Building a knock-down shelter

[quicksandfarmer]

So I'm getting ready to build some shelters for goats. I need them to be movable, although I tend not to move them very often. I have a few now that were designed to be moved by a tractor and they're a pain to move, so I'm thinking it might be better to have a design that I can take apart to move. I figure if I can break it into pieces that two people can carry and will fit on a wagon or the back of a pickup truck that will be easier than trying to move the whole thing assembled. It will also allow me greater freedom in where I put it.

So I'm looking for ideas on how to construct it. I'm thinking a shelter with a size somewhere between 8'x8' and 8'x12', tall enough for a person to go into. For the roof I have some used pieces of heavy 8' galvanized corrugated sheet metal, it can span its length without rafters which simplifies things. I would attach it at each end with screws, then I could just unscrew it to disassemble the roof. For the walls I'm thinking 2x4 framing sheathed in either plywood or corrugated metal. I figure if each wall is under about 150 lbs then two people can move it. If I can't do that then I'll have to figure out a way to break the walls into sections. The question is how to connect the walls together at the corners, to have a reasonably strong connection that goes together and comes apart easily. I'm thinking of using a Simpson Strong-Tie corner brace, something like this one:
ML | Deck Connectors | Decks | Decks and Fences | Wood Construction Connectors | Connectors | Simpson Strong-Tie

I figure if I put it in with screws I can take the whole thing apart and put it back together again with a screw-gun.

I'd appreciate any thoughts anyone has. This isn't going to be fine carpentry, it's just to keep the wind and rain off of the goats. I would like it to be reasonably durable though.

Thanks.

 

[EddieWalker]

Why not put wheels and a tow hitch on it?

 

[quicksandfarmer]

Why not put wheels and a tow hitch on it?

Fair question. Let me give some background. We have all sorts of goat housing here. In addition to a permanent barn, we have small shelters that slide onto a tilt trailer, and ones with skids that I tow with a tractor. For rotational grazing we use horse trailers and just park them with the herd, this is a high-rust area and you can get a trailer that can't pass inspection but still usable for almost nothing on Craigslist. We also have some shelters that are built in place and never meant to be moved.

The advantage of the ones that are never meant to be moved is they are simpler. If you design a building to be moved, it has to be strong enough to resist racking if it's not supported evenly. That's a lot stronger than it needs to be just to sit there, where typically I would just have four walls and no floor. A building on wheels is going to need to particularly stout. If I need to move something around a lot I'm better off using a horse trailer. My farm isn't laid out well for moving large objects around, we have stone walls and fences everywhere and I don't have any gates that are more than 10'. Pulling an eight foot wide building through a ten foot opening is a chore. Pulling a building on skids is a pain, you always end up breaking something and make a mess of the driveway and the pasture. Plus when you're pulling with a tractor it's tough to get the shelters into tight spots.

A few months ago I needed to make a semi-permanent shelter, in kind of a tough spot to get to. We built the walls in the barn, then put them in a pickup truck and drove as close as we could, and then carried the walls to the final spot. I screwed them together with decking screws and screwed the roof on with a screwgun, it may have taken half an hour. When we were done I said to myself, "That's a lot easier than dragging a building around."

I'm sure if I needed to move that shelter I could just unscrew everything. But I'm looking for better ideas. Deck screws aren't really structural fasteners.

Finally, you're probably wondering why we can't just keep all the goats in the barn. It's the nature of goats, they bully each other. We have to keep the goats with horns separate from the goats without, the bucks separate from the does when it's not time for breeding, and the bucks separate from each other when it is, the meat goats separate from the milkers, the kids separate from their mothers when they're weaning. From time to time we get new goats that need quarantine. We try to keep everyone on pasture during the growing season, which means lots of separate pastures and lots of sub-herds.

 

[kthompson]

Maybe did not follow your design totally but how about door hings for the corners? Mount them on the outside of the corners.

 

[bcp]

Folding storage container may have some ideas. Construction photos about 1/2 down page.

Collapsible container warehouse folding storage shed, View folding storage shed, XGZ Product Details from Qingdao XGZ Steel Structure Co., Ltd. on Alibaba.com

Bruce

 

[newbury]

I've been helping build small movable structures off an on since about 1964 when my Dad built ice shanties in northern Vermont. I've got a "shelter" of sorts built on my trailer. Basically it's one sheet of 3/4" plywood wide, two long.
I used 3/4" PT plywood because all the 1/2" is so full of voids that they disintegrated. Now I've moved on to 3/4 marine plywood, very sturdy.
If you are going to build a 6' high wall of plywood on a 2x4 frame all 3/4 plywood will be heavy.

I've found that "screws" are not reusable for wood, drill a hole and use a bolt.

But when you drill a hole in a 2x4 you may weaken it. So I fastened my 7'x16' "shelter" together using mostly flat U bolts for fasteners. I've assembled/disassembled it about 4 times. It takes me over an hour to put it together and a little less to take it apart, and a lot of that is lugging the wood around. But I can and do lug every piece around. And its sustained about 4 or 5 thousand miles of road travel, probably a lat farther than your goat sheds will go.

I use a DeWalt 20V max drill to drive the nuts on and off it's quick and painless. For areas where I have to put a regular bolt in but it's difficult to get to the other side I use T-nuts. Thats what is on the end of the bolts you see across the top.

 

[AchingBack]

For a small, collapsible goat shelter, my friend applied T-111 siding to the face of 2"x4"s. Each board had a screw eye at top and bottom, maybe even in the middle, I don't recall. I also don't remember exactly what he used to fasten the screw eyes together, maybe just strong rope. With the screw eyes adjacent to one another on each panel, connections can easily be made. I believe Rod's knock -down shelter was about 4'x8'. It wouldn't be hard to easily connect many panels this way. Sorry, I also don't recall the roofing he used, if any. I hope I was able to make this explanation clear.

 

[jclaudii]

I need something for some sheep In Another paddock so I'll keep an eye on this thread.b I'm thinking of pallets and a sheet metal roof.

 

[quicksandfarmer]

I need something for some sheep In Another paddock so I'll keep an eye on this thread.b I'm thinking of pallets and a sheet metal roof.

Sheet metal roof is the way to go, especially if you can get a heavy enough gauge that it only needs to be supported at the ends. The problem I have with pallets (or at least the ones I can get) is that every one is different, it's hard to build stuff with materials that aren't uniform. I figure a pallet is about $15 worth of wood and I'd rather keep my sanity and spend the fifteen bucks.

 

[quicksandfarmer]

Thanks everyone for the input so far, lots of good ideas.

I've made some sketches to try and show my current thinking.

This is what a typical shelter would look like:



I can get roof panels that are 3'x8', which pretty much drives all of the dimensions. The roof is four panels so the footprint is 12'x8'. The front wall is 6' high and the rear wall is 4'. The panels I can get are b-deck, which can span 8', so they are only attached to the front and rear walls and the front and rear walls take the entire load of the roof. The panels will be attached with screws.

The front wall is two panels, each roughly 6' high and 6' wide:


They are framed with 2x4's, the sheathing is probably t-11 plywood or something similar, or might be metal.

The rear wall is similar construction, only 4' high:


The sides are two panels, roughly 4' wide and sloping to match the roof:

Since the sides hold no weight the framing is not as substantial as the front and rear. Note that the sheathing on the side panels overlaps by 4" to cover the corner. Note also that there is only one panel on the side with an entrance. There is no door.

Above and below each panel is a full-length 2x4 to tie it all together.

The bottom one is pressure treated and at the corners they overlap the wall sections to tie them together.

The panels will all be made in the barn, the framing pieces will be joined with ring-shank framing nails and the sheathing will be put on with siding nails. The question is how to join it all together for the final assembly. The first one I did I just put a whole lot of 3" deck screws in, that worked OK and is reasonably quick. I'd also appreciate any input on the sturdiness and economy of construction.

I also have a question about how to frame the front and back. This is how I have it drawn up:


But it doesn't look quite right to me. I want the top of the wall to be sloped so that the roofing bears on the entire width of the 2x4. It seems my choices are to either angle the studs or cut the top piece with a bevel on a table saw. Thoughts?

Thanks.