raising the roof

Well the house I bought recently had an alleged "lock up garage" which had a slab, four walls and a roof, but roof that was too low for me to get my Pajero 4WD into (not to mention being a windowless solar hotbox that reached 50°C inside, and a haven for Red Back spiders who love that sort of dark enclosed place).

(image from Wikipedia)

Which made the shed about as useful as a hip pocket on a T-Shirt. This is the shed...

I identified this shed as being essentially a flimsy "glorified garden shed" and a weakness in the price point of the house when buying the place (because I value highly being able to park my car under cover), but figured that I'd be able to "fix it" for not too much.

After some thought (and a few beers on the back steps in the arvo looking at it and thinking)

a solution emerged ... I would get some steel posts, raise the roof, leave the walls where they were and then fill in the gap (between the new roof level and the tops of the walls) with shade cloth.

Australian woven shade cloth is pretty darn handy. It'll block 90% of the UV (and almost block water) while allowing slow moving air to pass freely (keeping the interior cooler). In the past my wife and I had built "covered areas" in the back yard with shade cloth and it does an amazing job. Even in rain only a light mist makes it through the fabric, in light rain nothing comes through. With a little pitch on it  light rain is trapped in the fabric and the water flows out the low end (not that we want to sit outside in the rain that often). So it makes an excellent roofing material if you only need shade from wind and UV (remember, this is Australia and it gets bloody hot, and sunburn is a big issue here).

So got my tape measure, made a plan on a sheet of paper, bought the steel and set about working. I had to pick a day with no wind, as to raise the roof I had to unscrew it ... any wind would see it in the neighbors yard for a visit. I had to start and finish the major structural work (working alone) in a single day.

Below is the view of the progress from 8am to 7pm (and a quick lunch at the pub with some friends who turned up)

I've since added the shade cloth, which may seem in the picture below to only be on one side, but its actually all around.

There have been a couple of storms (with strong rain) and only a small amount of water blows through, certainly nothing the car can't handle ;-)

Total cost of this ventures materials was just under $600 ($500 for the posts and steel).

So now I've got a good under cover spot for my car to rest. As I use my motor bike for most of the daily transport needs I wanted to have my car protected from UV, tree droppings, bird shit and what not. Also as I'm about to head over to Finland for another "winter" and I'd like the the car to be under cover while I'm away.

Win Win