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I want to make a shed plinth on sloping ground, and I want the door at the higher end of the slope so the back will have to be built up.
I was thinking of using bricks and mortar to do this. I want them reasonably level so they don't look crap. It'll need to be about 3/4 bricks high at the back. I think I know how to do it but I'm not sure how to get the first course of bricks level. They'll have to sit on the ground where I've dug which won't be perfectly level or flat. So how do you start off? Layer of mortar down so you can use it to level the first bricks?
I'm from the functional, not pretty school of bricklaying so I'm in no way an expert. However, it's not clear from your post whether you're laying the first course straight on the ground or if you have a concrete foundation. Myself, I'd lay a suitable depth of concrete first and that would take care of the levelling problem.
This won’t work. You can’t bear bricks directly on the ground. You’d need to dig and pour a concrete foundation. If its only for a shed I’d do a concrete plinth instead.
Here’s the best bricklaying advice you’ll ever get.
Pay a bricklayer to do it for you.
You'll want to put in a foundation of some kind.
Can you not dig it out and then use shuttering and then back fill it to get a level plinth?
Pay a bricklayer to do it for you.
Do you think if I had the money to pay someone I'd be dicking about doing it myself?
I did think of a concrete plinth but extremely hard to remove later. And it needs to be about 50cm high at the back so how to build it up that high?
The chespest and easiest diy method to achieve what you’re after is to build a timber deck and sit the shed on it.
You will need a wee foundation concrete to support it then learn your 75x table. Measure from your finished height is your floor level your working off and measure down
One course 75mm
Two. 150mm
Three. 225mm
Four. 300mm
Etc
A brick is 65 mm a bed should be 10mm, it all sounds easy well it is just like pulling a wheelie some folk are good at it some maybe not
Of course, makes sense and I've seen this done before.
It's only small so hopefully I would be able to mix enough concrete by hand. Plenty of detailed guides to foundations online.
At only 3 to 4 course high just lay one course of concrete block.
Adjust your footing height to make sure the block finishes at the correct height, it'll be a lot easier than trying to lay brick courses.
What's the shed floor going to be? You could put in sonotube or kwikbase type support on some gravel/stonedust and use a saddle ir similar to attach timber posts then build your floor onto them. Or use timber/blocks to build a retaining wall, fill with gravel and pour a slab onto that.
Sounds a lot easier to hammer some posts in and build a deck.
Yeah use piers, either concrete in tubes or timber posts, postcreted in and cut level, then a timber base.
Nice idea polly pipe.
I made a set of garden steps using paving slabs as footings. I simply dug down slightly below where I wanted the brick to be, levelled it off, plonked the slabs down and jumped about on them and started building the couple of courses of brick on them. It's still fine 20 years later.
THAT is exactly what I need! I can screw it to the tarmac!
EDIT no, it's not. Only 6" of vertical adjustment it says. Plus it's heavily dependent on soft ground it looks like.