Base for plastic shed

[George1981]

I'm acquiring an 8' x 10' shed, the plastic "Lifetime" or "Suncast" type. I'm going to level and prepare the ground. What do you recommend for a base? I know with wood sheds you need some airflow underneath so the moisture does not rot the wood, but that seems unnecessary with a plastic shed. Thanks.

[TimmyG]

I've erected both a 15'x8' Lifetime resin shed and an 8'x8' Suncast cedar/resin shed. Whatever you choose as a foundation, make sure it's absolutely flat/planar. Not level per se, but absolutely flat. Otherwise, you'll struggle to assemble a resin shed, particularly when it comes time to put on the roof panels. For that reason, I chose to build pressure-treated lumber box frames topped with 3/4" pressure-treated plywood. For the larger shed, I placed the frame on a leveled bed of gravel. For the smaller shed, I placed the frame atop cinder blocks that I very carefully leveled. In both cases, the thick plywood provides rigidity to the floor that the resin flooring simply doesn't provide on its own. Also in both cases, I did not want critters living under the sheds. The gravel bed was an easy solution to that problem. I would have done the same for the smaller shed, but its location is a wetland that floods every spring, so it needed to be raised. So, before screwing on the plywood, I filled the space beneath with all the concrete and asphalt crap that the previous owner had hidden and buried around the property as well as some rocks. I then skirted the frame with hardware cloth and white lattice to the base of the cinder blocks. When it was all done, I raised the ground around the shed with coarse sand and a boulder wall. It integrates well with the wetland landscape while also draining and breathing well (enough). All that for some very spoiled chickens.

[Babaganoosh]

I put one down for a now ex gf. If you want to do it right make a level pad first. I did it with 4x4s and crushed blue stone. Make it 2 foot wider than the shed base for when the rain runs off the roof. Make that flat AND level. Then I made a base with 4x4s and pressure treated plywood. Make sure you use ground contact pressure treated 4x4s. I ran the 4x4s front to back of the shed for airflow.

When I constructed my shed pad at my house I put down 2 layers of landscaping fabric to keep the blue stone from mixing with the soil and I put down a double layer of chicken wire to keep any groundhogs or rabbits from making a home under there. They love to make a home a shed and burrow out. If you have old chain link fence that works too. I'm glad i did that. The resident groundhog lives under my neighbors shed now.

Or.... Pour a concrete pad and then a 4x4 and plywood base.