#316 Wood Shed Build - Part 2. Levelling the ground and placing Deck Blocks. outdoors.

good morning welcome back to gp outdoors and welcome back to part two of my witch head build before we start today let me catch up on where we're at so far so first off my neighbor guy and i weeded through all the great submissions we've received from a number of subscribers we decided on a plan for my woodshed i called a good friend of mine an excavator and he came over and dumped me a truckload of gravel i talked to him about that gravel and what type would be best to put down as a foundation below the shed because i wasn't really sure what would work best he strongly convinced me that the best stuff to use is what we call crusher run up here it's basically a smaller size gravel but it also includes the dust and so when you lay it down on the ground and you run it over and it rains a few times the dust and the small gravel compacts into a really hard surface so that's what we chose you dropped me off a full load in the first video you'll see that i finalized a spot on the property and i began clearing that spot using my pole saw and my chainsaw i took out a few of the dead standing that was there we got the kubota out and we began excavating and digging out that area and trying to level it off as best as i could and then i started dropping the crusher run and of course running it over with the tractor to try to compact it a bit and on today's part two we're going to finalize leveling off that gravel and we're going to drop my little foundation blocks that we're going to start building the floor of the shed on and an important note if you're a new subscriber please remember that these are not instructional videos i've never before tried to attempt to build a woodshed by myself i am getting a little bit of help from a neighbor who has and i'm going to be doing some things that i've never tried before so i'll do the best i can but please remember the way you see me doing is just the way i'm doing it it may not mean it's the right way to do it but i hope you'll stick around and i hope you'll find it enjoyable let's get to work [Music] [Music] i'm just setting posts for me to be able to find a level right now i just need the four corners basically or the area about so i can get this whole place leveled out and then we'll take it from there my neighbor guy asked me to try something new which i've also never done before and that's to use a water level to try to find level on this ground the four stakes that i put out are well beyond the footprint of the 12x8 shed just so that i can keep them there while i'm trying to grade but we're going to give this water level a try and then we're also going to try and test it out afterwards with a laser level just to see how close it was if you're anything like me you're probably having flashbacks from high school physics which by the way i didn't do very well at but basically how this works is you've got water in here got a rubber hose i filled it up i've bled all the air out of the hose and it works on this basic principle wherever you put this hose the meniscus of the water inside this hose will always sit level with the level of the water in this pail the nice thing about it it's got a long it's probably a good 20-25 foot hose so unlike a laser level that doesn't go all the way around and you have to keep moving it you can go pretty much anywhere around and wherever you hold the hose wherever the water level is it will always stay consistently level with the water in the pail that's the principle i would much rather at least in this application i'd prefer to add gravel than to try to scrape away ground so i've tried to find the high point here at the north side of the shed build that's where i'm going to place the bucket and that way if i need to level anywhere in here i can add gravel and pack it down as opposed to being in a position of having to scrape out gravel i'd prefer more gravel we'll give it a minute to settle wow that was a learning experience i used the water level and of course at this end at the north end my marks are very low to the ground in fact the one in the back corner is about two two and a half inches from the ground the marks on these stakes back here are more like about 10 inches just goes to show that you know i can't see level very well not that i didn't trust my neighbor guy with this water level but i pulled out the laser level stuck it on this post and those marks are absolutely accurate so it looks like i've got a lot of work to do a lot more gravel work than i expected to get this level it's going to be a longer day than i expected so [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] oh i think i'm pretty close if i'm not pretty much there so what i'm going to do grab a little string i'm going to tap a few nails into the markers on each of those four posts draw the string between it and see if i can level it out or if i'm really still short of gravel i think i should we're going to be using these 11 by 11 blocks to support our floor so i think it's important that we've got a good reasonably level area and then of course we'll just have to adjust with more gravel or take away in the spots that we place down these blocks i think that'll work that's the plan anyways so i've been pretty fortunate it's been about a week and a half and we've had a ton of rain which means that this stuff is really packed down nice and hard also was talking to a friend of mine suggested just for the sake of the future that it might be worth one or two buckets of gravel to fill in the edges around this pad right to the natural berm of the earth pack it down so that the pad itself has kind of a natural stop or a natural enclosure on three sides did it make sense two buckets of gravel i'm just gonna smooth them out tamp them down and then let's get our stones laid out and positioned [Music] you almost think i knew what i was doing but i don't level both ways it's a good start so let me explain to you my chain of thought here if you remember i cleared a much larger area than i actually needed for the shed in here because i wasn't sure what i was going to find underground fortunately at the north end here which is the high end if you'll remember the the property here slopes south i don't have a lot of gravel here because i had some nice hard rocky ground under here i know that the shed build requires a one foot eave or overhang on the top of the shed so i know that i want to be far away from this maple tree so what i've done is i've just measured out three feet i know that this seems to be the hardest or most level ground so i've started with my first footing here tampered the ground down dropped my block and of course fortunately was level both ways that wasn't on purpose i think that was luck so what i'm going to do from here is i'm going to take a look at where i want the shed to face my property line is on an angle to my driveway i know i need an inset from the driveway which is why i started in the very back corner here and that way i know that the overhang on the front of the shed will be well back from the edge of the driveway perfect you know i'll tell you all that extra work i did trying to level up the gravel first especially using that uh water level really helped a lot now all i had to do is tamp down here i just had to add a tiny little bit under here on one side and both of my blocks are level both ways and my foot pressure treated is level right across i'm in good shape now we need to estimate and try to figure out where the end blocks go okay should have 14.42 feet between just convert that to inches let's see if we can square it out [Music] perfect i've measured between both ends and all four corners as well as diagonally between them so i know i'm square i haven't leveled out the blocks yet but i've got the four corners in and now what i'm gonna do is use these two two by sixes they're eight footers i'm gonna use them as ledger boards just to run strings across so i get my intermediate blocks all put in [Music] okay there's my lines for the rest of my foundation blocks that storm has definitely hit us now so i'm gonna start wrapping up but i'm gonna finish up the video for part two today i've got my strings across i've got 12 foundation blocks in total so you're gonna have two four of them here and two more here in the middle i'm gonna mark along my lines with some marker paint to make sure that where i place my middle blocks they're gonna line up with one of the floor joists on each side i'm gonna have that all done so that when we start part three you'll see the finished product once i get them in place i'll go back level them i'm gonna go grab that laser level to make sure that all the way across i've maintained level because i know it's critically important that when you're building anything it has to start off being square and level and then the rest of the build is much easier i've been told if you're off or you're not square it starts to show up in space later all right she's coming down anyways i hope you enjoyed it today i imagine there was probably a better or simpler way of doing it but that's the best way i know how so hopefully it was helpful for some if you like the channel please click subscribe hit the like button and if you want to know when i'm posting more videos just click that little bell have a wonderful and safe week with your families please be kind and i'll see you again on the next one cheers [Music] you

Channel: GP Outdoors

Views: 85,464

Keywords: Wood Shed build -Part 2., wood shed, build, levelling ground, finding level ground, how to find level, water level, gp, gpoutdoors, outdoor channel, cottage, ontario, gp outdoors, cottage life, www.gpoutdoors.ca, cottage country, outdoors, kubota, building, small tractor, kubota tractor, building a shed, shed build, build a shed, larkin, shed, b.e. larkin, lx series, lx2610, big tool rack, diy shed, diy shed building, do it yourself, shed build diy, lx, canada, diy shed build

Id: jbTGZ22AVfY

Length: 14min 30sec (870 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 04 2020