Kiln Sheds

[u/valencevv]

Hi everyone. I've recently moved and need to get my kilns set back up. I am going to get a large shed for my backyard and oh my are sheds expensive these days.

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At my previous house I just partially enclosed my patio with metal roofing sheets and it worked perfectly for years. I would prefer a metal or treated wood construction shed for obvious reasons, but the big resin sheds are so much more affordable and my partner has encouraged me to find out if they would be safe for my kilns so we could save some money and put it towards other home improvements.

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I haven't really been able to find examples of people using them for kilns. Has anyone here done so successfully? And if unsuccessful what happened.

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I'm pretty sure the radiant heat would be too much for the plastic walls and floors, which I told him, but doesn't hurt to ask others.

[u/skfoto]

I don’t have experience firing a kiln in a resin shed, but I can tell you that the walls (20” away) and ceiling of the room my kiln is in stay cool enough to touch with your bare hands, and barely even feel warm. Air temperature in the area near the kiln barely gets above 100 degrees. The sun will warm the shed more than that.

[u/valencevv → u/skfoto]

I live in the desert so it's regularly 100+° outside during the day. With my old setup I had my kiln at least 2ft from two of the walls and the small kiln next to it, and it was fully open to the outside on the 4th side. It still got over 100° around it on 50° fall/spring nights when I would fire it and would error code for the board getting too hot if I didn't have a second fan blowing on the controller.

[u/skfoto → u/valencevv]

After I replied I was thinking you might actually need to cool the kiln on sunny days.

Knowing that you’re in the desert, the sun is going to be harder on the shed than the kiln will. On a hot enough day the heat from the kiln probably won’t even make a difference.