The 60cm square pavers that made up the foundation of the old shed were layed on paving sand but it doesn’t seem that any effort was put into levelling the ground. We pulled them all up and started putting that right, but between those two line items we took a break to barbecue some vegetables and souvlaki and to enjoy the shade on the once-and-future shed site.
Yeah, the entire garden is in disarray. Next to my feet you might be able to make out the orange grade line we used as a datum to get to mostly level. You can also see some of the shitty pointing done to the wall at the railway cut (and which I also addressed in my week off from the labs):
Excavated and much closer to planar by the following weekend, the site was covered with an impermeable plastic sheet and loosely refilled with the pavers leaving space between for the poured concrete to fill and make the entire pier a continuous pier. Scrap boards were held in place with tent pegs at the borders and these lined with bricks to make the boundaries look like a traditional foundation while having the advantages of the slab. The framing of the floor joists will be bolted to the concrete thus pulling the outer frame tight against a waterproofing layer between wood and brick.
The area is 8 feet by 10 feet (2.4 m x 3 m) and 4 inches (100 mm) deep but while we ordered in enough cement and aggregate fixings for the entire slab, I went cheap by lining the frames with old concrete pavers (thus saving half the materials for the patio and other projects). A last check that all was level and plumb before firing up the mixer (per fill, I put a whole bag of gravel, eyeballed about 70% of a bag of sand, and about 30% of a bag of cement for about a 3.5:2.5:1 gravel:sand:cement ratio).
The form took just under three hours of manic mix/pour/spread (with all three happening continuously) to fill and screed. Any larger footprint and I would have broken it into two or more pours (and put in expansion devices) but, even then, it would have helped to have an assistant.
Altogether, this is just shy of 2 tonnes of shed anchoring material. I feel every ounce of it in my back and shoulders. Crossfit can suck a bag of dicks.
Endless British Pub Crawl (Part 3) 
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