There’s nothing like a hurricane to remind you that your beautiful shed isn’t actually attached to anything. With winds expected to reach 85mph, Fred and I decided it was in our best interest to better secure the shed. You may recall that we poured the concrete pad for the shed, and we even shared a quick video showing how the shed was delivered. The last step was to make sure the shed never moved again (unless of course we wanted it to).
Imagine my local Home Depot the day before a class II hurricane arrived. It was chaos. The generators had sold out long ago, and even the display models were gone. People were grabbing plywood like it was the winning lotto ticket. Somewhere a child was crying, and people ran naked in the streets. Ok not that last part. I was in no rush so it was kinda amusing watching people scurry about. It’s obvious that most Marylanders have no idea how to handle a major natural disaster.
I calmly purchased a box of concrete anchors, washers and four T-shaped ties you might see on a deck. My plan was to put one anchor in the shed 4×4 and two in the concrete pad.
For this project a hammer drill, masonry drill bit, impact driver and an impact rated socket are necessities.
The concrete we used to pour the slab was Quikrete Crack Resistant mix. This is a structural concrete (4000 psi) with synthetic fibers for additional strength. For that reason, drilling into the concrete and driving the anchors was no easy task. I actually had to ream the hole a little larger because the impact driver wasn’t up to the task.
In the end, the job was done and I felt sure the shed wouldn’t get blown away. Irene lost a lot of strength before she reached us, and there wasn’t too much damage in our area. I don’t think the winds were strong enough to move the shed, but at least we’re prepared for the next hurricane.
Did the hurricane remind you of a project you’d been putting off? How do you prepare for a hurricane?
Well, since I live in Iowa, hurricanes aren’t things we worry about! 😉
My husband has been known to moves the vehicles closer to our house and cover the windshields with cardboard and blankets in anticipation of high winds and hail.
Glad to hear your new shed (and the rest of your property) made it through Irene safely.
We got the joy of securing the beach house in NC that we evacuated just in time to get home to MD and prepare for the hurricane up there. We brought in trash cans, deck furniture, swings, and cut off the main power at the beach house, which was a little shaky from the earthquake already!
At home we filled up a lot of bottles with water and packed the fridge full of ice. I even tied a rope around it to remind ourselves not to open it. We parked our two small cars in between two bigger cars, you know, just in case. Thankfully, we got off with just a hole in the soffit, some missing insulation, and a small downed tree that didn’t hit anything. We lost power for a few days. Let me just say I sure am glad we have gas heat. How else could you cook a frozen pizza on the stove top during a hurricane?
Always good to think ahead. We basically just brought everything inside and got some water in gallon jugs in the fridge and freezer to build up the cold mass. Only damage was to a fence that needs to be replaced anyways, post was rotting and it snapped off at ground level, blew a panel over and destroyed the gate that was attached to it.
I’m up in Massachusetts and predictions where that we were going to get somewhere between 3-8 inches of rain. On my own house I just had to move everything indoors off the porch.
I’ve been taking as much time as I can over the last two years with a long commute and a full time photography/desk job to build living space for my mom in my sister’s basement. And the yard behind the walkout basement collects quite a bit of water… so sandbagging was in order there.
The development I live in has a big common house with one good sized industrial vent hood fan on the roof. This was not installed properly. The only thing holding it in place was two 2″ lag screws which were only into the 2×2 blocking by about 1/2″ each due to the housing being larger than the vent stack. In addition the housing motor cover was missing all 4 screws. So steady winds predicted as high as 60MPH I figured I should probably do something about this.
So me and a friend cut some spacers to screw and glue to the existing blocking so I could put all 8 lag screws in. Then once that housing was back in place I put the cover back on and replaced the missing screws.
On the up side for us here in Massachusetts we made it out of the storm relatively unscathed. And no flooding or damage occurred here.
Thoughts and well wishes go out to those in harder hit areas though.
Would hate to see that nice shed knocked down. Good thinking hope you guys don’t see any more Hurricanes anytime soon.
“I actually had to ream the hole a little larger because the impact driver wasn’t up to the task.”
I have the Dewalt version of that impact and it twists Tapcons right off if I’m not careful. I’m surprised the PC didn’t have enough mustard. I found that putting it into reverse first with a used tapcon of the same size reamed the hole well enough that I could get a new screw in without breaking it off.
I switched over to a Ridgid (review pending) and that’s exactly what happened. I’m growing a bit disappointed with the PC 18v line. It may be the batteries- I don’t know. Expect something about it in the future.
How many anchors did you put in?
We did four anchors. These ties aren’t going to prevent the shed from coming loose in a tornado. Though I hope they hold for everything short of that.