Growing our own.

Well reader this is starting to become a bit of a habit. A third post this year and it's not even October yet. As I vaguely hinted at in the shed blog (What do you mean you haven't read it? You must find time to immerse yourself in its visual symphony and marvel at my DIY and photoblog coding skills) This is a mini follow up to include the greenhouse build and garden vegetable patch makeover.

Much of this resulted from having a sizable pile of bricks left over from knocking the front part of the old shed down and spotting a second hand 'proper' greenhouse in the local online ad listings. A spot of expert haggling reduced the price of the greenhouse from £70 to £50. It came with some deck boards as a makeshift base(they were roughly cut and it was just placed on them in the garden where we dismantled and fetched it from) I think there were 13 boards and 3 or 4 lengths of studding, as luck would have it I saved the picture from the original ad listing...old bloggers habit see. It also included some rather nifty shelving units and a selection of plant pots. In the past I've had several plastic/poly bag 'greenhouses'  none of which has lasted more than a season or two.

The vegetable patch is what used to be our lawn, our garden slopes down away from the house and over the years we have altered it so it consists of three flat(ish) levels, patio at the top, lawn/veg patch in the middle and my shed area at the bottom. Connecting them is a ramp down the side, originally for bikes and the like and a couple of steps down on to the lawn. Much groundwork, walls, gates and fence building has gone on at various junctures over the last 26 years or so mostly aimed at keeping kids and/or wammals contained in suitable areas.
Now here's a top tip, when purchasing garden buildings pay particular attention to their size, otherwise you could be tempted to think a 6'x6' greenhouse doesn't take up that much more room than a 6'x4'...After laying out the 6'x6' square greenhouse base on the lawn I concluded that a raised deck protruding say umm 2ftish  beyond the boundary wall of said lawn would craftily obfuscate any slight *cough* errors in judgement. When space is at a premium 12sq ft can grow a lot of beans.

Getting Started Click thumbnails to enlarge...

Once I'd tidied up the garden enough to start I knocked up the frame and steps for the deck using reclaimed and left over joists from the shed build, the decking itself is entirely what came with the greenhouse. I left a quarter of the interior un-boarded for directly planting in to and used the square footage I saved from that to do the front and the steps.

Bricks & Mortar Click thumbnails to enlarge...

 With the pile of bricks cleaned off a bit I put 3 courses on top of the lawn retaining walls and added a little dwarf wall down the side of the greenhouse. We leveled the old veg patch/lawn off properly and added fresh compost from the two full compost bins I'd had brewing for about the last 3 years. I rebuilt the picket fence and added a hole digging dog thwarter gate for easy access from the greenhouse side.

If you have stumbled into this page interested in the horticulturing aspect of greenhouses I can't really provide much other than these pics of what we have grown over the last few months.

Fruits Of Labour Click thumbnails to enlarge...

 We have beans...lots of them, we did start weighing them as we were using them, but lost count after a few weeks and upwards of 25lb's worth. The cucumbers have done very well, I guess about 2 dozen so far off 7 plants grown from a poundshop grow your own seed kit containing a little propogator and a cupful of compost. The wife has just pickled the first few beetroot and there are radishes, sprouts, a few sacrificial lettuce (we hoped they might safisfy a few creepy crawlies and birds..) plus a paltry 2 carrots (..they didn't). 3 out of about 15 peppers did start to come but got bullied by the cucumbers and tomatoes while I wasn't looking and we failed on peas, spring onions and flowers completely. I did however use the first ripened tomato in a cheese and tom sandwich yesterday.

Vauxhall Zafira B 2.2 16v Direct. Timing chain and water pump problems

I've just replaced the timing chains and water pump on my 2005 Vauxhall Zafira B 2.2  16v direct. I was very dubious about attempting this on account of not being fully sure of my own diagnosis and the sharp intakes of breath from local mechanics and refusals to even attempt it.  Main dealer obviously out of the question as the last time I ventured in to one they decided to charge 35 quid labour to change a bulb, once bitten and all that..Online research seemed to indicate 4 figure bills for similar jobs. I am aware that failing timing chains and tensioners were a known issue and there were recalls however this engine has done 85k and is 11 years old.
 
Its not really worth me writing this haynesesque style but I thought I'd share a few things I found out as I couldn't find much specifically related to doing this on a Zafira. Firstly its a Z22YH ecotec engine the same as in the 2002 onwards Vauxhall Vectra,Signum and I believe Astra. Secondly it's as near as fk is to swearing the same basic engine that GM have been putting in all manner of jalopy worldwide since about 2000. As such instructional youtube  vids for most 2.0l and 2.2l  Vauxhall, Opel,  Pontiac,  Saab and even the odd Fiat and Alfa romeo will all be relevant and give general guidance if you aren't sure where the last bolt is that's still holding the damn water pump on. It also means that aftermarket parts are readily available and can be a lot cheaper if you do your homework, cross reference and search by part numbers.
  
Symptoms were rattle which has gradually been getting worse over the last few months, coming from the timing chain side, I was also getting occasional misfire under load at higher revs  and consequently the engine emmisions fault light coming on every time it did.(Note a) Initially I replaced the usual service part suspects so spark plugs, air filter had been ruled out over the previous few weeks and oil and filter change was within the last 3 thousand miles. Eventually it got a little quieter and began overheating. At this point it was blowing water from the expansion/filler tank limiting journeys to 10 minutes or less. I suspected at this point that the rattle had been the water pump failing, possibly the impellor blades as there was no visible water leak from the casting itself. I could tell that no water was being pumped around the engine at all by feeling the radiator which remained cold versus the rest of the hoses which quickly got up to pressure cap releasing hot

As the water pump is driven off the timing chain, or more accurately the balance timing chain and the engine is notorious for chain tensioner issues I knew replacing just one part was probably not going to be an ideal solution. I could have forked out fifty odd quid for the timing locking tools and just tried replacing the pump (glad I didn't) but instead opted to buy the kits needed for both timing chains, a new water pump plus oil, filter etc so I could change everything. The parts cost about £250 from various motor factors on ebay. Both timing kits were aftermarket incidentally, FAI branded TCK3 and TCK5, they contain everything you need, chains sprockets seal gasket tensioners guides and bolts where nececessary
 The better how to videos I found show the engine out (Note b) but I completed this without any real difficulty with the car parked on the road in front of my house.

All covers off

View from under wheelarch with splashguards removed

 On a Zafira the job requires removing the front wheel and the front half of the splash guards under the offside wheelarch and the covers between the bonnet and the windscreen/bulkhead. This looks like a bigger job than it is (4 bolts and few clips for cable routing and windscreen washer tubes) This gives much improved and necessary access to the back of the engine. You need to fetch the air filter housing and airflow meter off and the left hand engine mount  so you can get to the timing chain cover. You need to take the exhaust manifold off to get to the water pump and thermostat housing. If you undo the thermostat housing block complete it will move back far enough to swing the water pump cover and rigid pipe out of the way, without having to disconnect any hoses or even unplug the temperature sensor.


Once I'd got the timing chain cover off I was not expecting to see what I did. The balance shafts and water pump drivetrain was worn to the point where there were no teeth at all on the exhaust balance shaft sprocket or the crankshaft sprocket so the chain would have just been hanging loose and largely stationary around what was left of a spinning crankshaft sprocket.

No teeth left..

Tension was non existent as the chain had gained enough slack to fully extend the tensioner and then some, the guides had deep worn in grooves and an inch or so was broken off the end of one entirely.  The water pump sprocket and inlet balance shaft sprocket were badly worn. Bear in mind I had been running this engine (albeit very gingerly and under 3000rpm for short periods) for probably 50 or more miles in its final overheating and therefore non spinning waterpump or balance shaft state.

All the old parts

The camshaft chain and sprockets were still intact although very obviously worn (put up against the new chain it had stretched a good link and a half).

 The only thing you can't do with the engine in the car is pull the balance shafts out completely, they only come out as far as the steel box section in the engine bay even with the engine dropped as far as it will go onto the front subframe.

View from the top with air filter box and engine mount removed

This was enough for me to be able to get a fairly hefty pipe wrench on what was left of the gears to hold them while I undid the bolts. Tightening the new ones to the correct torque requires a bit of care so as not to damage anything, I stopped the whole drivetrain moving using a spanner as a sort of t-bar between 2 of the 3 bolts holding the water pump sprocket on, but there are probably several other equally or more effective ways to do it.
    
There is absolutely no need for any timing tools if you replace everything.  Before you take the old camchain off turn the crankshaft so the keyway in it is pointing up(tdc), the exhaust cam timing mark is pointing at about 10 or 11 oclock and the inlet cam mark is about 1 or 2 oclock. The keyways in the camshafts, balance shafts and the marks on the new chains and sprockets are then self explanatory, I'm not saying it would be impossible to go wrong but if you're confident enough to be thinking about attempting this I'd say its highly unlikely. In any case you will spin the thing over a couple of times by hand to make sure there are no nasty surprises once the new chains are on.

Note a
 If you are wondering  (which you might very well be if you are reading this) the fuel pump and fuel pressure regulator problems that are fairly well documented don't show these symptoms, the engine will literally just cut out randomly with the spanner light on rather than misfire. When that started happening to me a couple of years ago it was the fuel pressure regulator sticking.
 
Note b
A well worded Youtube search will give loads of results but I found this one particularly helpful for the chains and this one for the water pump.

The Shed Renewal Project

So reader, I apologize in advance as this is quite a departure from my more usual style of writing. At the end of the day this is just an account of how I built a shed. There are a lot of pictures that go with this blog which is very long.  If you are one of those Do It Yourself, shed or dare I say it man cave types you might find some of this mildly interesting...or not.

For about the last six or seven years a fair amount of procrastination has taken place directed mainly at leaks in the original shed roof. It got to the point where I had an old bed frame acting as a prop in the middle and the water was running in pretty much everywhere. I had bits of wood blocking up the roof sheets to allow run off as the beams had decayed and sagged, windows were cracked and the doors had begun to rot away (seriously there was about 6 inches missing from the bottom of the door rails). All down the one side of it the garden fence had seen better days allowing what could be described as next door's jungle to start encroaching vine like from the eaves.

THE OLD SHED Click thumbnails to enlarge...

I originally built it from concrete block about 4 foot high topped with a wooden framework and feather edge cladding. Initially it was about 11ft square but after about 5 years I added a 6ft overhang on the front carport style so I could park my motorbike and soon after roughly bricked and cladded that in as well so the shed became sort of 2 parts. The roof sheets were reclaimed from an old factory sort of concrete fibre (heavy) corrugated things, we used to refer to them as corrugated asbestos sheets but I don't think they actually were...health and safety and all that.  It wasn't the prettiest of sheds but it did for the most part serve its purpose, although right from the start plastic sheets and covers had to be used to protect its contents from the odd leak in the roof.

In hindsight the roof never really had enough of a slope on it, I'd read somewhere that flat roofs required x amount of vertical drop per x amount of distance, and worked to the minimum requirements...this was pre- internet of course so probably a readers digest how to diy or possibly even a 1990's diy centre project leaflet. Anyway I realized soon after I'd built it that overlapping corrugated sheet soon suffers from run back, the slightest bit of debris or moss settles in the valleys and creates enough of an obstruction for water to pool, run back through the overlap and start dripping in the shed. The roof beams themselves were probably way too light as well, the original frame and roof beams were 2x2 with a couple of 3x2's running front to back across the middle.  Ok for lightweight ply and shed felt....not so clever when trying to hold up the sheets I had blagged.
I'm not sure exactly when I first built it although I do know it was October/ November time 20 odd years ago. It's a slabbed base inside a simple concrete strip footing for the single skin concrete breeze block walls. I had two old house front doors on the front and old metal window frames retrieved from a skip outside a local window and door fitting company. I was (and still am) on an extremely tight budget so what I can get free or cheaply by using reclaimed materials dictates design on projects like this. I'm certainly no eco warrior just ummmm frugal.

While procrastinating I've been on the look out for replacement roof sheets and other materials. I thought I might get away with replacing the two main beams and putting a plywood and felt flat roof on. When I started investigating further I realised that there was a lot more rotten timber than I  initially  thought. The base rails (wallplates) were rotten and so were several critical looking areas of the big reclaimed summer beams and floor joists which provided  much of the structural integrity for the extra 6ft cobbled on to the front. Even the feather edge cladding had begun to warp and crack leaving the gaps and holes in various places

I decided to redesign the whole thing just leaving the original 11ft square concrete block walls standing and replacing the added on front part with matching blockwork. The way I'd originally added the extension bit on the front meant that I'd had to brick around the front two timber support pillars, in short all rather uncouth.

I started looking 'seriously' for materials about 12 months ago. Doors and windows being first on the list.As daft as it sounds its pretty easy to get good quality second hand doors and windows to work out cheaper per square yard than timber cladding, or even perpex sheet, so the more window area you can do this way the more you can cut costs. Ebay eventually provided the necessary hardwood reclaimed doors for 99p each, both with working locks, handles and keys. Next came the windows, i was probably luckier than I should have ever been with these  but after a few failed bids and a couple of months of searching I managed to get all the windows in a job lot for the princely sum of £12.50. They are double glazed rosewood pvc.

Once I had got the doors and windows I began planning and costing the rest of the build in earnest. The 4x2 for the framework I got reclaimed for £70, again ebay and again probably a lot less than what I could have paid. I took a bit of a gamble with this as the description was a bit vague. From the pictures  I worked out what I was getting would make a big dent in the rough list of materials I needed, turns out that with careful planning and cutting  I had just enough 4x2 Well worth the extra few hours de-nailing and squaring up for about 1/4 of the cost of buying new ad there was a few lengths of 'free' 3x2 with it as well...You can never have too much timber to hand when building something like this.

I needed ply or osb sheets for the roof and felt,  I wanted to build a pitched roof rather than pent or flat as per the old shed,I think it looks nicer and deck sheets and beams for a 12 ft span pent roof need to be pretty hefty(read costly). I did have some old floor joists lying around which were part of the earlier plan to replace and strengthen the old beams but finding someone selling pallets of offcut 1/2" osb for £40, enough to do an entire pitched roof more than twice over, tipped the balance.

Materials.. Click thumbnails to enlarge...

For several months a lot of the materials I'd been accumulating were stored in our dining room, I have a very understanding wife and family who have become used to various areas of the house being taken over with assorted building supplies.
   
When it came to actually planning and designing the structure itself I made sure that things sort of matched up, for instance having 4ft wide osb roof sheets meant that the centre lines of the roof trusses would be 4 ft apart, the height of 45 inches for the uprights was dictated purely by the fact that some of the reclaimed 4x2 was just over 90inches long, add 2 inch to the bottom for the base rails and as if by magic we are an inch shy of the four foot I envisaged the timber sides would be so the windows would fit in. I wanted the roof to start roughly at the same height as the front of the old shed roof, so when I was searching for windows getting some between 3 and 4 feet high was the aim.  Similar story for the pitch of the roof and the overall height all dictated by the timber I had available, the uprights in the roof are 30inches high...some of which are offcuts from the trusses.After doing a lot of measuring and a few rough sketches I settled on the drawings here. I drew these roughly to scale so proportionately I could see if things looked right

Drawings... ..sort of.. Click thumbnails to enlarge

 I used a notebook with all the sizes of timber in it and several 'working' copies of the drawings.I did several 'stocktakes' as the build progressed, I matched each piece to the drawings as I went along ticking off all the parts I had cut and scrubbing them from the stock list.  This all might sound a bit overkill but it helped a lot as I got further into the build, knowing exactly which piece I needed to cut for where. I tried to cut the timber in batches so there was less messing around setting the saw benches up. The only extra timber I needed to buy was some 2x2 reclaimed pallet timber to join the roof boards together and to  triangulate the sides behind the cladding, half a dozen 3x2 studs and a couple of packs of tanelised lath

Starting To Take It Down Click thumbnails to enlarge...

My plan was to start by taking down just the old front part of the shed and laying the new blockwork, that way much of the stuff it houses which I had nowhere else to put like my lathe and workbenches, not to mention the lights and electrical sockets in the original part of the shed remained sort of undercover and useable.Incidentally The British met office began naming storms about the same time as I embarked on this project..hmmm. Taking the front down was relatively straightforward, I had a fair amount of help from my youngest son and soon just a pile of bricks and rotten timber remained.

New Brickwork Click thumbnails to enlarge...

I had to re-do some parts of the concrete footings as the originals were not entirely in the right place where the old wall jutted out around the holes for the old wooden front pillars and then build up the new blockwork tying it in with the back half of the shed. 1 pack of 72 medium density concrete blocks plus the sand, cement and ballast I needed came to 100 quid delivered from the local builders merchants. Once that was all up I moved on to putting the basic framework in for the front and the door frame. The doorstep is actually part of one side rail from the old shed door and the door frame itself is some 4x2 with some rebates ripped in to it on the table saw. I put the front two roof trusses up at this point too so I could actually see how high the thing was going to be. I really didn't want it to be obtrusive or annoy the neighbours. It's right at the bottom of the garden and there is an eight foot fence to the one side anyway a six foot fence to the other side and at the back, plus a ridiculously high privet hedge so it's fairly well hidden, nevertheless I was a bit apprehensive as I stood back and looked at the first roof truss towering above me.

Front Framework Going Up Click thumbnails to enlarge...

 The entire thing is screwed together, every joint and board, In all I estimate about 35 quid has gone on fixings, shopping around is essential as the big diy stores seem to charge a hefty premium when it comes to screws and sundries.  My trusty drill and driver that has seen me through many diy projects finally chewed up its gearbox after the first few dozen 4 inch screws leaving me needing a replacement, que new stanley fatmax corded hammer drill and a lightweight bosch li ion battery drill to take care of the screwdriving. One thing I always try to do is use the right good quality tools for the job, I hate borrowing or lending tools out so whenever possible I allow myself the extravagance of adding to or replacing items in my tool collection.

Taking Down The Rest.. Click thumbnails to enlarge...

Once the first part of the front was up we started taking the rest of the roof and timber down behind it and relying on tarpaulins to cover everything up.

Main Framework Going Up Click thumbnails to enlarge...

 Putting up the basic framework was then a case of acting methodically and following the plans. It was fairly easy and went reasonably ok, one step at a time and with the odd extra support piece and brace where I deemed necessary to keep things nice and square and stable.Each upright was attached to the base rail with two 4" screws from underneath first then each piece of framework is fixed at several points to the top of the blockwork with 4" screws and plugs. I also treated the underside of the base rail with fence preserver. The top rails and crossbeams are pocket drilled where needed and then fixed directly to the uprights from the top.

Fitting Roof Trusses Click thumbnails to enlarge...

 The first picture immediately above shows a truss on the basic jig I made up so I could cut, drill and assemble the remaining triangular roof trusses  at floor level. I'd highly recommend doing it this way not only because its safer than monkeying up and down ladders with drills, saws, tapemeasures and the like but it ensured they were all the same height and angle and simply dropped straight on to the crossbeams.

Triangulating Stuff.. Click thumbnails to enlarge...

Once the basic structure was complete I started adding triangulation in the corners and between some of the uprights to make the whole thing more rigid. I also added some to the corners of the crossbeams.  
Paneling the roof was the next priority so I once again had somewhere reasonably sheltered to work and keep things. The roof trusses have a staggered lattice of 2x2 in between them so each roof sheet is fully supported and screwed down on all edges.  Frequent rain showers and power tools aren't the ideal combination and untreated osb is the last thing I wanted to get wet so tarpaulins got temporarily fixed down over the roof deck as it was being put up. Once it was all in place I covered it with the first layer of adhesive and felt as soon as the weather allowed.  The felt was bought when I could see a deal on at Wickes and in two transactions so I could use two separate money off  if you spend over a certain amount type tokens. All in all with the adhesives the felt for the roof cost £122 . I've used a 'proper' felt plus topsheet 2 layer combination  rather than just 'shed' felt, it's more work to lay but hopefully it will be more durable. All around the underneath edges or the roof deck where it overhangs I've put a strip of timber so the felt has somewhere a bit more substantial to fold over and fix to. The cheapest and best value 'new' timber we can get round here has always been cls studding, its the metric equivalent of 2.5x1.5 inch at around 2 quid for 8 foot.  I chopped some of this in half by running it through the saw table making it roughly 1.25inch square.

Boarding The Roof Click thumbnails to enlarge...

 I worked out how much cladding I needed and ordered an extra 10%ish on top to allow for cuts, I was more concerned about running out of this due to the type I wanted (tanelised barrelboard) not being readily available locally, and as there was also a minimum order quantity for delivery getting a few more lengths if I ran out would have been difficult.  You can get it in all manner of thicknesses and widths but I had 22mm x 100mm which was £1 per linear metre and seemed the best value for money. Nevertheless I still needed 250 quids worth and it was by far the most expensive single purchase I had to make. It came in 16 ft lengths and they did deliver a length or two extra to allow for any transit damage and defects. Fortunately defects were few and far between, I think I only lost about 3ft in total due to a patch of dodgy looking knot holes.

Windows Click thumbnails to enlarge...

While I was waiting for the cladding to arrive I put the glass units in the window frames and fitted the windows properly. There was a crack in one of them so I carefully separated the unit,cut a piece of glass from the old back window and used some silicon sealant to stick the unit back together. I doubt this method of repairing a double glazed unit would be any good for a house due to the problems you might get with it steaming up but for my shed it has worked fine, I'd certainly give it a go though if I was pushed before forking out for a new sealed unit or as a temporary measure rather than boarding a window up.

Cladding Going On Click thumbnails to enlarge...

I started fixing the cladding  from the bottom up, which seemed the more logical thing to do although it wouldn't have been impossible to go top down like it is with overlap or feather edge boards. It overlaps the brickwork by about an inch below the main framework. Cutting each piece to the right length and angle on the gable ends was time consuming. I set a marking square to the roof angle and then marked and cut each piece separately using the preceeding piece to give me the overall length. All of the angle cuts were done by hand or with a reciprocating saw because once set at an angle my chopsaw doesn't have the capacity to do it.

Front And Doors Click thumbnails to enlarge...

 By now I was well versed in carefully planning cutting to minimise waste, and I could probably have got away without the extra cladding I factored in. It did however allow me to rethink when I'd got most of the way around with the cladding  and it came to finishing the front. The two doors I had were similar but once the shed started to really take shape I decided it would be a shame to have mismatched doors. I figured having the left hand more 'fixed' door made of cladding would look better.  I also added a small hatch above it so I can store full 16ft lengths of timber in the roof space above the crossbeams, it allows me to slide stuff in through the first 4ft gap between the crossbeams rather than the second.  Some parliament hinges I've been hanging on to since they arrived attached to a door I got for our living room allows it to fully swing up out of the way. All the edges of the cladding around the windows,doors and the corners are trimmed with lath, it tidies everything up nicely and hopefully provides a bit of extra protection for the end grain of the cladding.

Finishing Bits Off Inside Click thumbnails to enlarge...

Once it was fairly complete outside (I have yet to put the topsheet felt on the roof as I'm waiting for a few warm dry summer days, whats on up to now is fully waterproof anyway.Edit: it's done now..12months later..)The last part of the 'original' front wall was taken out. Along the sides at the top I've added some paneling to take care of the gaps between the roof trusses and the roof deck and a couple of storage platforms in the roof space. I had a security camera and outside lights down there before so they have been refitted too, during the build I temporarily mounted them on the side fence for a bit of extra peace of mind.  The electrics run from their own breaker in the house consumer unit through another fused isolator where they exit into the garden via multi core armored cable which also carries the garden lighting circuit. I've re-used the sockets and strip lights from the old shed.  The floor has finally had its carpet tiles put down properly, I retrieved them from a skip following an office block refurb many years ago and they have been stacked in one of the drier corners of the shed ever since.

All Done For Now Click thumbnails to enlarge...

 Much tidying up and re organising has been the order of the day pretty much ever since I got past the point where I could turn the key and lock the doors again. There are still piles of wood and bricks in various corners of the garden although some of my timber stockpile has been used to build  a raised deck for my new (second hand) greenhouse,(hmm.. a blog for another day perhaps) the old plastic one was a casualty of the shed build having been left up to store materials. Some of the bricks will get re-used to raise the wall a course or two around our vegetable patch.

So there it is..rebuilt.  Time taken: for the major part about 4 months if you include an expedition hacking through the jungle and replacing the fence panels down the left hand side  Total cost: somewhere between £650 and £700