mayhem said:
I may have missed it while skimming the thread, but how do the stones make it easier to level your floor? You don't seem to be sinking posts down below the permafrost layer so I'm unclear on how this shed is expected to stay where you put it when the winter comes and that nice box you made fills with water, freezes and expands like an ice cube tray. Won't your shed wind up moving some?
I need a shed myself and my biggest barrier for not doing it yet is the cost and difficulty involved with putting in 6x6 posts 5 feet down underground, I have very rocky property.
Regarding the insulation. Unless the building is heated, the floor is going to be the same temp inside as outside. No matter how much you insulate that floor, its eventually going to lose all the heat unless you have some way to put heat energy into the inside of the shed. Again, I may have missed this part as well...apologies if I did.
Looking good so far, can't wait to see the finished product.
Hello
Under each block I dug down 2 feet and filled with stones. So it should not settle too much. I agree about the insulation but I may work in there from time to time and small heater would work well if there is a little insulation.
Not sure about rodents eating foil backed rigid foam.
Rodents like mice usually have a reason to eat there way thru something. If they can smell food on the other side they will go thru anything their teeth can chew. So the article below states they CAN eat the rigid foam. Some foam companies state the foam will help stop odors from going thru a wood structure!
So WILL the mice eat the foil and foam under the shed? That is the question.
Here is an answer about mice!
http://www1.agric.gov.ab.ca/$department/deptdocs.nsf/all/agdex594
Economic Losses to Mice
There is no way of placing a monetary value on human suffering and damage caused by mice. The greatest loss is probably not what mice eat, but what is wasted and contaminated.
In six months, one pair of mice can eat more than two kilograms (4 lbs.) of food and deposit about 18,000 droppings. Food contaminated by mice is about ten times greater than what is eaten. Also, food wasted by mouse nibbling is much more than what is eaten. So common are mice, that it is no wonder their hairs and sometimes droppings, end up in all types of food commodities, from canned beans to loaves of bread.
Structural damage caused by rodents can be expensive. In recent years the trend toward use of insulated confinement facilities to raise swine and poultry, for instance, has led to increased rodent damage. Mice are very destructive to rigid foam, fibreglass batt and other types of insulation in walls and attics of such structures.
Mice also gnaw wooden structures causing grain and feed to be wasted. They also undermine buildings by burrowing, which eventually causes structural failure and collapse.
Electrical wiring gnawed by mice causes many fires each year, listed as "cause unknown".
Hardware Cloth is certainly a good idea!
http://www.acehardware.com/product/index.jsp?productId=1290448&cp=1302712
