Help wanted with brewery Floor.

[NIGHTSKY BREWING]

Hi Gents ,after digging out 2 tons of top soil from my garden I now need some advise on" how to concrete Floors" .....Have a metal shed now and someone for electrics.....

it will be 3m x 3.8m.

any help would be great.

I restore Karmann Ghia,s for a living in Battle so only know Metal.

Matt.

 

[Duxuk]

Concrete can be rather expensive. To get it ready mixed will probably not be an option. I built a garden room at the back of my house. The timber frame only touched the ground in 8 places so I dug holes to put a 40cm cube of concrete in. This was much more economical than a trench foundation. I then suspended a floor from the oak frame. You could do similar inside a metal shed with short supports for a suspended floor. OK it's not then a concrete floor but it would be cheap and can be insulated beneath. Other than that you could hire a concrete mixer and mix sand and cement, add water and fill your hole. This would be a big job which will require a team of healthy individuals who'll need rewarding with a constant supply of homebrew.

 

[aj65]

Thin metal sheds are not that heavy so you don’t need to go too deep. Old bricks and whatnot as a sub base.. once you concreted latex over the top of it for a smoother finish.

 

[NIGHTSKY BREWING]

Thanks gents for reply, as for hardcore would you use around the edges I have I big pile which I collected lump by lump each night in my small poor old car so yes I realy want this 90litre US style Nano brewery to start.

how do you use damp-proof membranes are they needed? .

 

[Oneflewover]

Speaking as someone who built a workshop on a concrete base without a membrane I definitely think that they are needed

 

[VW911]

Yep - definitely need a membrane.
As said above, a good layer of hardcore - as compacted as you can get, then a couple of inches of good concrete.
If you don't have access to a mixer, shutter it off into sections, and do a bit at a time.

PS - Always wanted a Karmann Ghia!!!

 

[NIGHTSKY BREWING]

Speaking as someone who built a workshop on a concrete base without a membrane I definitely think that they are needed

what level are they put.

 

[NIGHTSKY BREWING]

Yep - definitely need a membrane.
As said above, a good layer of hardcore - as compacted as you can get, then a couple of inches of good concrete.
If you don't have access to a mixer, shutter it off into sections, and do a bit at a time.

PS - Always wanted a Karmann Ghia!!!

pop down with some pocket money one day Pete will get one from the US....see California Classics on insta.......

 

[stevey]

William the concreter just up the road :-) . Won't cost much I wouldnt think.

 

[Tripster]

Hi NIGHTSKY BREWING

My advice would be
Depending on what type of soil you have /clay, flinty clay or chalk then dig down about 75mm blind with about 3 mm of cheap crappy sand put In damp proof membrane (DPM) you can buy this from any builders merchant Visqueen Is the most common brand used or any thick heavy duty polythene will do. Hire, borrow or rob a small Belle mixer (only jocking about the robbing bit) and use a gauge of 4 parts ballast (not sand) 2-3 shovels of cement and about half bucket of water.

If the ground Is not that stable then you will have to dig down about 150mm put In a 75mm sub base any old bit of concrete or brick will do but they will have to be broken down to about maximum 60 mm pieces and whack with a wacker plate wich you can hire or borrow but you can omit this if the slab Is not to big It's a tiresome process but It Is the way to do It. Blind with sand and put In DPM and concrete and tamp off. you sould'nt need to use Latex unless you are thinking putting vinyl or tiles on the floor. this isn't the cheapest way but It Is the correct way. I give this advice Is because I'm a builder with 40 =yrs experience. If you decide to do this the most valuable bit of advice Is to wear gloves cement Is not nice stuff and It can burn and If your not used to this kind of work your hands will blister and they are a ***** to heal. I hope I aint scared you of from your project and good luck.

 

[Druncan]

I'm going to be doing the same. Slightly bigger.
But is it not worth planning floor slopes to a central drain strip and out to a settling tank before it hits your domestic drainage? We use a 100l grease trap for our Restaurant. It has been worth it's weight in gold to prevent blockages further downstream.
FYI we are looking at a 400l eco brewery now,,, It all goes mental when you go commercial,,,, ;o)

 

[Mr Fro]

Good advice

What he said!:nod:

I've done a few bases for sheds, garages and such plus a number of patios and paths.

My top tip is not to skimp on the base. It can be an arseache doing it properly but it's much worse to have cracking or the leg of your fermenter punch through the floor!

I bought an electric whacker plate from Amazon for around £170 (cheaper than hiring) to compact the layers which I'll flog on once I've finished the current project...

 

[NIGHTSKY BREWING]

What he said!:nod:

I've done a few bases for sheds, garages and such plus a number of patios and paths.

My top tip is not to skimp on the base. It can be an arseache doing it properly but it's much worse to have cracking or the leg of your fermenter punch through the floor!

I bought an electric whacker plate from Amazon for around £170 (cheaper than hiring) to compact the layers which I'll flog on once I've finished the current project...

How would you do the base??? someone said ,,,you have to worry about the edges cracking I have some hardcore old bricks, concrete lumps , slabs , etc to bulk out.

Any help is great...........cheers Matt East Sussex.

 

[Mr Fro]

How would you do the base??? someone said ,,,you have to worry about the edges cracking I have some hardcore old bricks, concrete lumps , slabs , etc to bulk out.

Any help is great...........cheers Matt East Sussex.

A lot of it depends on the type of ground you have and the loading you'll be putting on it.

A rough rule of thumb is for domestic hard standing then 125 - 150 mm of concrete is required.

I'd put down 75 - 100 mm of hardcore/type 1 (I'd do it in two layers and whack it down between each), a skim of sand to level it up followed by more whacking, then DPM and the concrete. So pretty much what Tripster said.

There are loads of vids on YouTube that deal with shuttering and tamping. Just bare in mind that if you leave the slab tamped then it'll be forever dusty - you can get over this by floating the surface.

It's a shame you're not closer to me as I've got ~300 old bricks stacked up that I want rid of.

 

[Delta3]

Hi NIGHTSKY BREWING

My advice would be
Depending on what type of soil you have /clay, flinty clay or chalk then dig down about 75mm blind with about 3 mm of cheap crappy sand put In damp proof membrane (DPM) you can buy this from any builders merchant Visqueen Is the most common brand used or any thick heavy duty polythene will do. Hire, borrow or rob a small Belle mixer (only jocking about the robbing bit) and use a gauge of 4 parts ballast (not sand) 2-3 shovels of cement and about half bucket of water.

If the ground Is not that stable then you will have to dig down about 150mm put In a 75mm sub base any old bit of concrete or brick will do but they will have to be broken down to about maximum 60 mm pieces and whack with a wacker plate wich you can hire or borrow but you can omit this if the slab Is not to big It's a tiresome process but It Is the way to do It. Blind with sand and put In DPM and concrete and tamp off. you sould'nt need to use Latex unless you are thinking putting vinyl or tiles on the floor. this isn't the cheapest way but It Is the correct way. I give this advice Is because I'm a builder with 40 =yrs experience. If you decide to do this the most valuable bit of advice Is to wear gloves cement Is not nice stuff and It can burn and If your not used to this kind of work your hands will blister and they are a ***** to heal. I hope I aint scared you of from your project and good luck.

Perfect advice. I worked as a civil/structural engineer for a spell and I couldn't have put it any better (well I would have put it worse truth be told )

 

[NIGHTSKY BREWING]

Thank you very much Gents, out of my comfort zone on this one. U tube was not good for the start of this process.:thumb:

Oh my Top soil is quite hard with some clay....and bloody hard at mo.

Also would lov any old building hardcore Type 1 "Pics please" and bricks to make shed a wee bit higher is 2.5metre the limit.

cheers Matt 47.......on instagram.

 

[NIGHTSKY BREWING]

Hi NIGHTSKY BREWING

My advice would be
Depending on what type of soil you have /clay, flinty clay or chalk then dig down about 75mm blind with about 3 mm of cheap crappy sand put In damp proof membrane (DPM) you can buy this from any builders merchant Visqueen Is the most common brand used or any thick heavy duty polythene will do. Hire, borrow or rob a small Belle mixer (only jocking about the robbing bit) and use a gauge of 4 parts ballast (not sand) 2-3 shovels of cement and about half bucket of water.

If the ground Is not that stable then you will have to dig down about 150mm put In a 75mm sub base any old bit of concrete or brick will do but they will have to be broken down to about maximum 60 mm pieces and whack with a wacker plate wich you can hire or borrow but you can omit this if the slab Is not to big It's a tiresome process but It Is the way to do It. Blind with sand and put In DPM and concrete and tamp off. you sould'nt need to use Latex unless you are thinking putting vinyl or tiles on the floor. this isn't the cheapest way but It Is the correct way. I give this advice Is because I'm a builder with 40 =yrs experience. If you decide to do this the most valuable bit of advice Is to wear gloves cement Is not nice stuff and It can burn and If your not used to this kind of work your hands will blister and they are a ***** to heal. I hope I aint scared you of from your project and good luck.

cheers Pete.

 

[Tripster]

The site I'm working on at the moment the ground workers are putting In shed bases by just scraping of a bit of top soil and shuttering It with some 3x1 or 75mm x 25mm In new money and then concreting it with no hardcore sub base so ending up with a 75mm slab but the sheds will have there own floor all be It wooden ones. It's just an idea to ma. hope this Is of some use.ke It easier and cheaper

 

[Tripster]

Thinking about It another way would be to make a 4 inch concrete slab. scrape of the top soil make It as level as you can for the size of your shed buy some ordinary sterling board OSB from a builders merchant (cheaper than ply) cut into 4 inch strips and use as shuttering fill to the top with concrete making sure it's all level and smooth when the concrete has set you can then put some paving slabs on top the heavier the better old council slabs would be ideal I would have thought you could get them for next to nothing once there laid down they wont move. If you use lighter slabs you would have to bed them on to a sand and cement morter or bed them down when the concrete is still wet making sure they remain level.

 

[NIGHTSKY BREWING]

I have quite a few big slabs to use...... was going to sink into the concrete to bulk it out ? or should I use metal bars around the edges....or both.:thumb: