Shed flooring options?

[Modeler]

Hi all,

New to the forum here... I'm building a 10x16 shed right now, partly to get rid of the storage unit that's currently holding my wife's extra things (it's hard combining two households into an 800 sf house) and partly to hold general shed stuff (garden tools, riding lawnmower, etc).

Anyhow, I'm curious if anyone has any ideas for flooring? The floor is 3/4" fir T&G plywood resting on 2x6 PT floor joists 12" o.c. with 4x6 PT skids along the long edge on top of 10" diameter poured concrete piers/footings. The area underneath the shed has been scraped free of sod and replace with landscape fabric under 3/4' gravel. The shed is not yet finished, the walls are up but it's been pretty stormy the last few days; I'm hoping to finish it up this week.

Any ideas? I've been considering leaving it as-is, painting the floor with a couple coats of Kilz, adding an additional layer of plywood (1/2" AC fir perhaps?) or even some sort of vinyl or something. Any thoughts?

 

[jonzer12]

Its a shed... unless you need a finished floor, the plywood should be fine.
I just build my shed and used 3/4 PT plywood.

 

[theoldwizard1]

Its a shed... unless you need a finished floor, the plywood should be fine.

+! !

Getting it up off grade is the best idea. The air flow and light will prevent critters from making their home there. The air flow will also allow the floor joist and plywood adequate ventilation to dry out.

 

[LegacyIndustrial]

An oil based preservative wouldn't hurt. Of course epoxy would be nice too.

 

[James-W]

An oil based preservative on the bottom of the plywood as well as on top wouldn't hurt either.

 

[bigbadktm]

I went with the Westcoat Macoat system and an epoxy chip broadcast to refusal, and then sealed with one coat of Crown urethane. My plywood floor looks just like a concrete garage floor. I had a drainage problem and had a corner rot out from underneath, but the Macoat system is holding everything together until I can do the plywood repair. Once I finish the plywood repair, I will be redoing the Macoat system and going with a different color of chip.

 

[spotco2]

We have 2 sheds with 3/4 plywood flooring. One is over 20 years old and the other is 15 years old. No top coating on either. No issues with either.

 

[anthonyc12]

So, if a person were to build a 10x12 shed in their backyard they would normally need a slab foundation. Like a house, only smaller.

The shed company we are going through does something different. They built a freestanding structure; walls, roof, floor and place that onto 6x6 pressure treated timbers. Or they put down the timbers and build it on that, whatever.

I'd like a simple concrete pad, but that adds some amount of permanence to the next owners. A better option would likely be a gravel pad, but since there is a slope (low towards camera; high away) the gravel will be deeper on that side.

What are some edging options for a gravel pad like that? I can't imagine the high side would be more than a couple inches deep, thus making the low side 4 or 5 inches deep.

What are some options?

 

[jordan369]

I had some left over Rock Solid from my garage and coated my shed with it. It looks great and helps with easy spill clean up.

Mike

 

[nolimits76]

I'm a tad jealous. Before buying my current property, I was leasing an older home that had a similar sized shed in the backyard. At the time, it seemed like a bit overkill for my needs. The new house has a 3 car garage and is already full. My hopes and intentions are to add a shed in the near future to provide similar functionality as you....hold riding mower, lawn equipment & tools, wife's gardening tools, etc.

The shed I had before was similar construction with T&G plywood flooring. The owner had painted the floor to match the exterior (dark brown). I never really cared for that aspect. It made an unlighted space feel darker. And I was there about 2 years and noticed spots where the paint was coming up. Not horrible mind you, but it annoyed me. Not being the owner of the property, it didn't bother me enough to do anything about it.

Should I get to build a new shed, I would do similar construction and either just put wood sealer on the floor, or possibly thrown down some VCT tiles. The problem with the sealer is you will have to keep re-doing, and I am a fan of MAINTENANCE FREE flooring. The VCT is tough stuff and in a shed I wouldn't worry about top sealing, polishing, etc. I'd just lay the tiles and forget about them.

 

[Modeler]

I guess my primary interest in finishing the floor is to not allow the plywood to absorb the inevitable gas and oil leaks/spills. That and I want it to be as strong as possible. I'm still seriously considering a second layer of 1/2" plywood inside the walls and painting that with 3 or 4 coats of white Kilz primer. You're right whitefeather, dark inside a shed is no good!

 

[spotco2]

Uncoated wood will absorb any leaks so you wont have to worry about cleaning them up or tracking them around!

Seriously, our "sheds" are built sitting on top of concrete blocks with 3/4 floors. We've built engines, lawnmowers, boat engines and fixed anything that would fit through the doors on them with no problems. Heck, we've even built a few things inside that wouldn't fit through the doors to get it out!

That's just how most are built around here. No reason for concrete. No reason for 22 tons of gravel compacted every 4 inches. You don't even have to kill the grass under it because it WILL die from lack of sunlight. The only people that put skids under them are the ones that build them to sell and that's just so they are easier to move.

 

[Reitwagen]

You guys without frost and mud season are so lucky. Up here skids, gravel and PT floors are the norm.

One inch crushed stone will pretty much keep it's shape in the form of a pad without a border. We put a bunch of woodsheds on a one foot deep crushed stone base in a condo development, it's been a few years and everything looks fine.

I would probably just leave the floor alone. If I were to put anything on it it would be some sort of a oil based product.

 

[Modeler]

You guys without frost and mud season are so lucky. Up here skids, gravel and PT floors are the norm.

One inch crushed stone will pretty much keep it's shape in the form of a pad without a border. We put a bunch of woodsheds on a one foot deep crushed stone base in a condo development, it's been a few years and everything looks fine.

I would probably just leave the floor alone. If I were to put anything on it it would be some sort of a oil based product.

We don't have much frost, but we do have mud. I've had to hose the floor out twice during the shed building process so far

Edited to add: We do get frost, but it rarely hangs around more than a few hours in the morning and even during the coldest of cold spells the ground rarely freezes more than 6" down nor does it last more than 3 or 4 days. That's why our footings only have to be 12" deep