Shed Base

[smr]

This is the slope of the lawn, and the corner in which the base and shed will be, the guy who did the quote said its better to have the Shed sideways facing the house rather than the Shed Door facing the house, due to there being less of a slope if it's sideways on, ie. parallel to the fence on the left. To my right is the back of my house.

 

[Welshman]

This is the slope of the lawn, and the corner in which the base and shed will be, the guy who did the quote said its better to have the Shed sideways facing the house rather than the Shed Door facing the house, due to there being less of a slope if it's sideways on, ie. parallel to the fence on the left. To my right is the back of my house.

If he’s digging out the area, the slope shouldn’t be an issue and he does what you ask, not the other way around.

he’s also using sleepers, which means he could add an extra sleeper to the left side to bring it up to level with the slop if required.

 

[Luxor]

I'll give advice, understandably that it might not be possible for yourself as I don't know your circumstances.

However, that sounds a lot of money which essentially you're paying for the labour - the material costs are a small percentage of that total and it's only an 8x6 shed which is just a standard small shed.

If you can, get a friend along or family who can assist. I wouldn't be told that you can't have the shed door facing the house, it just needs planning out. Looking at that picture, it looks like a new build garden. if you had the shed door facing you I'd dig a trench just to the right of where the shed will face you. You only have a 6' frontage so it's not a huge amount of material. You could build up a few sleepers up to hold the bank back with supports driven into the ground. I'd build a low level brick wall to do the job but sleepers would work. Remove the material - either green bin it or alternatively you could dig a border to get rid of some of the soil and turn over the grass to kill it. Chop up the grass sods. There's loads of videos about how to do this and use some hose to create some curves in. Drop some shrubberies in - it would look great.

Then drop some flags down where the shed sits with some cement blobs underneath and level them off. Shed bases really don't have to be over engineered unless they are carrying significant weight where a poured concrete slab would be more suitable. Remove the grass around the sides of the shed and put some weed suppressant down with some decorative gravel so you can store some bits and bobs behind it.

It would save you a lot of money. As I mentioned though, don't know your circumstances but that's a lot of coin for a shed base. Ultimately though, go with what you're happy with but I'd like to save the money!

 

[touch]

If you have the shed door facing the house, he's also going to need to dig out enough clearance area for the door to open and also space for you to stand in front of that when you open the door. So even though the door is probably on the long side of the shed(?) it'll still take less digging to face the side of the shed to the house.

I had a plastic keter shed (an 8x6 'factor' model) when I moved into my house. It was sitting on top of slabs which had been laid directly onto gravel and had moved/sunk a bit over time. The door was difficult to open and close and I think it was because the slabs were no longer level and had caused the whole shed to twist or skew a bit. There's no structural support at all in the plastic floor of these sheds and it's completely reliant on whatever you build it on top of.
Having said that, it only took me 20 mins to dismantle and remove the shed so if the base did sink a bit over time it's not too big a job to move the shed out of the way to fix.

 

[Simon42]

I think the quote the OP got is perfectly reasonable, people in business have to make a profit and have other costs not just the materials and labour.

In my case I already have a compactor and a cement mixer and for smaller outbuildings usually lay the base myself and prefer high quality interlocking plastic grid tiles (due to better drainage, aesthetics and easier to extend/move if ever needed). However by the time I dig out, put a good thickness of MOT base and good quality grids filled with shingle the cost of materials alone is nearly £250 for that size of shed and I am lucky I have places to use the excess soil and any left over materials.

One thought for the slope is to use some of the removed soil to make a slightly larger level pad around the shed sloping down to the normal level where required and grass it. I've done that where I would otherwise have needed a small retaining wall or concrete base with 20cm+ showing one end and less than 5cm the other and it worked well and is much less obvious.

 

[Deleted member 66701]

I was quoted 2k to build 4.5mtr x 4.5mtr deck structure.......I did it for less than 1k by myself, but not everyone has the skills and time

a lot of people don't appreciate this when getting quotes from trades. You don't just pay for materials and time, you also pay for their knowledge and skills.