Building Preparation
Base Preparation
The most important part of base preparation is choosing the most suitable site in your garden for your new building.
Firstly consider what you want to use your new garden building for, this may alter the position it will eventually go in the garden. Obviously the more level the ground is to start with the less hard work will have to be done later on.
Another consideration to take into account with the ever increasing wet winters we seem to be having is whether the chosen site gets very boggy in wet weathers, which might result in making your garden room liable to subsidence. As long as the ground chosen is relatively level within 6-8 inches throughout the length of the new construction and not subject to bogging, then the building will be assembled quite happily onto bearers, bricks and blocks.
Each
floor bearer will be made level with the next and all bricks and blocks
are sound (not cracked), these are then compacted into the ground so that
it doesn't float on top of the newly dug soil or bounce on springy turfs.
Alternatively you can choose the more permanent approach of a concrete
raft which is ideal if the ground needs building up or lies wet during
winter months.
It
is good practice to lay a layer of reinforcing mesh in the bottom of the
concrete base as this will bind the concrete together. All bases should
be made an inch smaller all round than the external measurements of the
new building, this will enable rain water to run off the external cladding
and harmlessly away onto the ground instead of hitting the edges of the
concrete and possibly running underneath the floor.
Something
else we would always recommend, whether you are choosing a concrete base
or not, is pressure treated floor bearers. These will raise the floor
of the building off the ground allowing air to circulate, thus keeping
the underside of the floor dry and extending the life expectancy of the
building, timber doesn't mind getting wet but it doesn't like staying
wet.
