I am taking a break from the pipework for a bit, for several reasons. Firstly, we need to buy and connect the water pump before we fill in the trenches, and we dont have the money for the pump yet. Secondly, we will be moving out of our rental in a month, and we need somewhere to store stuff. I was always intending on building a storage area under the deck – this is why the deck is a solid surface and not slatted deck timbers. I was just going to build it later rather than sooner. However moving out of the rental has bought the need for storage to a head. So, nows the time to build it !
This is where its going to go. It will be about 5m long by 2m wide inside, and 2.7m to the ceiling.
The first step is to build an elevated timber floor. I thought about doing an on-ground floor in either bricks, pavers or concrete. All these options would cost too much and gain little. So I decided to put in a ledger plate against the slab, and another checked into the timber posts.
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I used dyna-bolts to attach the ledger to the slab. I had a bunch of left over 10mm x 100mm so they cam in handy. The timber was left over from the frame too.
I cut 30mm rebates into the posts. It was a bit tedious – I made a whole bunch of parallel slices 30m deep, then knocked out the waste and cleaned it up with my big framing chesel.
Once the ledgers were in the floor joists were next. I used 140 x 45 timbers, and attached them to the ledgers with joist hangers.
Nothing fancy here.
Before I put the flooring down I need to run some pipes – water into the building, 50mm drain out for recycled water onto the vegi garden, and sewer.
For the two drain pipes I need to ensure there is at least a 1:100 fall. I used hanger brackets to suspend the pipes under the floor joists. They will poke up through the flooring and then enter the building through the wall.
Now comes the flooring. Liquid nails glue it down to stop it squeaking, and then 65mm nails hold it in place.
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Note the holes left in the floor. This is where the pipes come up. These holes are covered with flooring pieces that are just screwed in place so I can get them out later to access the pipes.