Shed - Part 1: The Foundation

We've finally started building the shed. This is a project that will have a huge impact on our quality of life because once it's done we can move most of our tools as well as a lot of our boxes out of the house. This means more living space and more room to do more work on the house. It's going to take a little while to complete, but it will be worth it.

The shed will be located on the south side of the house where the drain field is, but since the septic system has been decommissioned there won't be any problems with smothering the drain field. The shed will be five feet deep and twenty-four feet long. We'll be adding a pad on either end of the shed as well. The one on the east side will be covered and will be the new home for the table saw. The pad on the west side will be the future location of the hot tub.

The first thing that we needed to do was clean up the area and string the shed location. The setback from the property lines is five feet. Getting the measurements and the strings set up took a lot of time.

Once the strings were in place it was time to mark and dig the holes. The foundation system is a pair of 4x4 rails anchored into the ground with three posts in concrete footings. This means that three holes get dug for each rail (eighteen holes in all). Each set of holes was dug first. Then the rail (with posts pre-attached) was placed and leveled. Then the rail was removed and the concrete poured in the holes. The rail was then put back in place with the posts inserted into the fresh concrete.

Digging post holes in the Pacific Northwest requires hacking through roots and dealing with ground water. The first holes ended up being close to thirty inches deep. Water seeped into the holes when they got to be around twenty-four inches deep. The soil was relatively easy to dig with just the post hole digger, but the digging bar was very handy to have. The goal for each hole was to get down to harder earth so as to best support the concrete footing.

Here are some photos showing the rail installation progression.

There is a rise of about seven inches from the lowest to the highest area. The shed will be built in three sections, though the roof will be seamless from one end to the other. The rails are probably the most level thing on the entire property so the floor joists should be very easy to line up and install.