easily end up buried in boards real quick.  With a small shed, your processed materials are going to have to go somewhere else in an efficient manner without impedeing the flow of materials coming in.  Figure out everything that you could possibly have in use and the flow of materials from start to finish, then design a building to accomidate that plan. Or build it 60x100 x16 ft high, which will maybe give you enough space to fit stuff you will eventually end up haveing in your nice new building.

[Gilman]

There's some huge warehouses in town to support the local paper mill.  Drrrrrrooooooooollllll.  Monsterous buildings.