Advice needed please on building a small wood workshop

[Molynoox]

Thank you Martin it’s very reassuring to get someone else’s view, is chipboard as strong and water resistant as plywood?
I will draw up another diagram for the roof when I’ve given it more thought.
I would dig down to reasonably hard soil and use 4-6” of hardcore.

Seems to be three factors for the flooring material
1 strength
2 damp resistance
3 water resistance

Chipboard is strong enough... Its tongue and groove design means that once it's glued and screwed down it acts like one massive sheet. An advantage of that is you don't need to worry about finishing the board edges on the joists so you get better utilisation of the boards and also minimised cutting.

On wet and damp I wouldn't trust chipboard anywhere near water, as James mentioned, but on damp I think it's only the edges that might be at risk as the underside is usually a shiny plasticised surface that I would expect to do pretty well with normal humidity. The exception would be if you have an unusually large amount of humidity / condensation in which case you have other problems you need to solve. I think ply is probably more expensive but it's certainly an option and plenty of people use it. OSB3 too. Ply comes in lots of flavours and some are more water resistant than others so if going that route it's worth thinking about that side before buying.

On the foundations thing it's a tricky one because, as you alluded to, the ultimate factor is the soil underneath the foundations! So the fact you are aware of that and are assessing soil conditions and not just blindly throwing in 100mm of type1 on top of decayed leaf sludge is probably the most important thing Its a judgment call at the end of the day and I think my concern was that its dependant on factors you can't really control or measure I.e. the soil 'strength'. For that reason I would be digging down a bit further than I felt it needed and adding slightly more hardcore than I felt it needed.

It's the main reason I prefer groundscrews over piers actually, but I do like the pier foundations... they are cheap and fast which are big selling points

Martin

 

[Fitzroy]

I want a decent surface on the floor, but am planning on OSB for walls and ceiling.

I used 18mm ply rather than osb on a recent job as it was cheaper! Crazy world we live in.

 

[Joe1975]

Would these be worth using to hold the hardcore at the base of the pillar ‘foundations’?

 

[Colin the helper]

Hi what I will say if you can build it to max size you will e surprised how much room you need when you start your wood projects my shop is 5m by 3m with a small 3m by 2m conservator which I use as my wood store only a cheap aluminium but cheap way for more room I have french doors in the front and a single door in the front a double glazed door on the side to go to the wood store helps with natural light hope this gives you some ideas and the more windows and doors you have the less ply or strand board you need if you go to a window and door company you can get some good secondhand doors and windows as when they remove them from houses they put it all in a skip by second hand scaffold boards rip them down and glue together cheaper than four be to as you no scaffold boards last forever pre treat them all saves money hope this helps you

 

[charles79130]

Why not OSB?

I used osb for mine

 

[John Brown]

I used osb for mine

Me too. On my previous even smaller shed I had 24mm(?) flooring grade ply. Luxury!

 

[Joe1975]

Hi what I will say if you can build it to max size you will e surprised how much room you need when you start your wood projects my shop is 5m by 3m with a small 3m by 2m conservator which I use as my wood store only a cheap aluminium but cheap way for more room I have french doors in the front and a single door in the front a double glazed door on the side to go to the wood store helps with natural light hope this gives you some ideas and the more windows and doors you have the less ply or strand board you need if you go to a window and door company you can get some good secondhand doors and windows as when they remove them from houses they put it all in a skip by second hand scaffold boards rip them down and glue together cheaper than four be to as you no scaffold boards last forever pre treat them all saves money hope this helps you

Thanks for your advice. It’s going to look very strange if I increase its width from 2.4m. I could potentially make it a bit longer, maybe 6m instead of 4.8m.
I do have a plan if I need more space in the future.