My neighbour has passed his old shed over the fence. The shed is 10 by 8 and the floor has three by twos running the length of the shed. It has seen better days but is still serviceable as a bike shelter. I have easy access to chippings from a respray of the road in front of my house. Do I need to build a concrete base, could I not just dig a bit out and fill it with chips and put the floor of the shed on top? ta
Certainly you could. You could also mount it on custard.
Unless the chips were contained in some kind of frame and packed down well, I suspect that the base would move. Why not mix some ballast and cement with the chips, to set a firm base? Hard work, but more durable.
Regards.
Terry.
it was the hard work part I was hoping to avoid. I will just man up and get on with it.
Motivation?
How to build a really SOLID shed
In message , misterroy writes
Probably:-)
While you have access under the floor why not give it a good dose of whatever fungal rot treatment you can lay your hands on
all you need is brick supports on a few paving slabs
by twos running the length of the shed. It has seen better days but is still serviceable as a bike shelter.
It's a shed. Not a block of flats. It weighs bugger all. You aren't using it to garage a vehicle.
If you excavate down to solid ground (not necessarily stone) and fill the hole with anything that won't subside (anything that won't rot down) it will be fine. Road chips are great. Spray weedkiller into the hole first though in case any seeds have fallen in.
There's no advantage in using a concrete slab for a garden shed from the stability point of view (there could be other reasons, the main one being to have a concrete floor).
If the ground subsides a concrete slab will crack and the halves won't be level and that's a lot worse than a loose aggregate base sinking a bit in one corner.
The idea of mixing cement with the road chippings is terrible. It will make a poor mix, very weak. It will inevitably break up.
A loose aggregate base will soak up the water so there will be less of a problem with rot. Water will stand on a flat concrete base.
It's an idea to put boards all round the shed base so there's no light underneath. That will prevent weeds and also rats.
Bill
Having said that we had a shed built in the 1960s on just hardcore and it lasted until last year. Probably depends on the ground though, and we did have issues with animals digging under it from time to time. Brian
Best to have ventilation under a shed to prevent rot. A few piles of bricks/concrete blocks is all that's need for it to stand on. They need a solid base, the road planings would be fine for that. Or dig down to firm subsoil for you piles of bricks to stand on.
The Natural Philosopher submitted this idea :
+1 All you need is the wood supported off the ground, preferably with room for some air flow under the timber. Our hut is now 25 years old, supported four inches clear of the soil on brick piles. No rot at all and it is untreated rough sawn timber.
wos running the length of the shed. It has seen better days but is still serviceable as a bike shelter.
ut the floor of the shed on top?
For my last one (which was on legs because of the slope of the ground) I went to a builders' merchant looking for kerbstones or whatever. In the corner of his yard I found a long-forgotten pile of concrete blocks big enough that it took two to lift them. I got them for £1.50 each and they were perfect. The builder's merchant boss and I had no idea what they were intended for.
Bill
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