Well Folks, last fall I was talking about getting a shed or a car house and we ended up settling on a prefab shed 16 X 30 with a finished 2 nd floor,  they put it up in 2 days. welll I can either put this monster on several inches of packed and leveled stone or I can put it on top of 30 8" concrete piers that I would want to have 1.5 feet above ground (if I go this way.) The pro to doing the crush stone is the cost  and ease of doing it. I have some rail road ties for a boundry and I take the top soil off add some clean fill compact it, add several inches of crushed stone and pack it, and call it a day. The con's are it would  only be off of the ground 4" due to being set on top of presurre treated 4x4's, and you can service the building from undernieth if needed, and critters could nest in there. Now, the pro's to the piers are: can acess undernieth the building, later can insulate it once I put some juice to it, no weather (snow) building up against the structure. The cons are: increassed cost about 2.5 to 3 yrds of concrete, and  30 sono tubes. I have to rent some additional equipment either a 2 man power auger, or a bobcat with a post hole attachment. I am not sure what is best. my property is some what claye ( I have a septic mound) and rocks are the state flower in Connecticut. So if I use the 2 man auger I can expect to catch some serious rocks, like 2 x's the size of a basket ball, if I am lucky. So, please give me some feedback and life's experience. The reason I went with the prefab shed rather than building it myself is due to not having any family support in Connect, the cost of construction per foot and it is done in 2 days with out having to deal with stungout contractors like the one's I used to work for. -- JIm   What should I do ?

why not put it on a concrete slab? 

Quote from: jserio on May 20, 2009, 09:17:52 PM
why not put it on a concrete slab? 

my point exactly cost for sure, but maybe permafrost? or what, are there codes against that?

I can't just put in a slab, I have to do 42' footers and it already has a 3/4  pressure treated plywood floor. Jim

you cant just to a rat wall footing?  thats all we have to have around here if you do it pole barn style.

Nope , I would have to put a traditional footing. The crazy thing is how poorly they enforce the building codes in the town I live in. For example I have one circute in my garage and the out feed of this GFI then goes to my bathroom to serve as the bathroom 20 amp cirute, then it goes down to my down stairs livinroom to feed as the banch circute for that room, in addition to outside recepticles. when I went to see the building inspecter on Tuesday, there was a guy there who purchased a new house 8 yrs ago, which had been  inspected by the current building inspecter. Now 8 yrs later one of his exterior walls are collapsing due to faulty construction methoodes, which ids going to cost him about 15K to fix.  I am most likely going with the piers. Today I tore down the old shed, and what a pice of work that was! The P.O. was a clueless SOB when it came to building and repair of this home. I am thinking about renting an exavter w/ post whole attachment for a day. Jim 

how far would you have to go down for the footing?  in some places that would be a dumb route because you'd have about a 4' crawlspace.

I would have to go down 42 " .

yeah seems stupid... unless you want to make it a 3 story

what about pilings?  can you drive some poles in and build off that?  (don't know your building codes).  Probably cheaper and smarter.

are you doing this yourself? or did you hire a contractor? if you hired a contractor, ask them what they would prefir. sometimes the cheapest way isn't the best way.

Actuallly the shed will have 2 floors with stairs going up to the second floor. I am  looking at 3 options, me and  friend doing the piers with either a 2 man power auger or bobcat with a post whole attachment, me and afriend just doing the poor and have a farmer with their equipment dig the holes, or pay someone. Some people say go cheap and go with the gravel, while others say youv'e gone this far don't be cheap at the finish line. I think I am also going to contact the professor at work who teaches the land surveying program at the college for some feedback, since he has a lot of knowlege about materials and ect. I would like some feedback on which way to dig the piers, I have not used apower auger, and in Connecticut our state flower is the rock! I have dug up a few rocks that I kept hitting with the mower that turned out to be some good size rocks undernieth. I am getting very tired and will check the post for further advise. -- JIm