sawshack eave height?

[Handy Andy]

  Planning a sawshack, collecting material, trying to figure out just how low I can put the roof.  Would like to get by with 10', but probably could go 11 or 12'.  Have access to some square timbers 14'long, would like to go 4' into the ground, also have a few poles, and a few hedge poles that could be cut a little longer.  My plan is to set the mill up in one end, then use the rest of the shed for lumber drying, storage.
  Getting real tired of humping the green lumber up into the barn.  Sawshack would allow me to sticker right off the mill and set the lumber in shed with skidsteer.  I like higher stacks as weight on pile is nice.  Jim

[mike_van]

Jim, I have 9' high opening on the eve, never had a problem. Inside, it's a good 13 or 14 ft. to the collar ties.

[Qweaver]

Jim, I like to have the eves low to reduce the rain and sun on the stacks.  My eves are 6' and clearance under the rafters is about 9'.  I'm going to reduce the clearance on the south side even further to 6' 6".

Quinton

[DanG]

As Q said, it's nice to have low eaves to keep the weather out better, but you also need to consider that you might not always have the same equipment that you have now.  My old forklift needs about 10' with the mast all the way down.  Once the forks get about 4' high, the mast starts going up, too.

[Tom]

another consideration may be the height of mill.  Lots of folks set their mill up off of the ground a bit so that they aren't always walking in sawdust and  wood slivers.  It keeps you from having to shovel every hour or two.  Through the years, the area under a sawmill seems to grow rather than make a hole too.

[OneWithWood]

My eave height is 10'.  More importantly the eaves extend 18" from the wall.  This gives good protection from the weather and the sun.  The interior learance is 12' to the bottom of the truss.  Anything less has been to little in my experience.

[tcsmpsi]

Much of that decision should be based on your particular mill, how you are going to set it up and your log feeding method.



The edge of my eaves are a bit over 10' from the ground, and about 26" from the 'wall'.   I load logs on the mill with tractor/fel,  and there is plenty of room for my present rig, and I think for most anything I might go for later. 

My mill spits out sawdust opposite from the working side, so I don't have to contend with sawdust/slivers/chunks/etc. getting in my way.

[Ivey]

 The bottom of my header is 13'. To the bottom of the rafter is 14', I was thinking about exhust gases when I built it so tall. I wish that I had made it 12' that would have been a plenty.
I am now building a 16' shed off the side to put the mill, and use the 24'x52' to store lumber.

[Handy Andy]

  Thanks for all the replies, knew you guys would have good advice.  Sounds  like leantos are a good idea, as they bring your roof down low, for sunshade and rain protection.  Jim

[tomboysawyer]

As Q said, it's nice to have low eaves to keep the weather out better, but you also need to consider that you might not always have the same equipment that you have now.  My old forklift needs about 10' with the mast all the way down.  Once the forks get about 4' high, the mast starts going up, too.

This is sage advice.

I built a saw shed for my Norwood Lumbermate. Originally it was 12' to match the ClearSpan tent I bought, but at only 4' wide, 28' long (and over 16' high with the rafters) it was really tippy. So, in a moment of dispair, we cut the roof height to 8'.

Even at that time, our bulldozer was 8' 6" and the new, hydraulic mill I bought 2 months later needs about 10' for the head at its full height.

Felt really silly that we can't drive the dozer through the tent system (the skid steer just barely clears - but then, hubby built the cage for that so it would fit in our garage doors at home - well really so it could drive out of the garage after he built it).