I went down the Building Control route and that was what was required. It’s a brick built building with dual pitched roof – basically no different to a bungalow in construction.

Surely that’s a garage, not a shed?

Surely that’s a garage, not a shed?

Similar yes, only there’s no road access and I don’t have a car……

Similar yes, only there’s no road access and I don’t have a car……

Alright, not a garage. But not a shed, either. A workshop.

Lol! THIS IS A THREAD ABOUT SHEDS GODDAMIT! 😀

I’m thinking about upgrading my cheap shedmaster shed to a more robust structure – I have a 12″ base about 7″ hardcore and 5″ concrete with a load of that wire mesh stuff in (and massive bike anchor), that’s 17×14′ – I was told it was overbuilt at the time it was made.

Can I retrofit a damp proof course? I was thinking about an insulated section shed, there is place over here that appears to build good ones and I’d like to run power to the shed for a chest freezer and store my homebrew (at the moment it’s no good in summer as it’s not insulated).

Would the bike anchor be a problem point? Or anything else I’ll have to budget in?

If the shed base is proud of the surrounding ground you could just lay DPC over it and put the new shed on top? I doubt you’ll get a lot of damp through 5″ of concrete unless you’re really waterlogged….

I’m going to have to go and check now that I have been reading up on the subject.

It’s a standalone base that looks like it’s almost flush with ground (about 1″ proud) as on 2 sides it’s surrounded by gravel paths and on the other 2 sides (next to the fences), there is nothing but a 5″ drop or so to the hardcore/ground.

I’m hoping that there is a dpc between the concrete and hardcore – but I don’t recall seeing it and I missed that bit of the construction.

I’m on clay and I have reeds growing in my lawn, further down the estate they regularly flood so i guess I am that waterlogged.

But back in the real world 😉 If you have some flat land that is currently say, grassed….

Could you dig down say a foot, tip a load of hardcore in, place some large concrete slabs on top of that and have a solid enough base for building a large wooden shed on like trail rat’s (probably a bit bigger than that)?

What base did you put down there trail rat?

I would have thought so Samuri, a quick google shows very large sheds built on piers rather than on solid bases, I guess you are going to get better air flow.

See about a quarter of the way down this page

http://www.squidoo.com/wood-shed-plans-step-by-step-success

Samuri – that’s what I’m doing.
I’m building 4 inches off the hardcore using concrete fence posts as runners.
Dimensions are 4.8m x 3.5m with a corner cut off quite a long way.

I was advised by a joiner friend that it’d be fine. It’s clay beneath the hardcore and had a shed on it before which never moved.

The hardcore was already there. We used 6 x £14 posts and 4 medium density blocks (ground falls away a few inches at the narrow end). Total cost £90.

I’ll probably put some DPM strip everwhere a joist touches the concrete post.

With a bit more budget, I might have gone for 9 of these, but they come in at roughly £30 each:
http://www.swiftfoundations.co.uk/swift_mini_plinth.php

If your going to spend 2k + on a concrete base for a shed why not save your cash,

level the ground and get a 20 ft container put in

all sorts of fittings are available for them and more secure than a timber shed

1k is a lot to play with if you do that sort of thing for a living, remember its 60-70% of your total bill is labour cost average joe can go bnq n get a “trade” card when bnq charge 60odd quid for some golden gravel deliverd in a tonne bag, whilst i go to the salvage yard and get two bags deliverd for that, bark chippings cost a bomb, i go to my local farm, FREE!!!! Iv even bagged some and sold it to customers who wanted it, builders etc price so highly because what you dont see is the travel to get to price the job, fuel to the merchants, the hours of paperwork at home estimating and ringing said merchants and then collecting the gear, i allways have a 10% buffer zone in my jobs for muck ups, ie i didnt order enough sealant on a job, most would bullshit and say errrr i need more money for more materials from the client, which is unprofessional, if buffer zone isnt used it gets refunded back to customer, which is probably why im never out of work and employ two lads full time.

Samuri

I scraped backthe gravel

Put down some sand

Laid 9 or 10 slabs

Base iirc was 8×2 treated.

Land lord bought it off me when i left as he was impressed with it – every other shed he put up had blown down.

i believe a shed a shed is classed a as temporary structure therefore no need for planning permission. think some of the prices being quoted on here make me feel like starting my own business.

Planning definitely does apply to sheds. There are certain criteria to meet to make it ‘Permitted Development’
http://www.planningportal.gov.uk/permission/commonprojects/outbuildings/miniguide

“Could you dig down say a foot, tip a load of hardcore in, place some large concrete slabs on top of that and have a solid enough base for building a large wooden shed on like trail rat’s (probably a bit bigger than that)?”

Back in the days of life in black and white instead of colour before Portacabins were on the go our site huts were always just founded on 3 x 2 slabs and I don’t recall any problems.

At least not until my boss wanted half a dozen for his own shed when we were clearing a site and, due to his loss of licence, I had to drive the Morris Minor Traveller with that lot in the back. A bit like steering a boat with the nose in the air.

http://pinterest.com/jocelynlr/cabin-shed-porn/

No actual porn

If it’s shed wars, good luck tracking this guy down:

On the subject of planning, I understand there is a 2.5m height limit before consent is required.

There’s also a limit on how close you can be to neighbour boundaries which IIRC is 2m

m1kea, pretty sure the boundary thing is 1m, but yes 2.5m high..

Every shed in the land falls foul of the boundary one though.

Mine is OK with 1 of those regulations……. Just, & depending how you measure it. 😉

You can build right up to the boundary (although obviously don’t dump all the rainwater off their side, etc). But then the 2.5m height rule comes into play.
15sqm floor limit.
If further away than 2m from boundary, you can build eves at 2.5m and 4m overall height on a dual-pitch roof.

It’s all in that Planning Portal link a few posts up.

If you’re in a conservation area though, you’re screwed.

You could just put in some simple concrete ‘piles’ and then DPC on top. I had to do this with my workshop, as the walls are built straight on the earth and there was ‘leakage’ with water seeping off the road (which is higher on one wall). Like this, but outside:

And £1k doesn’t go far, once spending starts… Electrics aren’t cheap either.