General purpose outdoor building

[Lowdown3]

Trying to squeeze as many possible uses out of this module that I possibly can. Need some input.

So long story short but due to a bad scheduling issue with a concrete contractor almost 20 years ago, I ended up with a load of concrete that I had to do something with. Nothing else could be done with it at the time but once the truck is there, your screwed and you can't say "Oh hey this dirtbag didn't show, can you come back in a few days with the same concrete?" LOL

In haste, I knocked some 2x12's I had handy together and I've had this really thick pad roughly 12x12 for years. No footer, just a really thick (approx 12" thick) pad.

It's held up well over the years and at first we just had a little grape arbor type deal over it. Later we put a little cheap plastic pool, you know what happens to those after the first season...

We cleared all that mess out earlier this year, and was down to just the pad O' doom.

I decided to start a building roughly 12x14 in size. Not a living in building, but I'd like to get as many uses out of it I can. Due to the various crap that's been happening this year (death, etc.) we haven't gotten a lot done except the poles in and the bands framed in. I'm probably going to build trusses for it and have a roughly 4/12 slope on the roof. The building is all open, but the roof will be shingled.

One main reason for this building is that it's perfectly in sun shine on our east west axis. I will mount four 235 watt panels on each side (four facing west, four facing east). Their won't be room for any more and this will give us almost an extra killowatt first thing in the morning and right before sunset in the afternoon (they will get sun most of the day but these are the times we need a little more on dreary days).

So the building's main purpose is to have those panels on there. No other solar components will be housed there, power will run to our main power center not far away.

Their is water lines within feet of the new building, one of the main garden areas is also just a few yards away. It's close to the house also.

My main ideas are to reinforce the ceiling (leaving it open) to be able to hang deer in there. With the addition of good lighting this will make butchering late in the day or at night (we often get free "come and get it" deer from friends, but sometimes it's at midnight) easier. Maybe add one of those nice stainless steel looking food prep tables for butchering that we could also use to prep veggies and fruits outside the house. Water line is close by so bringing water to the structure will be easy.

What else can I do with it that would prove useful to the homestead? Got plenty of firewood storage, actually just a few feet from the building. Would rather NOT make it a storage place for small equipment, etc. Don't really want to mix food and fuel you know.

Ideas?

[Patriotic Sheepdog]

Good ideas you have. I also thought of a place to "start" plants in the winter. Another idea is a place you could do any honey collecting. My dad had his spinner and strainer in a 8'x10' shed. He would bring in the honey supers and had a screen door to keep neighborhood bees away. We kept our hives several miles away on a ranch. It was nice to spin the combs without battling other bees/critters. Just a couple thoughts off the top of my head.

[RobertJ]

Summer Kitchen? If you dont already have one. Great place for canning.

[Benn Gleck]

Robertj Beat me to it.
We're planning a summer kitchen so canning food doesn't heat the house up in the summer. We also plan on using it for butchering hogs and deer, also for rendering lard.

[Lowdown3]

It's going up slowly, been sidetracked on some "emergency" projects and upkeep type stuff.

I'd love to find one of those waist high shiny silver colored all metal tables for butchering. Will incorporate a deep outdoor sink for washing cuts of meat, veggies and fruits, etc. with the drain line going out into the garden area. Roof will house just about 1KW of solar on each side to get first thing in the morning son and late afternoon top off the batts for the night sun.

If nothing else, it will hold more firewood :) Always need more firewood.

[Lowdown3]

Putting roof on this weekend, hung the trusses today by myself. Added a double 2x8 girder down the center of the building under the trusses. Whenever I hang a deer or other animal, this will give us plenty of strength, plus give extra support for the roof.

[Lowdown3]

About the only angle I can take of this building without ruining Opsec. It's literally near "everything", most of which I'd prefer to not be seen forever on the internet. You can see I'm not THAT bad of a carpenter. First time I've set trusses completely on my own, but thankfully they were only 16 feet with a low pitch.

The double beam is for hanging animals. I have a 12vdc two thousand lb. winch coming with a remote. It will be mounted up in the double beam and should support anything I will butcher. I'll be able to back a vehicle right up to this building also. Conceivably I am cutting down on a lot of grunting and heavy lifting now when butchering.

Found one of those stainless steel heavy tables like used in food prep on Amazon and that along with a deep, wide laundry tub will serve well for butchering as well as cleaning vegetables and fruits before dragging them in the house.

We could can outside here via one of those little propane turkey cookers if need be now also. Usually when we are canning it's hot as hades outside so doing it inside is usually how we roll.

Going to be able to mount (4) 235 watt 24 vdc panels on each side of the roof. That will catch us first thing in the morning sun as well as late afternoon sun. A little extra boost first thing in the morning while coffee makers and toasters are going, and then top us off with the last rays as the sun goes down in the afternoon. This should also leave me some space for a couple of smaller 12v panels that I will use to keep the battery for the winch topped off as well as have some 12vdc lights in there. I'm going to have to dig in lines for the power out of the two arrays to my main battery bank anyways, I may include a 14-2 line back from the inverter to this building so if we want to run anything 110.

For everyday use, it will hold one of those metal firepits and a grill. I broke down and bought my wife a propane grill for Mother's day this year, she always wanted one. I told her "now that we got a propane grill we are dangerously close to Yuppie'dom." LOL

The firepit will be nice on those nights when it's freezing and we are out there butchering.

We've needed a multi purpose building like this for pretty much ever :)

[Lowdown3]

It worked out pretty well first go around.

Midnight, coldest night so far this year here. Roaring fire in the little fire pit deal, plenty of lighting with the 12v light bar and the 110 shop lights.

Winch worked great. Nice working height without a lot of grunting.

Only thing I will change is we will run a garden hose up over the rafters and set up to hang down if need be. This will make hosing it out easier and also cleaning the table easier.

The table itself was bought off Amazon. It's not bad, but not as bomb proof as I would like.

I was able to lower the deer over enough to swing it up on the table right from the winch.

[Lowdown3]

It's continuing to come together. Have this same array on the other side of the roof also. For best winter use I think I'm going to have to take out a few trees that I've trimmed a bunch trying to keep. Used combiner boxes this go around. We didn't have that kind of cool daddy stuff "back in the day" and we used to just tie all the positives together on one big electrical lug and all the negatives from an array all together on another big lug , each tied to a larger gauge wire running back to the controller or MPPT.

Also wired a 110 volt outlet near the butchering table that the shop lights can plug in to or we can plug in the electric meat grinder. We usually use a hand grinder but we bought an electric one and we need to try that.

In the in between time, the building has served us well for a couple of cook outs- a grill is there and the little firepit, the table is great for serving or prepping food and the sink makes cleaning up outside easy.

[DIM TIM]

Nice set-up. Gave me some things to think about when we finally get our country place.

[Templar]

Maybe seal the floor to keep the insects and germs away??? You really have got Ninja Carpenter skills!

[Lowdown3]

Really wouldn't be any workable way to do that. I think you know where I built this at? Remember that odd slab that was near one of my firewood sheds? That was the basis for this.

[Lowdown3]

Finally getting some time off other pressing summer projects to work on this building.

Called it Kategat. If you've seen "Vikings" TV show, aka the great hall at Kategat LOL. Also the wife's name is Kat, I know I'm so damn sweet!! LOL

Got the 8 solar panels on the roof set up and working. 4 on one side pretty much due east and 4 on the other side pretty much due west. Getting the results I wanted- extra boost in morning and late afternoon- out of them.

Put 100 feet of 1/2" black tubing pipe on the roof under the panel mounts, snaking back and forth and splitting off to a shower and hot water for the laundry tub/sink that's already out there. Free hot water for both showers and washing clothes, cleaning meat and veg, etc. in the sink.

It works pretty well, especially with these hotter days. Will have to report back again in fall/winter time. I usually close a ball valve when done, locking water in the line on the roof. The ball valve does the same thing a one way valve would- just got to remember to close the valve when done. Plumbed a cold line in to the shower also so it could mix with and cool down the hot if necessary. And it's been necessary a couple times now!

Poured a pad and put some tile on it for the shower. Will probably lower the shower head a bit also.

Last things to do is to put rain gutters on the building and drop a water tank for the runoff. The last part of the concrete pad near the shower will hold the water tank. Later once the water tank is in, I will plumb off of it in such a way that we can pull water from that for the shower and sink.

May consider a tie off the plumbing system wherein we can add another hot water source. Perhaps water heated with wood via a 55 gallon drum. Got to have multiple methods for keeping clean in the PAW.

So when the last of it is finished the building itself will be mostly self supporting- water recycled from the roof, hot water provided by the sun's heat and the panels on the roof providing an additional 1800 watts to our system.

When it's not being used for butchering and other activities, we sometimes grill out there. And it's fun to have an outside shower.

I'll try to post a few more pics.

[Rmplstlskn]

Now that the summer heat has somewhat abated for a period of time, I too have restarted my construction and remodeling projects once again...

Big one is burying a 550g poly water tank and making the well fill up that and a separate high service pump to provide house H2O supply...

Rmpl

[cpt_sfc]

Sounds great , wish I had one!!, OH well guess I need to get off my old arse and do something about it, SOLAR was great idea. I use a new push broom on a long handle to take off the snow on mine as the winter here is a bummer, (BROOM),can't ever use it on the floor though, dirt will bugger up the panel. SG has 1200 watt inverters with remote plugs and cables for 64 bucks on sale, ITEM # e631j-0 Peak 1200 watt inverter 52.49+ sh.