Mini excavator garage

My new mini excavator is due to arrive at Marseille Fos on either 3 or 4 March and will be available to be picked up from around 6 March. Now we have a few days of fine weather I therefore need to get cracking on building a garage for it so when it’s delivered to my house it doesn’t have to stand out in the open. As I mentioned previously, I intend to build a wooden framed structure covered in either plastic tarpaulin or wood of approximate dimensions shown below.

I purchased eleven 4m lengths of ‘demi-chevron’ wood (roughly 60mm x 40mm) from Leroy Merlin the other day from which to build the framework. Unfortunately it was stored in the open in their yard and it’s very wet which doesn’t make it any easier to work – quite the opposite. I’ve actually increased the height of the garage to just over 2.2 metres and it’s length to 2.7 metres which will give a bit more height clearance and a bit more length to cover the excavator’s boom when it has been lowered and this morning I measured and cut all of the components of the framework.

One left-over length of 1300mm and a few pieces of waste are on the left of the image.

The 1300mm length will be usable when I come to build my proposed new garden shed/workshop after the excavator has arrived and as shown below, the amount of real waste, the small pieces, is negligible.

I’ve put together one side frame but I’ve stopped work on it until tomorrow and left it on the ground in front of my house because with the wood being so wet the joints aren’t strong enough.

I’ve only screwed it together whereas I’d usually glue and screw framework like this. I intend to glue and screw it tomorrow and will also stiffen the structure even more by gluing and screwing thin plywood cover plates over the joints. I thought I still had some suitable plywood (about 3mm thick) but I don’t so will have to buy some tomorrow.