I am thinking of getting a hydrotherapy pool to ease the pain in my body and encourage swingers to pop round in the evenings. I will need to build a shed summer house to put this in. There will also be a small sauna in it.

I want it to be light and airy and possible to open up to the garden in the summer while also possible to close it up to keep warm in the winter.

I have been playing with Sketchup to produce a basic design. The shed will be bolted to the back of the garage but the floor level will be lower. There will be a door from the garage into the shed with a level to allow easy access to the pool and then steps down to normal floor level.

The bit I am not sure about is the rolling walls that allow one corner of the shed to disappear. Please rate the design and make any suggestions about how it might be achieved and/or improved.

Please don’t get too hung up on the thickness of the walls or the funny bit sticking out the roof, those are because I am new to Sketchup.

Looks OK to me from a concept point of view.

Is the roof flat? Would you end up with condensation on the inside that would drip on you? Or would there be some kind of extraction? Perhaps a shallow slope would allow the condensation (it there was any) to track across to the lowest point, where it can be dealt with, rather than drip on you?

Do you have an idea of what doors you will use in the open corner? And how the roofline there will be supported? I suspect the lack of support is due to your ‘new to sketchup’ comment, rather than an intention to have it appear unsupported?

Do you need all three windows? Could you have a window on each side and some kind of skylight in the ceiling to make it feel more airy? Might be expensive and require a more substantial roof though?

I guess you’d need to consider insulation/extraction/damp etc. but should be do-able.

Is the roof flat?

You can see a taper on the LHS, looks like there’s a gentle slope towards the front. Have you accounted for running guttering along there?

Presumably you’re going to put some sort of blind / curtain over the windows for hot tub sexytimes privacy?

There is a slight slop down from the garage to the the edge of the shed.

There will be a vent at the top of the ceiling where it butts onto the garage wall to deal with steam gathering there.

The location is secluded and not overlooked so sexy time is fine This is a hydrotherapy pool to ease the pain in my ankle.

The ‘apparently’ unsupported corner will actually have a couple of beams supporting it, one from the garage backwards and one across the whole of the back of the shed. The side door panel will be 1.8m and the back panel will be 2m so it is not a massive unsupported span.

Not sure about the doors. I was planning on making them out of 2×4 with shiplap cladding and insulation in between. I was thinking of some kind of countersunk wheel in the bottom of the door and a guided runner at the top to keep them running straight. This is the bit I am least sure of and would like other peoples thoughts.

I like lots of windows rather than a roof window. The sun during the day is from the side with the opening doors but in the evening it is from the sauna side.

such a shallow fall on the roof limits your choice of roof coverings. At that low angle you’re still pretty much in flat roof materials territory. Most tiles and slates arent able to be pitched so slightly.

Need Mirrored cieling, peepholes and a few glory holes

Agree about the pitch of the roof. I need to do some accurate measuring to see if I can get a 15 degree drop. It is shown as tiled as that was the first fill effect I could find for a roof.

Any recommendations if I do have to go the flat roof route. I assume I can still mount the flat roof at a slight angle.

Yes, flat roof at slight angle, with a rubber membrane such as the firestone stuff would be fine.

Need Mirrored cieling, peepholes and a few glory holes

Cloudnine’s entire experience of hot tubs is clearly from the ‘specialist’ internet sites. 🙂

Needs Unicorns

Why do the steps set back from the edge of the tub? wouldnt that make a little cubby hole that would get puddles of water etc in?
if you pull them forward you eliminate this and get more of a side deck against the pool edge.
Also, what is holding up the corner of the roof at the open bit? can be done but $$.

That’ll be £50. thanks.

Why the big bucks for a floating corner?
There will be a big break coming out from the garage and join one across the back of the shed to support the roof. How heavy is a flat roof going to be?

Given your history make sure you have a hand rail and the steps are wide enough to avoid accidents on wet steps while naked!

Nick

The floating corner will need the beams to cantilever in 2 directions. These will deflect at the end so the corner will droop, and the effect of the floating corner will make this look worse than it should. The backspan of the cantilever should be twice as long as the cantilever end as a general rule, so bear this in mind. To get past building control you may need to activate the self weight of the wall under the backspan of the beam with strapping down the walls further than you normally would. Bear in mind the deflection when choosing the sliding/rolling doors as they will need to allow for this in the head detail and if sliding will need to be bottom supported rather than top hung.

Is it big enough for post Thursday night ride beers?

(edited poor spelling!)

How heavy is a flat roof going to be?

Quite heavy when it has 18″ of snow/ice on it!

Couldn’t you just have the whole of the front open and put some bi-fold doors in?

TimP – I think I understand. I was planning on floor rollers rather than hanging the doors but you reckon a post on the corner would be best.

I looked at Bi-fold doors but looked away again when it was £2K for the 3.6 metere side section and £POA for the 5m long side.

The rolling panels are something I could probably knock up so would be significantly cheaper. i might look again though

I’d just like to say that the above advice on the floating corners is spot on – you really want to avoid this if at all possible.

Floating corner is no longer part of the design. It is advice like this I come to STW for.

Watch out for my next design ideas. Feel free to post sufferings. 5*3.6m is as big as it gets.

You can get those car port things, that cantilever of the side of a house without any support can’t you? Could that form your roof, with whatever box you fancy underneath? So you effectively have a separate roof and room?

Edit-like this kind of thing…

A small post would be best (you could probably get away with a steel post 50mm dia), but the above is not to say you cant cantilever, you just need to think about it!

Why not move everything to the front wall. You could then have a large opening/sliding window that’s level with the top of the hot-tub. You would then feel like you are sat outside rather than in a shed looking out.

And do you need a door into the garage? At what point will you step out of the hot-tub or sauna and pop in there!? If you did away with the garage entrance you could have a bigger sauna.

Cantilever probably isn’t worth the bother

Garage may also act as a changing room/drying room.

Sauna is big enough for two benches.

A three door and a five door folding system comes in at just under £1k but there are then the door costs on top. I might go for bifold on the short side and a sliding door on the long side with a post at the end to support the corner.

Attach a rope to the corner, run it up over the house roof, then simply lift up your house at the front corner and pop the loose end of the rope underneath to secure it.

(I Am Not An Architect.)

Your roof section will need to be much deeper, even without the cantilever, best to double check if you can achieve the floor levels that you want.

A nice feature I was planning to use on a shed build ( stolen from some long forgotten tv show) was to use some scaffolding poles for supports with wood cladding that would double up as the drainage downpipe. Perhaps you could incorporate this in to your support for the cantilever/overhang, To keep the lines nice a clean.

Speak to Matt at Stable Structures near us, has been great at turning several of my crap sketches into realities and okay prices too – will give details on Monday

Calling my sketches crap?!?!?!?

See you Monday 🙂