Shed Loft, Part 1

This week we start talking about the loft that we installed in our shed. We had a 16x20 shed installed at the beginning of the season. We had always planned on having a loft in the shed, but the company that we got the shed from wouldn't install one. So, we did it ourselves.

 This will be a floating loft; meaning that none of the load from the loft is being carried by the actual walls of the shed. This was done so the walls don't get overloaded in bad winters with large snow loads. In this part, we install the back portion of the loft.  This back portion will eventually be completely walled off so we can store things that we don’t want animals getting into.  The joists are 2x8s which is sufficient for the loading and spans that we are covering after doing the calculations.  The the American Wood Council's webpage for more information: 

https://awc.org/publications/tutorial-for-understanding-loads-and-using-span-tables/