This is my experience in buying and building an American style Barn/Shed.
I reviewed the market for American Barns I found that for the type of shed I was after that Shed Bonanza offered the best value for money. The Shed I bought was a 12 by 12 meter colorbond Barn with 3 meter high side walls, a mezzanine loft and an overall height of 5.4 meters. The Shed frame was made from C, Z and top hat steel sections.
Shed Bonanza offered an Owner Builder process of having the shed built. Essentially you buy the shed as a kit from Shed Bonanza, you obtain an Owner Builder certificate of Consent from the Victorian Building Practitioners Board and you directly contract their installer to erect the shed. Engineering drawings where supplied as part of the kit price; however a Building Permit was supplied at additional cost. The Building Permit was supplied by the third party recommended by Shed Bonanza. The company that supplied the Building permit was a Building Surveying company located in Berwick. Although I choose to use their preferred Building Surveyor any registered Building Survey can be used. My belief in choosing to use their preferred Building Surveyor was that their relationship with Shed Bonanza would be beneficial. This proved to be far from reality. The Victorian Government Consumer Affairs web site recommends that people choose their own building surveyor and in hindsight this is good advice to follow.
After placing my order and paying my deposit I received the Building Permit (i.e. the paper work) from the Building Surveyor. The paper work was extremely poor. It consisted of photo copied extracts with pen amended notes. It was so poor that I bought the paper work into to show some of my colleges (I work as an engineer).
After I paid for the shed in full it was delivered on time as agreed. The installer a guy called Marty showed up as agreed and commenced erecting the shed. The fabrication of the shed went relatively without any issues. The Installer was fantastic. He comes highly recommended. He did a fanatics job.
The final step in the process was to finish off the loft area. The shed came with the structural steel beams to support the loft floor but did not come with the flooring, guardrail or access stairs. Installing the flooring was a simple job of screwing yellow tongue to the supports. The guardrail and stairs where a bit more complex. I used tubular steel to weld up the guardrails and timber to build the stairs. The guardrail and stairs were built to the Australian Standard (AS-1657) "Fixed Platforms, Walkways Stairways and Ladders". AS-1657 was called up in the engineering drawings supplied by Shed Bonanza and is referred to in the Building Permit. It is also called up in the Building Code of Australia.
Up to the final inspection everything seemed to go relatively smoothly and to plan. I had generally over engineered the shed. My footings were twice as large as they needed to be and my slab was thicker and stronger than called for in the Engineering Drawings. My general philosophy in building the shed was if it is only going to cost a bit extra I would go for the up specified standard. For example high grade steel in the slab was an addition $100.
The final inspection proved to be a nightmare. The inspector sent out by the Building Surveyor had no idea about AS-1657, and I suspect from his un-wiliness to read the Building Permit that he was also illiterate. He failed the inspection based on the guardrail height being less than that stated in the Building Code of Australia. Note there is a difference in guardrail height between the Building Code of Australia and AS-1657. I pointed out to him that the Building Code of Australia refers out to that AS-1657 for sheds. He had no knowledge of AS-1657. When I disputed his claims with the Building Surveyor I discovered the meaning of poor customer service and pure ignorance. I pointed out to him that not only does the Building Code of Australia refer to AS-1657 but the Building permit he issued refers to AS-1657. In dealing with the company, I was forever told that they would get back to me and fed a whole stack of lame excuses. Such as AS-1657 is only meant for ladders. Yes that is why Australian Standards have gone to the trouble of calling it "Fixed Platforms, Walkways, Stairways and Ladders" because they only meant it to be used for Ladders. My dealing with the Building Surveyor was extremely stressful and painful. There was no recourse in dealing with this firm.
In summary I am extremely happy with the product supplied by Shed Bonanza. The shed installer comes highly recommend; however the stress associated with dealing with the Building Surveyor is something that I would avoid. I recommend that if you do buy a shed from Shed Bonanza that you put in the effort to choose your own Building Surveyor. Do not go with their preferred Building Surveyor. I would go as far as recommending that you use the buil read more
