Flooring my shed - suggestions?

I think I'm just going to go with pine T&G floorboards. B&Q sell them and they seem quite reasonably priced. Will stain then varnish them.

Thanks for all your advice. I'm learning so much at the moment.

Reply to
Stephen Gilkes
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Each to his own...

.andy

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Reply to
Andy Hall

Noooo! Don't buy them from B&Q!!

Ok, you can if you want to. But you'll get a much better deal, and more importantly better quality wood at most timber yards.

Reply to
Grunff

From B&Q they are prepared (i.e. kiln dried and sanded).

If they were from a timber yard, wouldn't they be a lot rougher?

I'm all for sav>

Reply to
Stephen Gilkes

Only if your ordered rough sawn. If you ordered planed boards, that's what you'll get. If you ordered kiln dried planed bpards, that's what you'll get.

To be fair to B&Q, they occasionally have reasonable timber in stock, but not very often. Their prices are typically 50-100% higher than those at the timber yards I buy from, and more for pressure treated.

Reply to
Grunff

Reply to
Stephen Gilkes

Sanded no, planed, probably.

Nope. If you buy floorboards from a timeber merchant they will be planed and dried to the correct level of humidity for indoor use.

You should be able to get a better deal at a timber merchant.

If you prepare a complete list for the project, including all timber, Celotex etc. in one hit and go to somewhere like Jewsons with it, you should be able to negotiate a good deal.

.andy

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Reply to
Andy Hall

Good idea, but it may be a little better to put the DPM on the warm side of the insulation under the chipboard.

cheers, Pete.

Reply to
Pete C

But then you trap you 'joists' in a permanently wet area. Not good.

Reply to
Grunff

I agree. If the concrete is passably level why not omit the joists, just lay insulation, polythene, and glue t&g chipboard sheets (moisture resisting grade may be best here) together as one big sheet aka a floating floor.

Reply to
Tony Bryer

Hi

I cant help but have reservations about using untreated wood on a shed floor where condensation is inevitable: the wood wont last too long IMHO.

Pine floorboards are untreated softwood, and while lovely in houses, theyre not upto it for shed use.

My first thought would be marine ply: you could cut this into floorboard strips if you wish, and varnish it etc. This should cope properly with the damp it will inevitably experience.

BTW if you do use joists theres no reason to screw them to the concrete.

Regards, NT

Reply to
N. Thornton

You can also scratch the surface of ply into tile sized squares (stanley) and stain each square whateevr colour you like. So marine ply can give you sheet wood, floorboards or faux tiles.

Regards, NT

Reply to
N. Thornton

18mm Marine ply is approx £65 a go, last time I looked it up in Champion's catalogue. 10sq m would require about 4 2.4x1.2m sheets of this....

-- Richard Sampson

email me at richard at olifant d-ot co do-t uk

Reply to
RichardS

If I omit the "joists" then all the weight will be resting on the insulation (celotex) which will compress.

Reply to
Stephen Gilkes

Can I not treat the wood with some kind of preservative before varnishing it?

Reply to
Stephen Gilkes

Yes you could do.

I did this with a cabin that I constructed last summer.

I began with a concrete base and fitted pressure treated joists to it with DPC material underneath. I nailed small pressure treated battens to the sides of the joists at intervals at a depth the thickness of the Celotex so that the top surface of the latter was level with the tops of the joists. II laid in the Celotex and taped over the top. There is ventilation in the cold part underneath the insulation, and that is really the key to all of this. In a brick building you might do it with airbricks or other suitable vents.

I used T&G softwood and sprayed it with Cuprinol Clear Wood Preserver

- 3 treatments as recommended and on both sides. I then laid it using secret nailing through the tongues.

Finally I varnished with three coats of Ronseal Diamond Floor varnish.

Excellent result, and I don't expect any timber decay in the foreseeable future.

.andy

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Reply to
Andy Hall

I remeber reading about your cabin - do you have any pics? Sounds like a nice project.

Reply to
Grunff

Yes it has been, and still not quite finished. Once it is, which will realistically be in a month or two, I'll do some photos.

Basically, though, the starting point was a kit form cabin. I looked at building an equivalent from scratch, but the materials cost was pretty much the same.

There are a few companies making this type of product, but I found one at a friend's house in Finland that I liked and that was well made, so went for that.

If you look at

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describes how the assembly works. Depending on size, the wall thicknesses are from 28-44mm and the pieces slot together. Starting from a prepared concrete base, with a power cable and a duct for other cables, I was able to erect the shell in just over half a day not including the roof and floor. I fitted the roof T&G boards the following day and treated them..

The kit comes with roofing felt of normal shed quality together with basic barge boards and soffits which are quite functional. I wanted something rather better looking and longer lasting, so I added some additional timber sections to the barge boards and created some soffits under the eaves to give a more solid result.

I felted the roof on top of the boards and then added pressure treated battens. The roof was then finished using cedar shakes.

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This was a fun job because the shakes have to be selected to create at least a 40mm overlap of a shake over a gap in the course below. It's a low angle pitched roof and took me two days per side, helped admittedly with a framing nailer on low setting to put in the stainless steel nails.

The result is worth it, though, and looks similar to

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cupola though :-) )

The inside was floored as described earlier and then the interior walls and roof were insulated with Celotex and clad. The framing for this was a challenge because the outside wall timbers run horizontally. As we all know, timber changes size across the width, so in effect, the height of the walls can vary a good few mm seasonally. The framing was therefore fitted with slotted brackets which allow the expansion to take place.

The exterior was finished in an off white preservative coating (Trebbit) manufactured by Jotun in Norway. It's popularly used for houses on the west coast there and stands the punishment well, so I figured that it should be fine here as well. They will do a colour match system which also appealed because I was not impressed by the limited colour ranges by Sikkens et al. for this application.

The current stage is that the interior electrical work is almost finished - I've used dado trunking for flexibility, and then it's pretty much done.

.andy

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Reply to
Andy Hall

I've seen these at a local agricultural show (different manufacturer, but same construction), and they do look really neat.

Look forward to the pics - thanks for the write-up.

Reply to
Grunff

Try 12mm, ply is much stronger than chip. I dont think Ive ever seen

12mm cost that much, or anywhere near. I know 1" is very steep, but 12mm isnt.

But theres no comparison anyway, pine boards just wont survive.

Regards, NT

Reply to
N. Thornton

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