Hello everyone.
As set out in this thread, I built a large shed/small workshop on a temporary site about a year ago; and a few months ago the builder dismantled it and built an extension on that site. I built the workshop in a way that (I hope) made it easy to transport to a new location, and I am now turning my mind to putting it in its permanent home. As always, any advice or comments would be much appreciated.
Here are some photos of the area where it will be permanently located:
I will have to remove the tree circled yellow; but not the one circled purple.
It is hard to show, but towards the back of the plot the ground does slope upwards slightly so I will have to remove more soil there in order that the slab will be proud of the ground level.
The site is about 40m from the road via a narrow pathway approx 850mm wide, and we are on clay soil. There is a substantial laurel hedge that runs alongside, as you can see in the photos. There is also a concrete path that will need to be taken up as part of this. The building will be used as a workspace but also for storage. I don't have any heavy machinery, the heaviest thing to go in there is probably a workbench. I have asked some local groundwork companies to quote for doing the excavation, but before I go ahead I wanted to check that my basic plan was sensible:
- remove old red shed, which sits on concrete lintels over soil
- cut down tree and dig out stump- excavate to 150mm generally, but 200mm at the edges - (first 300mm around the edge). Dispose of waste. I make it approx 2.25 cubic meters to get rid of, mostly soil but some concrete.
- fill with type 1, compacted with whacker plate to depth of 100mm. Edges should still be 50mm lower than the rest of the base.
- sand blinding laid
- DPM put down
- shuttering installed to allow for top of slab to sit approx 50mm above ground level
appropriate mix of concrete to be supplied and transported to site, and laid to depth of 100mm (150mm around the edges). I estimate it to be approx 2m2 of concrete. Surface to be left level and smooth as possible, ideally power-floated.
I am not insulating the floor as I am working to 2.5m.
Any thoughts? My concerns are that there are a lot of roots in the area and so I question whether I need to go down further. My other concern is cost of concrete. I am in Herts, and while volumetric is easy to find, the only option I can get for moving the stuff 40m from the road to the site is a pump, which is expensive, especially for such a small quantity. Mixamate advertise a mini dumper but don't actually have it, and barrow mix is seemingly not offered in my area.
Obviously COVID-19 will play its part too and things will move more slowly than I'd like, but I just want to make sure I've got a sensible plan before starting.
Thanks!