Flooring my shed - suggestions?

On 25 Feb 2004 03:51:14 -0800, snipped-for-privacy@meeow.co.uk (N. Thornton) wrote:
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He's already doing that for the walls because he wants to use it as a kind of office. However, if it were a damp and unventilated environment, I agree with you.
Having said that, I recently dug up a piece of flooring grade chipboard that had been buried in the garden for 18 years....
.andy
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Can I not treat the wood with some kind of preservative before varnishing it?
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On Tue, 24 Feb 2004 16:21:44 -0000, "Stephen Gilkes"
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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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Andy Hall wrote:
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I remeber reading about your cabin - do you have any pics? Sounds like a nice project.

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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
http://www.lillevilla.net/Eng/assembly.htm
it 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.
http://www.johnbrash.co.uk/shakes.shtml
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
http://www.legacyroofing.com/images/b_jumbo_split_shake2.jpg
(no 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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Andy Hall wrote:
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I've seen these at a local agricultural show (different manufacturer, but same construction), and they do look really neat.
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So many shakes...
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Look forward to the pics - thanks for the write-up.

On Tue, 24 Feb 2004 16:21:44 -0000, "Stephen Gilkes"
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Indeed. We built a shed some 10 years back to store garden machinery. The floor joists were supported on small concrete pads and the floor is exterior grade ply which was given a good dose of creosote on both sides before installation.
I see no sign of deterioration at all. As it has plenty of ventilation underneath I don't envisage any problems at all.
Easy floor to install and a nail gun ensured it is well held down. Once it was installed the shed was built on top of it. (Galvanised corrugated 'iron' as it is known round here for the roof and sides.)
Paul Mc Cann
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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