Shed bases

[Onoff]

12 minutes ago, ProDave said:

My wood shed at the old house has those (from B&Q perhaps theirs are better?) and after nearly 10 years they are still fine (outlived the roof felt on the other shed) with no sag.

 

Supported horizontally every 2ft.

 

Yep, that's about what I did centres wise. Did wonder if it should have been boarded first but if doing that might as well felt it!

Edited January 28, 2018 by Onoff

[daiking]

As I already have a solid roof, its just easiest to use more sheet material. This is actually my first shed so I'm not partial either way.

 

The play house must be several years old now, I bought it 'pre-loved' and the OSB roof is in pretty good shape, considering. The felt must be good enough for that to be the case and I hope (assume) I've done a tidy enough job to give it a fighting chance. 

[Nickfromwales]

9 hours ago, Onoff said:

 

Yep, that's about what I did centres wise. Did wonder if it should have been boarded first but if doing that might as well felt it!

Sheathing it first would also allow you to box the roof of the shed in, so way less draughty. 

I think I'll go for the bitumen coated sheets tbh, as I've sheathed in 18mm osb for the 'mower' shed ( 8'x8'x8' roof sloping to 7' ) and the felt lasted about three days or so .  If supported fully they seem the obvious choice. I've seen ones used locally which have been on for a good decade and they're still mint. 

[Tennentslager]

I've done a few options on various huts.

The three budget options are

Good quality felt, don't even bother with the thin stuff. £6/7m

EPDM rubber. £6/7m

Oduline bitumen sheets.£7/8m

EPDM is very easy to do but you need a clean surface to stick it to. Put 11mm OSB on first and you can have more strength and neat edges/soffit/ bargeboard/gutters. Lasts 30 plus years and 100% waterproof. This would be my choice.

Oduline next best. Easy to do with their serrated and capped nails. Some folk like the wavy look. If one sheet is long enough meaning no joins, I'd consider this too.

If you do watch the video, it's easy to put it on upside down...only one side has UV protection and if you get it wrong it will go quickly from black to grey and degrade.

The cost with oduline will rack up if you buy all the verge and edge trim and on a small roof you may go well over the price I mentioned. Beware!

Felt is shit but cheap and okay for a few years.

 

[Nickfromwales]

'Twill need to be budget for now. Just need to get it watertight so I can mothball my bigger tools whilst in in sick bay. Was using my old transit as a rolling store but I've sold it so got to empty it now. 

[Tennentslager]

Rubba-seal.co.uk

They do EPDM to exact size but price has gone up to £7.25 per m...last year was 5.99 if I recall.

 

[Onoff]

2 hours ago, Tennentslager said:

it's easy to put it on upside down...only one side has UV protection and if you get it wrong it will go quickly from black to grey and degrade.

 

Just wondering if that was my problem!

[Adsibob]

On 18/07/2017 at 19:51, Siochair said:

I once had a neighbour who used a plastic grid filled with stones/gravel as a shed base. No idea how long lasting it was as we both moved not long after. I do remember that it was pretty idiot proof to do. He managed both base and shed in just over a morning. I have no idea where he got it from but I am sure there are probably kits available.

Apart from this and @daiking’s response to it, I haven’t really found much on this forum about these plastic grids.

 

i need to do my shed base next week and has decided on the plastic grid click system filled with gravel, as it’s meant to be the easiest and all the shed suppliers have said it’s fine.
 

But I’m getting confused as to what the build up is. I think it’s something like:

 

Shed

40mm thick plastic grid system, filled with 10mm pea shingle

Geotextile membrane

MOT scalpings - but not sure how thick or whether this needs to be compacted at all???

 

I don’t have a compactor and want to keep the labour involved quite light as it’s just me and a mate of mine doing this. 
 

If anyone has done this type of base before, I’d appreciate your tips and pointers.

[Adsibob]

It’s also not clear to me that the mot scalping layer is even necessary. It is omitted from the instructions here, for example: https://www.tigersheds.com/blog/how-to-install-a-plastic-shed-base-kit/

[Chanmenie]

I used the grids, don’t use pea shingle, you need 10mm crushed stone it’s settles and locks in whereas pea shingle will move about.

I am fortunate that I have good ground, so I just removed the top soil and compacted the underlying sand / gravel then fitted membrane, grids and crushed stone. 
These are the grids I used

 

https://www.ibran.co.uk/products/plastic-shed-base

 

[markc]

Crushed stone is good, you don’t want type1 as this will go solid and water is likely to pool, plus really needs compacting. Crushed granite or similar is good because it is sharp and doesn’t move around. Don’t lay a grid area much begged than the shed or walking/wheel barrows etc tend to shuffle the stone down and the grids float up (unless you spike them down at regular intervals) this doesn’t happen when you fill the grids with soil for grassed areas.