How to re-floor a garden shed?

[PatrickQ]

G'day all,

Recently moved into a place where had an existing 3x3m garden shed, the floor seems was concrete but not even, and had some old pallets on top. Wanted to seek your advise on what options are the most practical ones for a newbie who has very little D.I.Y experience (and tools) please:

• Replace the pallets with new ones and lay hardwood sleepers on top;
• Resurface the floor with concrete;
• Resurface the floor with washed concrete sand and pavers on top
• Build a new hardwood bearer and lay sleepers on top;
• Other options?

The only purpose for this shed is for storage, and it is a bit hard to access.  

Thanks in advance

Patrick

[EricL]

Hello @PatrickQ

Welcome to the Bunnings Workshop community. It's wonderful to have you join us, and thank you for sharing your question about re-flooring your shed.

You've actually listed most of the possible options that are open to you. My only concern is how safe do you want to protect those items in your shed? Is water pooling on the shed floor? This could be the reason why the pallets are there to keep the stored items dry. Another reason could be to protect the stored items from extreme condensation produced by the cement floor. Whichever floor you choose, just keep these particular situations in mind.

The most straightforward way to renew your flooring would be to put in new pallets. You've mentioned that you were going to put sleepers on top of the pallets. Because the sleepers are treated for ground contact you can actually put them directly onto the cement floor. However, you can do it in combination, if that's how you wish to do it. You will need some basic tools like a saw, hammer and tape measure to do some basic carpentry.

Using pavers is another way to get new flooring in. I suggest putting thick builders plastic on the floor to act as a moisture barrier before laying down the pavers. Among the flooring options, using pavers provides ease of installation and the toughness of concrete. If installed with care and precision, it should provide a very long service life.

Putting on a new concrete floor is a great option as well. But it is the most labour intensive, it also has the longest waiting time before use. But once it's been laid out and is ready for use, you won't have to worry about replacing it for a long time.

Here are some discussions that might help you decide:

• How to pour a concrete slab by @tom_builds

• Garden shed on timber base by @Malcolm

• Absco shed built on block pavers by @BrendanB.

Please keep us updated with your progress, we look forward to seeing the start of your flooring project.

If you need further assistance, please let us know.

Eric

[PatrickQ]

Thanks Eric! I'll take a look at these lined discussions and think over, and come back to update my progress

[PatrickQ]

Hi All,

Went with the paving option, now the job is almost done, does not looking great because of floor not levelled enough, and need a final sweep in the end. Clean-upAdd Bedding SandBasic LevelingAdd PaversFilled the paver mix sand

[PatrickQ]

Lessons Learned:

1. Half a ton of sand (to cover 9 sqm) and the required pavers are not easy to be moved around with difficult access to the shed;

2. Once exhausted with moving the materials, I've ended up lost my patience to do a proper levelling, hope I won't regret too much later on;

3. Did not sweep off all the paving sand from top of the pavers before watering it, left some white marks and harder to remove.

[MitchellMc]

Great work considering the hard to access nature of the project @PatrickQ. You've done really well and should be proud of your efforts. I laid several pavers a few days ago to place my garbage bins upon. It's not as easy as it sounds, and even with such a small quantity, they didn't end up particularly level. I think you've done a fine job.

Many thanks for updating us on your project, and please feel free to reach out anytime you need assistance with a project around the home and garden.

Mitchell