Mounting a shed base using paving slab strips

[<no_spam]

After investigating various ways of building a base for a garden shed on sloping ground I've bult a wooden frame out of treated 2x3 and plan to drop 6 uprights into holes that will be filled with postcrete. Initially I was going to make the uprights by cutting stub concrete posts in half but am too concerned about the steel rebar (spalling and drilling holes) so then decided to use treated 4x4 and accept that they will rot over some years. Now I'm wondering about cutting strips from thick (non-reinforced) concrete slabs and using those on end - they should be OK to drill and there won't be significant sideloads.

Any comments?

[Bert Coules]

How about using recycled plastic posts, Filcris or similar?

[Bert Coules]

Sorry, I meant to include a link:

[tabbypurr]

You could cut the concrete post & epoxy the top of it. Wood I woodent, its bound to fail on you.

NT

[dennis]

What the OP needs is some cardboard tubes out of carpets and some ready mix. He can dig holes, put hardcore in the bottom poor some concrete in and when set put the tubes in and cut to the right height and then fill with ready mix.

[<no_spam]

I looked at them and other suppliers of similar products - an ideal solution but there is nobody locally offering recycled plastic posts and postage makes them rather expensive

[<no_spam]

An interesting idea (ignoring the difficulty of converting carpet to cardboard ;-) ) - that would give me pillars to set the base on but I'd prefer to have something I could put a coach bolt through.

[tabbypurr]

concrete blocks seem simpler

NT

[Roger Mills]

Cast some metal studs into the pillars, and then bolt the base frame to those - with vertical holes in the wood and nuts and washers on top.

[Adam Aglionby]

its bound to fail on you.

ghetto Sonotube, genius

With as suggested threaded stud cast into top for attachment.

Saw a motorway uderpass being constructed with a large , 3` mebbe, auger dr illing holes either side of underpass, rebar frames dropped in holes and co ncrete poured im , provided intial piers for beams placed in just as they s tarted digging out the underpass itself, finished with slab wall and back f ill, was neat to watch over a couple of weeks.

Bit like the piling on the Newburn flats....

[dennis]

Its a little more complex than that..

You will have seen the temporary metal struts across the top to stop the whole thing falling in while they were being dug out. When they get to the bottom of the dig they have to cast beams across to tie into the uprights and wait for them to set before they can remove the supporting struts. This makes a reinforced concrete trench. They usually finish the walls while waiting for it to set.

[GMM]

The Yanks use something simlar to cast deck footings, casting brackets into the top. I don't see (though someone else might) why sections of

110mm plastic drainage wouldn't make useful forms for pouring concrete in this sort of application. Not expensive, and much simpler to source than going around begging carpet shops for their cast-off cores.

[News]

In message , GMM writes

I wanted some card carpet cores for another use, and the local carpet store people were delighted to let me take away as many as I could carry.