Recent content by Mandrake

I've had advice from a builder on the general design of what I'm doing, and I'm going to stick with that. I'm just looking for advice on the best way to approach drainage within that design.

the ground on the other side of the wall is roughly 700mm higher than on my side

There's a 7ft garden wall 2 feet away from the wall on the right, hence the plan to use the base to resist lateral movement in the posts

Great yeah that sounds good. I was planning a 4 inch slab so I guess with this approach I’d need to make that thicker? Since I’m using the slab to reinforce the fence laterally I was planning to seal the perimeter of the shed base with gasket tape for air tightness (it’s more of a...

The issue with french drains is they wouldn't allow me to pour the slab up to the retaining wall to strengthen it against lateral movement. Is it not possible to direct the water from the guttering at the back to all come around the right side to the drain?

Sorry just reread this and understand what you're suggesting now, about the gravel.

I've been called many things in my time... The slab is 50mm above grade (as it's currently designed anyway) so unless I raise the bottom gravel board, the slab would be in contact with the board preventing proper runoff to that side, same situation at the back. Only a rough sketch but you...

A few weeks ago I started this thread about building a retaining wall so I can build a shed. I settled on using gravel boards and h-posts for the wall, not conventional I know but it seemed like a good solution in order to maximise space and the wall is only 90cm so they should be strong enough...

Doing this the shed windows would be over 3m above ground floor level. This doesn’t work for me for reasons outlined in the above posts. 90cm from the back to the front A number of better solutions than this have been discussed above. Yeah it’s a smallish garden and I have kids so it matters...

OK well thanks for all the ideas some really helpful stuff here. I'm 95% sure I'm going to go with a low retaining wall made from gravel boards. Minimal space needed, strengthens the potentially dodgy existing wall, cheap materials, comparatively easy to install, and the look of it doesn't...

Interesting so the breather membrane keeps water out but allows damp air to escape from inside the walls is that the idea? This is the kind of idea that seems obvious once said, but I probably would never have considered, thanks! Back and sides will be completely hidden so a great idea to save...

Yeah I did consider this, but the site is so much higher than the house already that going for pier and post type construction would make the shed almost level with the upper floor of the house. It's a big enough shed (12x10) in a not massive garden, so it would look too imposing, and the...

Slainte! (hopefully that's not culturally insensitive ;)) Yeah the drainage is something that concerns me a bit, as you say the narrow gap, slope and an impermeable concrete base could be a problem unless managed. I was initially thinking of building the whole shed on a compacted gravel pad...

Waterford, 'the sunny south east' though you wouldn't know it looking out the window 98% of the time 😅 That's interesting re the cage integrity and makes a lot of sense, I'm from lancashire can't move for dry stone walls there many of which must be hundreds of years old. How do you foot a...

ok makes sense I'll give that a try, thanks. I may end up replacing the whole fence rather than half as it's all 30 year old timber and not in great condition. So the look will be an issue to some extent, I guess it won't take too long for the ivy to cover the visible part so not the end of the...