Had a new garage / laundry built, but...

H All

We have a had a replacement garage / laundry built to replace the old termite ridden POS that doubled as an indoor pool when it rained. (It wasn't very good). The brief was to build a replacement building in steel (termite country), with power and water to the laundry which will be lined and tiled, floor and walls. Assured that this was easy and wold pose no problem.

Bottom line, after 8 months we have the building up, and last week the laundry was finally lined in blueboard. Power, water and drainage are in place f or the tub, washer, plus a shower and extra toilet - all council approved. BUT, the builder, who put up the shed and did the steel framing and lining does not tape the board joins.

And here is the rub, getting a plasterer in, he refused to do the work, citing:

• excessive gaps everywhere, up to 40mm in places
• screw heads protruding
• insufficient screws, need to be max of 300mm apart
• insufficient framing, max of 450mm apart, there are spans up to 700
• the walls flex, and any tiling will crack and the grout fall out in short order.

This guy recommended the tradie doing the work try again and get it up to standard, or, he would do it, for a fee of course. The kicker is the wall flex was a deal breaker and needed to be addressed. Seems I was sold a steel shed that is supposed to move all over the place, and no one in their right mind would consider tiling it! Apart from me, who was very clear about this from day 1 to the dealer.

Apart from running about going 'boo-hoo', I need to engineer a solution, to add structural stiffness to this pretty, but wobbly lump of steel.

Sooooo, it seems there are few upright members, apart from 4 frames spanning over the pitched roof. The ends have NO uprights (mullions? I'll call em that), just 3 girts the sheeting is tek screwed into.

My question is - will adding mullions help stiffen the structure. I can see them being bolted into the slab and top purlin(?) top metal frame, with the girts being screwed into them. Then add 22mm vertical frames to screw the boards to.

Any advice? Good idea? Bad? Buy some bricks?

cheers

Andy


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