Building an inexpensive Building Foundation:
On my building project, I used a typical shed plan but altered it some because I used recycled metal for the sides and roof. I live on a hill that is full of rocks. I did something on the foundation that is more unique than what most folks do. This was a medium-sized shed with a gambrel style roof and a nice sized loft. The foundation was built with a wood base on 4"x4" skids.
Tie Down The Base or Face Wind Damage:
To level the ground I used small gravel (1/2" minus) and some scrap plastic under it to help keep the weeds from coming up through it (note that the ground did not have to be perfectly level because I was able to use concrete forms to level the building). Our farm can get pretty windy sometimes so I needed to tie the building down to the ground somehow. I did not like the choice of shed anchors on the market because they seemed poorly constructed to me. I used four plastic buckets (5 gallon size) as concrete forms. I then buried them until they were level with each other by placing a board and bubble level on them. I hammered a metal fence post through the bottom of the buckets and filled them with cement.
The buckets provided for a nice even platform to set the building on. The posts that were driven into the bottom of the buckets also acted as good anchors. The ground surface did not have to be perfectly flat and it was fine that some of the plastic buckets were sticking above the ground because I could place decorative stone or a similar covering over it. When I drove the metal post into the ground, I sunk it so that the top was just below the edge of the rim of the bucket. Before the cement was dried I put a metal bracket into it so that it would allow the wooden 4"x4" skid boards to be placed through them and then bolted down. The bottom of the metal bracket goes down into the cement so that it is well anchored. Your local hardware store probably has some kind of metal bracket available. I just used some junk metal I had in my scrap pile.
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