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I’m appealing to the wisdom of Singletrack to help decide a debate at home.
My son is soon building a Shepherd hut to live in in the garden (yes, it's slightly mad but that's a different discussion along with housing prices), this counts as a mobile home so building regs/planning are all sorted, however there’s some disagreement around the need to do any supporting preparation of the ground.
The hut itself will be on a steel chassis (no wheels). The gound is soil becoming heavy clay at a foot or two depth.
My suggestion is that the chassis can be supported on concrete slabs at the corners and middle with no need to do further work on the ground other than levelling and compacting. If there is any settlement during building or over time then it should be relatively easy to jack up the frame and slip in a shim or two to re-level the hut.
However, the other view is to dig out some holes under the slabs and fill with hardcore to help stabilise the ground before levelling.
I’m slightly concerned that digging and hardcore is getting slightly like foundations and that’s no longer mobile, it’s also more work and more disturbance of the ground.
What’s the best way to do this? Am I missing any tricks?
If you have it on wheels, even if it is never going to move, it bypasses some planning rules.
It doesn't need wheels to count as mobile, only that it's theoretically moveable in no more than 2 parts. That includes slings and cranes! Not having wheels reduces the height and that solves other issues.
I'd take as light an approach as you can with the 'foundations', so long as the ground is hard, some sharp sand or scalpings under the slabs should suffice - make sure you've got some airflow underneath it though.
How high will the slab supports be? Many shepherd huts have fairly small wheels, once in their final location they seldom need to be moved. Bearing in mind, the wheels were often iron rims with iron spokes.
Please keep us updated, could do with moving my son into a shed of some sort. My neighbour 'illegally' built a rather large concrete 'wendy house' for his son, all plumbed in with loo etc, no planning.
This one belongs to a friend of mine, who has visitors to her hotel stay in it! It’s a restored original 19th century hut.
How heavy is the completed hut going to be? I would just put it on the ground and see what happens to be honest. With a metal frame it’s going to be easy to jack up and level with a bit of slate if needed.
It's all a bit David Cameron's garden isn't it?
Mine was on old scaffolding board for about three years. If I can secure some land it’ll be going on a paving slab under each wheel. If I can be bothered it’ll have some sharp sand shoved underneath them.
Whatever you do don’t rest it directly on the ground. They can and do sink - mine was on a field for 4 months while we were in temporary accommodation and it was a right pig to remove once it had settled itself 10cm into the turf after a few rain storms. It’ll also settle unevenly which will upset the structure.
Shed going up at the end of the garden currently, dug out some soil, packed in some scalpings/type 1, weed membrane down, reclaimed paving slabs. Borrowed a long spirit level to get everything pretty close and then added some old slates as packers for fine tuning. Built timber frame on top of what you see.
Should add that I only dug out under where the slabs were going, not the whole area under the weed barrier.
And with a bit more frame coming together;
Had a guy out talking shepherd's huts the other week. He said you only need 4 railway sleepers, that'll do the trick.
Sleepers at a reasonable shout. I contemplated that as I could rest the axles on them. The only issue is that old sleepers are nasty nasty things, soaked in creosote and an emulsion of engine lubricant, brake dust and people’s literal $hit. New ones are pretty cheap now though.
@timber that view. Wow.
@hot_fiat nice trail over that hill too, but not until it gets cut back.
Concrete lintels are the supports furthest from the camera in my shots, no idea of cost comparison as they were cleared from a friend's place and the sleeper is one of the last good ones of a shed that was in the same spot with a whole wall that was built of sleepers on their ends.
You (or your son) only want to do this once, I take it? i.e. no-one wants to fanny about with a wonky shepherd's hut once it's in place.
Having put up a summer house earlier this year on clay, I'd
dig out some holes under the slabs and fill with [well rammed] hardcore to help stabilise the ground before levelling.
Concrete blocks would give more height for air flow.