When building a shed, do you shell out the cash for a prefab, or do you build it yourself? What about that garage you’ve always wanted?
On this edition of Talk of Iowa, host Charity Nebbe talks with home improvement expert Bill McAnally about best practices for building a shed or garage.
McAnally says that step one is to figure out the boundaries of the property to avoid accidentally building on a neighbor's property.
Step two - decide what the garage will be used for, "because if you're going to heat and cool it and if you put plumbing into it, well then you're looking at footings [...] and your city or county may have specific requirements on the footings," he says.
And, though sheds are usually exempt from property tax if they're built on skids, McAnally recommends building the shed or garage on concrete.
"What're the odds that you're going to move it anyway? I would say though, if you're going to put a concrete floor underneath even a little shed, I still would put at least one inch of foam underneath it - extruded foam, which is the bluer, green, or pink high density foam," he says. "It'll keep the slab from having that condensation on it in the spring, so when it starts to warm up and the ground is still cold [...] it'll be dry if you keep foam underneath."
