Scaffold tent for material storage and first shelter at a new building site.

When a new building site is being first occupied, people often need to bring materials for the beginning stages of the build. I have seen many awkward piles, left on the ground with tarps placed on them. Scaffolding is strong and creates a rack. Step through scaffolding makes a good first shelter and storage tent.

 Scaffolding is handy at any building site and is essential with cob and earth bag building.

 My proposal is quite simple. Build a big tent and fill it up.
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 I like six foot tall step through scaffolding. Once the feet are attached,  it can create a temporary building with a minimum head room of 7 1/2 feet at the crossbar.

 The X bracing available for scaffolding, is available in an array of lengths. I have some long ones which allow me to create a platform five feet wide by ten feet long. Make sure that your braces match the length of pre-made planks.

 Once the scaffolding is assembled, set at the distance you require between frames. Two platforms set four feet apart,  allow you to store material up to 20 feet long. Cantilevered top beams can stretch that space.

 Pile your first load of lumber on the top and shape it to create a suitable roof. It can be v-shaped or U-shaped. Then put a big tarp over the whole contraption.
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 Suppose you really only need one flight of scaffold. A fairly large enclosure can be built even with this.

 Assemble your frame. And then use some long cantilevered beams on top,  to stretch the space.
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 Some people spend hundreds of dollars buying a big Costco tent for material storage. They have no further use for the tent,  once the project is complete.

 There is plenty of scaffolding on the used market and it holds its value quite well. It's quite possible to recoup all of the money that you spent,  should you ever need to sell it.
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 I often need scaffolding in the city but I have nowhere to store it. No worries, most of the homes where I'm working  need a temporary storage tent.

I love your idea Dale, I have gone the other route and purchased 3-way and 4-way metal fittings (on-line) to make my own simple A-frame structures (smaller, but similar to what one can buy from Costco).

My Problem with my temp-tarp buildings is: (1) firmly connecting the leg pipes to the fittings. I use self tapping screws, but these can loosen with movement (and I move mine a lot).
I imagine I should be drilling holes and running bolts all the way through the entire leg+fitting, but that is a bit over my construction comfort level. Any thoughts on this..... ?

I would be interested in learning how to build my own scaffolding. I imagine it would cost plenty, even second-hand, as it's normal clientele is in the construction business.

I'm going to go look for some on Craigslist and see what I can find.

Thanks for the great idea - Scaffolding So Many Applications!

Jami McBride wrote:I love your idea Dale, I have gone the other route and purchased 3-way and 4-way metal fittings (on-line) to make my own simple A-frame structures (smaller, but similar to what one can buy from Costco).

My Problem with my temp-tarp buildings is: (1) firmly connecting the leg pipes to the fittings. I use self tapping screws, but these can loosen with movement (and I move mine a lot).
I imagine I should be drilling wholes and running bolts all the way through the whole leg+fitting, but that is a bit over my construction comfort level. Any thoughts on this..... ?

I would be interested in learning how to build my own scaffolding. I imagine it would cost plenty, even second-hand, as it's normal clientele is in the construction business.

I'm going to go look for some on Craigslist and see what I can find.

Thanks for the great idea - Scaffolding So Many Applications!

Cotter pins would work for holding the joints together.

Hum... I use these to secure the back panel to my trailer. They go thought a small hitch-pin. This would still involve drilling but maybe I can use the hole my my screw made

Thanks for that suggestion.

Correction. My frames are 10 ft long. Now, imagine that we place them 14 feet apart with a 5 ft cantilever beam at both ends. 10+10+14+5+5=44 We can have a stack of material, 44 ft long and 8 feet high. Only the weight of the roof, rests on the scaffolding. Everything under the crossbar rests on the ground. This is probably more than 10 pick up truck loads of material.
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Whenever there is a downturn in construction, used scaffolding comes available. It can be very cheap. Two to five minutes to assemble a single frame. Maybe half an hour to assemble and level two frames outside, with suitable space between. This assumes that it's relatively flat ground, without a lot of rock or other obstacles and that you bought adjustable feet. Buy some rusty stuff and paint it. You could make a little money, if it's sold later.

I do like your idea of scaffolding, and can see many uses. But I would want the scaffolding to support my materials.
Around my area protection from the ground is just as important, any thoughts on how to add support to scaffolding, keeping things off the ground/soil?

Thanks Dale ~

Throwing down some pallets under your scaffold-tent seems easier than requiring the scaffolding to hold your materials up; otherwise, you either need more scaffolding, or you need your materials to be longer than the gap between the two scaffold supports for the 'tent' roof...

But if you really want to put your materials on the scaffolding itself, it seems like just switching to ladder frames instead of walk-through would be a good start. Get several, put them sideways with spaces in between, and braces of the appropriate length, and you have front load storage for whatever depth you need.

On my second Georgia homestead I set up a storage tent by dropping one pine tree and peeling the pole and putting it up between two standing trees, and then putting a large rubberized tarp, such as are used to cover a semi-trailer flatbed load, centered on this and tied off to either side. Inside, pallets, roughly leveled with stones and logs underneath, then a couple of courses of cardboard, and then scraps of carpets, made a dry, off-the ground floor. I stored weather sensitive materials and set up an outdoor workshop under this for the five years we lived there. Eventually I hung some gutters from the edges and filled a cistern from the runoff, and then set up a goatshed similarly. The beauty of working from live trees if you have enough of them is there are no posts to rot in the ground....they are alive.

Hey Alder -

Do you have any pictures you could post?
I would love to see your set up.....

@ Jami: Unfortunately not. We were too busy doing it to take photos and now we've long since moved away from that homestead. Finding the tarp was a lucky score, but I've made temporary storages for things like firewood from common plastic sheeting (which can be had for free from mattress and furniture store dumpsters....all that stuff comes in huge plastic bags, which can be cut open to flat pieces and if desired, "candle-welded" together into larger pieces. These are tied down first, overlapping, and then covered with a layer of any kind of fabric.....again, look for this in places like goodwill dumpsters. The fabric protects the plastic from the sun and such a combination tarp can last several years.....

I understand about missing the photo op - to bad.

I too use pallets as flooring, but I have taken broken pallets apart and used their boards to 'fill in' the open places on my good pallets. It is a bit of work, but makes a nice solid floor.
I don't really like to bring cardboard or carpet to my homestead I don't want to compost these, and my dump just started charging high prices for all dumping.

Yeah, pallets for level ground. Small logs make good dunnage for uneven ground. Thick ends fill holes.

I timed myself yesterday. 2.5 minutes to build the first frame. 4 minutes to install wheels with lock pins and place the central plank. 10 more minutes to build the second level and fill the base with planks.

The second level was used as a railing and to catch the long boards being removed from the ceiling. Some were 24 ft long. This job would have been nearly impossible without scaffolding. The long material was slid along the top bar of the upper frame and deposited on the mezzanine. The top of the scaffold was 2 ft below the ceiling. This allowed the loose ends of boards to hang down just enough to make prying them off much easier, without the danger of them crashing to the floor, 15 feet below. Similarly, if you were installing boards or drywall at this height, using the top bar would prevent breakage and save the shoulder muscles.

Alder, how did you attach the ridge pole (fallen tree) to the 2 standing trees? How did you close off the ends of the building?

@ Brett: I augured a hole through the trunks and tied the ridgepole up with several thicknesses of baler twine. I figured this would damage the trees the least, especially as compared to tying around the entire trunk, plus I wanted it to have some "give" when the wind made the trees sway. The one end was roughly enclosed with carpets tied to a scrap-wood and pine-pole frame. The other end I left open, with a wide overhang, where my main workbench was in good light, with a vise set up on the stump of the tree I dropped for the ridgepole.....

After a couple of years seeing how well it was working, I added two chains up over the next branch up, again with the idea of working with the wind rather than resisting it....

Sounds like a really nice setup for really low cost, Alder!

On the farm I interned on in 2014, there was a really lovely workspace in a circle of cedars. I would have loved to string a couple beams above it to provide shelter like your setup.

I would have used big eyebolts or ideally treehouse attachment bolts/garnier limbs as the attachment points, as I think that's probably the least impact on the trees. Sure can't beat baler twine for price though!


How did that truck-tarp stand up to several years use? I'm needing to track down a really robust tarp for a similar application... those look good, but not cheap!



Dale, I'm definitely feeling motivated to acquire some scaffolding now. I'm used to the ladder type, and without adjustable height feet... much less handy for this sorta adaptation.

The ladder type can make a very serviceable tent frame.

For a second or third tier, when serving as a railing, the ladder type is safer. Still needs toe boards. A long rope, wound tightly around the whole work deck, to about 4 feet high, can make it nearly impossible to fall out. Working from scaffolding is much safer and more efficient than from a ladder, provided that you don't step backwards and crash to the ground.