This blog has been quiet for the last few months as I’ve been working on a big, fairly dull, project.

We’ve got a concrete sectional shed at the bottom of the garden that was put up by the previous owners of the house. Nice building – suspended ceiling, chipboard floor, plasterboard walls, good lights and lots of electrical sockets. Only problem was damp.

There was a damp proof membrane in the concrete floor slab. One problem was the membrane was 150mm underground. One end of the slab was embedded under a retaining wall; the uphill side of the building was paved level with the slab and had no drainage other than across the top of the slab.

Everything rotted – floor, walls, ceiling.

We sorted out the external issues as far as possible with better paving and drainage. I built new door frames and added a second door that wall secondhand on Gumtree. Then tanked out the inside with a damp proof membrane on top of the slab. New floor, insulation in the roof and walls, with OSB to finish off the walls. It is now dry.

I’ve done the first fix on the electrics – an electrician will wire everything up.

The plan is to move all workshop tools into the shed when it is all done. Hopefully more interesting projects will follow.