Can you legally turn a commercial shed into a house?

[Fat Charlie]

My 78 year old dad doesn't chip in with anything but conversation. But he grew up in the 50s. I was raised by him, but I'm actually conservative. I love DIY, and I firmly believe that if you love eating you have to have an understanding of cooking or you're just a passive victim of whoever presents you with your food.

Since I'm a caveman of a different generation, it's easy to accept his caveman-ness as being just a different iteration of mine. We love each other and tolerate each other. Really, that's the best you can hope for in today's world: I love my dad and disagree with him on most things, but see where he is coming from. He still manages to be a fan of us, thinks my wife and our kids are awesome, and we get along. I'm taking what he taught me and am applying it the best I can, even though I know it's nowhere near the way he would. But I'm not him, my kids aren't me, and we're all doing the best we can. The problems I'm facing aren't what he had to face, and the problems my kids are facing aren't what I had to face. I'm facing my problems with the tools my parents gave me, and I'm trying to equip my kids with the tools they need to face God knows what. I hope they don't face their problems the way I would, because I'm a stick in the mud. I grew up in the Cold War, I'm not who anyone should look to for advice in a world of climate change, domestic terrorism and pandemic.

Give me what I think of as a simple problem, and I'm all over it. With today's problems, I'll apply what I know because it's what I know, but my tools aren't the right tools to solve them. I expect that the best ideas are going to come from people younger than me.

It's really sad. We've only missed one Thanksgiving with him in 29 years (one year I was in the desert with with 140,000 of my closest friends), and we're not having it this year because we don't want to kill him. Because we're at work every day and our kids are in school, while he leaves his house once a week to buy groceries. So, yeah: problems he's never faced, I've never faced, and neither one of us is equipped to deal with.

[freebeard]

Pretty much the same for me. It seems growing up we were visiting cousins every other weekend.

But my parents made me promise to graduate college and then didn't like what they got back. Now I just call my son on Saturdays to ask if he's working all weekend again.

[Xist]

Dad only let me listen to Oldies and Classical growing up, but not this song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUwjNBjqR-c

Grandfather was a mining engineer and was often overseas for a year or two.

I have a male cousin a little younger than me on each side and I saw them often before we left California when I was 13. One did not turn out very well and the other became a [sigh] programmer!

By the way, I am married to my job, but am a very negligent husband.

[cRiPpLe_rOoStEr]

Originally Posted by Fat Charlie

I firmly believe that if you love eating you have to have an understanding of cooking or you're just a passive victim of whoever presents you with your food

That's a good point. Well, even though I'm not a Jack of all trades, I usually try to understand how some devices work and eventually attempt to do some makeshift fixes, as long as it's not too risky.

[Xist]

I remember someone saying to pour two trenches, one for each side, and I recall the poster being opinionated and abstract, so I am thinking that it was freebeard, but I scanned this entire thread and couldn't find anything. I am pretty sure that I had two or more threads on similar topics, but I looked through the threads that I started over the last year and didn't see anything.

Were I to put the existing shed on concrete, which is 8x14, I would need to move it first. I used round fence posts to roll the shed in order to put in the fence years ago. They have been in the backyard ever since.

Dad said that the shed needed to be 3' from the fences, but the city says 5'. Maybe it changed?

I am sure that I could jack up each corner, slide 4x4s under each corner, and rest those on other 4x4s, but unless I put it a couple of feet in the air, it would be completely impractical to dig trenches, put down gravel, pour concrete, and smooth it out.

It seems like people either put down masonry blocks or one slab, not two strips of concrete, but I don't see why I would want a slab.

Can I put down two pads 12-24" wide for each side and call it done?

[cRiPpLe_rOoStEr]

Would you want to make some sort of underfloor or single-piece foundation?

[Xist]

Subfloor?

[freebeard]

...I recall the poster being opinionated and abstract, so I am thinking that it was freebeard

I resemble that remark, but it wasn't me. It sounds like a ludicrous suggestion.

8x14ft? Pier blocks on 4ft centers. An array of 3x4 with 1ft overhang both ends of the long dimension.

What kind of floor joisting does it have? You might need 4x4 beams on top of the pier blocks else the floor could be springy. Ain't nobody got time for a bouncy floor.

[Xist]

I will post pictures of the four points of contact in the morning.

What about concrete piers?

I don't know how likely I would be able to make all six the same height, though.

Blocks are looking better.

The frost line is 18".

[freebeard]

Standing by. I was speaking of these:


https://www.mccoys.com/images/8eceb7...16b8328655/400

Frost line is important for a permanent structure. Jack the whole structure straight up. Get down to undisturbed soil and use a string line level.