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I really do not want to faff about with concrete. Is it OK to put a 8'x6' wooden shed onto breeze blocks/ paving slabs at each corner, maybe leveling them off beforehand by packing beneath the blocks with gravel?
You can't just support each corner of an 8x6 shed. The base will no doubt come with several bearers below a tongue and groove floor. Each one of the bearers could do with mid support.
i know what you mean, levelling off and concreting would be something id be a bit crap at, so i built my structure on 4x4 supporting posts and making a ring beam at top and bottom.
the ground was all sorts of levels underneath, i had one bit of concrete and some waste ground, so just plopped slabs down roughly and chocked the joists with various bits of concrete, bricks and wooden chocks (pics of this on page 3 of following link)
hasnt moved at all in 3 years now 🙂
its an option for you.....
EDIT: this is if youre building from scratch obviously, not sure if this is the case with yours or not, but i spose even with a ready built shed, you could build a base this way with just short posts, for the shed to plop onto.
ive just done this with a decking extension for mine 🙂
Are you gonna stay in the house or move on?.
If staying, I'd concrete. I did a lot cabin base last week, 3.5mx3.5m, filled it mostly with old slabs from a path now gone, left about 1-2" from top, and a couple of inches all round the sides.
Took 8hrs to dig out, build shuttering, and mix 20 loads of concrete.
It's the 3rd one I've did in my garden, one each for shed and decking about the same size.
I find it quite therapeutic tbh!. Having a mixer helps though, I picked up a belle from gumtree for 50 quid years ago reckon I'd still get that for it now. Would have cost me that to hire for a weekend.
for my 8x6 I just dug some earth out, threw in some sharp sand in hole laid some slabs I picked up free from gumtree. set the shed base on 20 or so common bricks to let the air flow underneath and to stop local wildlife setting up home under there. cost to me was slab of beer for sand from mate.
A concrete pad is over engineering it a bit for a garden shed
Pretty much exactly as bruneep. Clear the top soil, a bit of gravel and sand and some free slabs from Facebook. The middle ones were a bit cracked but it's was all level and fully supported the shed.
Similar with a 8 x 6 summer house - ground on a fair slope, levelled as best I could, decking/shed support frame made 4m x 5m, then levelled with it supported on 'legs' down to paving slabs on worked in ground. Hasn't moved in 4 years. Make sure you have planty of support to the 'ground'.
I am sure concrete is best but our 8x6 is on breeze blocks (base made level with bits of wood between the blocks and shed base!) and has been fine for 16 years.
A concrete pad is over engineering it a bit for a garden shed
Probably, but our area is a nightmare for mares tail, my last house I laid a deck on block supports and it came up through the deck.
Pissed me right off! 🤣
You can buy timber, metal and plastic shed base kits which don't need concrete.
edit.
When my parents moved house 25 or so years ago mum wanted the garden shed shifted,. So we carefully dismantled it and move it across the garden. We used about 16 stone blocks like cobbles that were in the garden as the base. Each corner plus 2 other rows. Just dug back a couple of inches of top soil to place to blocks and level them roughly then rebuilt the shed. It's still there, still fine.
At my own house I was puzzled as I moved in to discover the shed in the corner of the garden had no floor but had a concrete pad inside the walls. Inside them.... So the shed walls rest straight on the dirt. Unsurprisingly it slowly rots. It is still standing 11 years after I arrived though, but is only a firewood store these days.
Inside? That's nuts!
Dig out the turf, edge with some fence posts and fill with some 20mm gravel. Job done.
Alternatively build a deck and put it on that.
Rent a hole borer, and get some cardboard tubes like the ones for posting stuff in, maybe six inches in diameter, bore holes, put tubes in, pack soil around them, check tops are all level, pour concrete into each tube, build shed on top.
I’d put boards around the bottom to keep it clear, but I’d maybe build some hedgehog boxes and put in place first, leaving just the entrances open.
It never hurts to encourage some wildlife, I’ve got three or four ‘hogs as regular visitors, had one nesting last year, but she died earlier this year, and none of the others have adopted any of the sleeping nests I put in place.
Maybe if I get more hoglets this year one or two might take them over.
Inside? That’s nuts!
It is very odd, very odd! I wonder if it had a wooden floor but since it was straight on the dirt the floor rotted and then perhaps the owner broke the floor out and poured a pad inside the remaining walls of the shed....but then the walls normally come up from on top of a shed floor so that would be hard to do.... No...no..I suspect it was a some kind of tape measuring ballsup and a pad 6 inches too small in both directions was poured...but then why no wooden floor? I dunno..its odd...and poor as the shed itself is straight on the dirt and rotting as a result...albeit very very slowly, much more slowly than i would have expected. It looked an old shed when i moved here a decade ago, and now it is well past its best, but it still stands and serves as a wood store
Concrete fence posts.