The Damp Trap: Why We Lift the Base
If you drop a timber room straight onto a flat concrete slab, the bottom rots out. Here is why proper garden rooms need an air gap.
The Sponge Effect
A lot of blokes will pour a massive, flat concrete slab and just sit a timber shed straight on top of it.
Concrete holds puddles. If you drop a timber frame straight onto a wet slab, the wood just drinks it up. Give it a couple of winters and the bottom rails rot right through.
Engineering Airflow
If you want a building to last, you have to keep it off the wet ground. It all comes down to airflow.
We don't sit our heavy SIPs garden rooms on flat slabs or grass. We engineer a proper sub-base to lift the whole structure up. We dig down and set heavy block piers or steel ground screws into the earth.
The Damp Proof Course
Once the blockwork is in, we lay a damp proof course over the top of the piers, and then the thick SIPs floor gets dropped onto that.
You need an air gap. The water can run wherever it wants on the ground, but the wind blows underneath the floor and keeps the timber completely dry.
See The Groundworks
Don't buy a garden room that sits flat on the mud. It will fail.
We’re building a display cabin at the garden centre right now. Come down and literally look under it. You’ll see the blockwork, the DPM, and exactly how we keep the floor off the wet ground.
Stop by the office at 78 Alma Rd, Bournemouth BH9 1AN, UK, or call 07835 390845.
