Shed build & flooring advice (cement)

[busastars]

Chears all. About £100 I would be fine with. I carnt get redymix in as I have only a shared entrance between my house and next doors and its in an akward place. I could do like a shuttering to get my depth and work up but dident want a step. I dont care if it dont look perfict and got a little crack hear and there as its a workshop. Just want a solid dry work area.

In my last house (one I owned) I did a large drive etc and had redymix for all that, was about 6" thick with no rebar.

Materials I have so far is:

8 x 4 external ply 3/4" thick 15 sheets

2 x 2" 4800mm long treated 16 lenths

Plan is to build the frame in 2 x 2" and sheet with 3/4" ply. I will use wood preservitive all over as I have a large tub of it then a second coat in Creasote. I then may end of the summer do an outer skin in lapping/pannel fence to keep it all inkeeping.

The original shed is concereate floor, made out of crates from the docks and I put an outer skin of lapping on it.

Here is what I got there now:

A few pic's are erelivent but it give you an idea on what I have to work with, there is an old ricaty greenhouse at the back which in the future I plan on re'skining and using as a storage shed.

The original shed is nothing to look at but its solid and 100% dry in there.

Please keep the comments coming, well constructive ones that is, lol...

 

[Justme]

For your use I would lay a good bed of sand over a DPC membrane & lay some old style slabs on top.

 

[Richm]

Nice 350!

 

[busastars]

Nice 350!

Thanks, thats my learning curve for future projects. Looks a little different at the moment with the pipes, looks a little rough as per a 20 year old bike but its all there and all works.

Next project: RD350 frame & motor, RS seat, rear subframe cut off with aluminium one in its place, not sure on front & rear end yet, NC29 maybe,,,, with full fairing. Striped out track & road bike....

 

[busastars]

Just had a thought.

Bear with me as im rubbish at explaining things.

The frame I build for the ground layer, right if I mark out where the frame will sit and dig a narrow trench following the frame but at about 4" or so and use that for the main foundation would that work.

From there I would have my 4" deep trench/foundation folowing the frame and could posibly go thinner accross the plane of the floor, maybe do a layer of 3/4" ply over that then supported by the frame.

Hope that made sence, its hard to explaine.

 

[pidgeon chit welder]

How deep is that grey gravel ?

If it is more than 4 inches why not dry mix sand and cement at say 8 sand to one OPC and rake it dry over the area inside a wooden frame for edging ,then gently spray it over with a hose to wash the mix down into the stones using a soft sweeping brush to help it .

Once washed/worked in and still wet add a topping skim of 1 inch thick over the top and cover with carboard etc to keep off rain & frost for a couple of weeks ..

If you stay there for years and want a better base when money is better you can lay some concrete on top of a WPM sheet from the inside of the shed .

 

[Pete.]

Chears all. About £100 I would be fine with. I carnt get redymix in as I have only a shared entrance between my house and next doors and its in an akward place.

I couldn't either. I got a couple of 1-ton bags and put down some polythylene and had the lot dumped into those on the road out front. We actually got a good few barrowloads round straight out of the chute but they only gave us 20 mins then dumped the rest and went away.

 

[germengine]

hi, you will need about 1.5 cubic meters of concrete. bulk bags of ballast (sharp sand & gravel) work out at roughly 0.6 of a meter and normally take 6 bags of cement to mix with. so 2 bags of ballast and 12 cement wont be far off, you can make up any surplus in small bags. using the bulk bags is much cheaper, cheers and happy digging.

 

[busastars]

So most places sell Ballast by the ton (one of those big bags to me, lol)

Ive got home to late again to phone my local, What is the going rate/cost for the amount of ballest & cement bags that I would need. Just to give me a guidline before I start digging in the morning.

I got 2 spair days from tomorow now so should be able to dig a little and see how it all is.

So its 2 Large bags of Ballest & 12 bags of cemet, what size bags of cement would they be?

 

[scarecrow]

I have seen an old silage slab which was made with just 2 in. of concrete mixed with a tractor mixer the 3to 1 thats three shovels of gravel to one shovel of cement and it held up for about 20 years a lot will depend on how good the ground is underneath

 

[brightspark]

So most places sell Ballast by the ton (one of those big bags to me, lol)

Ive got home to late again to phone my local, What is the going rate/cost for the amount of ballest & cement bags that I would need. Just to give me a guidline before I start digging in the morning.

I got 2 spair days from tomorow now so should be able to dig a little and see how it all is.

So its 2 Large bags of Ballest & 12 bags of cemet, what size bags of cement would they be?

25kg

 

[cookie munsta]

alternativly if you pier your columns down and run wooden joist between them (level of course)along the ground and build up from there. you can also get some c150 steel purlins and make a floor plan with it and bolt it too your piered post, to pier a post dig a hole around 500-800mm diameter put reo bar on your steel post and drop in concrete, not real cluey with wood but should be ok to pier in to concrete too. try to keep floor level but on the ground where you can so as to use the ground as reinforcement. the worst rule of shed building is always open the beer after the days work is done, Can't express enough the use of string lines and a good level, and have fun

 

[cazl1994]

So most places sell Ballast by the ton (one of those big bags to me, lol)

Ive got home to late again to phone my local, What is the going rate/cost for the amount of ballest & cement bags that I would need. Just to give me a guidline before I start digging in the morning.

I got 2 spair days from tomorow now so should be able to dig a little and see how it all is.

So its 2 Large bags of Ballest & 12 bags of cemet, what size bags of cement would they be?

the bags aren't a tonne 800-850 kg at the most
prices:
cement round £3.00-£4.00 a bag
and mixed ballast £35-£40 per bag
doubt you'll get a discount on that your not taking enought phone roun local builders mearchants to get the best price for the lot

 

[busastars]

Thats ok, I genuraly use my local place. Always cheaper than B&Q, Wicks, etc.

 

[wyn]

So most places sell Ballast by the ton (one of those big bags to me, lol)

Looks like there's a fair bit of ballast holding that railway track up out the back

 

[busastars]

Looks like there's a fair bit of ballast holding that railway track up out the back

Lol, I know but the train is in use Wyn.

Still they cut down all the tree's so they dont have to maintain them, lots of logs for when I build my log fire befor the winter.

Goint to make a start today on some prep work, I may do a little compermise depending on my findings today.

Build the frame as per normal so that it should be more then enough on its own, where all the frame sits trench it about 4" deep 6" wide. then screed or 2-3" build up for the floor.

Almost what is required but making it easyer for me. Will know by the end of the day...

 

[busastars]

Should turn this into a my Project Shed build page, lol...

Right ive spent a day working on what I can do AND I had a fair bit of sucsses.... I moved a fair bit of the stone's and then I built the bace of the frame. It turns out that when the frame goes down I will have anything between 4-6 inches for the cement bace so will be able to do the job as advised.

Here are a few pics of my day with the frame down for size, then I started to build the structure BUT away from the shed. It is not far off a stage where I can remove the rear of the old shed and get it tied upto the new build. BUT it sure is hevey, going to take about four of us just to lift it into place.

Not bad for a days work with just me and the father inlaw.

Nakered now....

 

[Pete.]

That's exactly how I built my first workshop, had it for 7 years

 

[busastars]

Chears Pete.

Well its all going to be done as advised minimum, just turned out that way.

Been advised localy to use a 4-1 mix (4 Ballest 1 cement) Will cost me £81 delivered for the 2 bags of ballest and £3.70 a bag of 25kg cement.

Not sure if to mix it all by hand or try and buy a second hand cement mixer if one turns up. I wont hire one as I rather buy second hand first and sell on later.

 

[gavuk]

been some cheap mixers in trade-it recently Bristol area ,worth a look