Archived from the Tools In Action forum (Around The House). This thread is read-only.
My 12′ x 24′ Lark Builders shed / workshop will eventually get it’s own topic when I get closer to completion.
This topic shows my over-the-top door stop.
The shed was configured by me to have a 46″ wide door, placed in the corner, opening as-shown. This is an ELiXiR 200 Series Utility Building Door, 46.5″x72″. It is provided w/ an upper chain / spring, to arrest uncontrolled opening, such as from the wind, to prevent damage.
There is nothing provided w/ the new shed to hold open the door. The door opens about 120° before being stopped by the chain / spring. Up to this point I have manually placed a trash barrel to hold open the door.
This short-term door stop “solution” to hold the door open is not something I was willing to accept for the long term.
The solution I settled upon was to place a 22″ cube-shaped planter at the door open position, w/ a gate latch to hold the door to the planter.
When I was preparing the site for the shed, removing the surface grass / weeds / dirt, screening / sifting / removing everything from the dirt, prior to leveling / compacting / weed tarp / rock mulch, one of the things I discovered was a buried open sprinkler pipe. My assumption was the other end of this buried pipe was not connected to anything, as I hadn’t noted any backyard flooding when operating the sprinkler system. However, when I shortened this pipe to near the edge of my excavation I discovered this open pipe was connected to sprinkler Zone 1 because it displaced my screened dirt. My solution was to put a buried tee and add two sprinkler heads, one at each corner of the shed.
The planter door stop was being placed directly above this buried Zone 1 pipe, so I decided to add a tee and run the sprinkler plumbing up through the bottom of the new planter, to now also water the plants placed in the planter using a bubbler sprinkler head.
This new vertical ½” Schedule 40 PVC sprinkler pipe is routed through a 1½” Schedule 40 PVC pipe attached to the bottom of the planter. Running the pipe within a pipe will permit me to relocate the planter w/o having to play w/ the plumbing if that is ever required, as the sprinkler pipe can just slide out the bottom.
Rather than filling the entire 22″ planter cube w/ dirt, I used 12″x12″x1″ square pavers placed vertically on edge, to raise the bottom, then used ½” square hardware cloth “Chicken Wire”, then weed tarp, prior to placing the dirt and plants.
Weed tarp is again placed on the top of the dirt, then rock mulch.
This new door stop has EXACTLY the desired functionality.
Cut Shorter Buried Zone 1 Pipe Displacing Dirt After Running Sprinkler System
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New Shed Corner Sprinkler Heads Added to Tee and Cut Shorter Zone 1 Pipe
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22″ Planter Rough Placed to Door Stop / Latch Location
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Rock Mulch Removed / Weed Tarp Cut / Hole Dug Exposing Zone 1 Pipe
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Buried Pipe Cut / Tee and Vertical Pipe Added
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Zone 1 Pipe Buried Again
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Rock Mulch Replaced
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Planter Located w/ Vertical Pipe / Planter Modified w/ Bottom Drain Holes Added
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Vertical Pavers and Chicken Wire Added to Raise Internal Planter Level Bottom
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Weed Tarp Placed on Chicken Wire
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Paver Spacers Added
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Plants and Soil Added
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Adding Top Weed Tarp
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Adding Rock Mulch and Bubbler Sprinkler Head Added
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Gate Door Strike Added
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Gate Door Latch Added
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That’s crazy smart. Talk about making something out of nothing, that is awesome idea. Looks great and love how it even works for the door and the sprinkler. Nice job.