The hen house has been long in the planning.... Rather than buy a new house we decided to build our own so we get exactly what we want. It will basically be 4.8m long and 2.4m wide with a covered veranda, again 2.4m wide, and will link into the fenced-off orchard.
The first challenge was the slope of the land where the house is going. Like the rest of the garden it gets very wet during the winter and so the floor has to be raised.
There is about 0.35m slope over the length of the house which might not sound much but would require a retaining wall around 0.5m high at one end if the floor is to be level.
We looked at options including railway sleepers and blockwork walls, however, in addition to the expense, it was the volume of fill that would be required that made this a bit more of a challenge than we wanted to take on.
The decision was therefore made to live with a sloping floor, although the roof would be kept horizontal. The frame of the house is to be built off railway sleepers on edge to raise the floor around 0.2m above the surrounding ground. This will still take some filling....
The plan was to start construction over Xmas and New Year and I took the first week in January off to get stuck in.
All the timber:
- 10 No. reclaimed railway sleepers
- 9 No. 100x100 fence posts
- 52.8m of 50x100 studding
- 124.8m of 50x50 framing; and
- 302.4m shiplap cladding
was ordered from LBS in Pembroke Dock and delivered just before Xmas.
The first task was to provide a base for the sleepers to ensure they would be level. The four corners were set out as accurately as possible (checking the diagonals to ensure it was square...) and then the top soil was dug out.
As a bit of overkill the bottom of the trench was lined with geofabric before being filled with 20mm limestone chippings (we use tonnes of this for paths, drains etc. and always have stockpile), tamped down and levelled off.Next task sleepers!
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