Building a Wooden Skid Foundation

When you build you wooden storage shed or garden shed it needs to sit on a foundation just like your house. The skid foundation protects your shed from the damaging effects of moisture and soil. The foundation also anchors the building and keeps it from shifting during seasonal freeze-thaw cycles.

The two most common type of foundations used are the concrete slab and the wooden skid foundation.

A wooden skid foundation is by far the easiest to build. Two or more wood beams or landscape timbres are set on a bed of gravel that provides a flat stable surface that will drain well to keep the timbers dry. Once the skids are in place the floor of the shed is built on top and nailed to the skids to keep it in place. Preparing the gravel base, then cutting, setting and levelling the timbers is all that in necessary in building a skid foundation. The timbres used must be treated for ground contact and it is customary to make angled cuts on the ends of the skids. The angled cuts on the ends of the skids are not necessary but add a nice decorative touch and also make it easier to move (or skid) the shed to a new location if necessary.

A skid foundation because it sits on the ground is vulnerable to some shifting due to frost in cold weather climates. With the spring thaw a shed that has risen out of level will often correct itself, but if it doesn’t the shed can be lifted with jacks on the low side and more gravel can be inserted beneath the skids to raise the shed base back to level.

The tools and materials needed to build a skid foundation are:

• Shovel
• Rake
• 4ft. level
• Straight 8ft.2X4 Board
• Hand Tamper
• Circular Saw
• Square
• Treated Wood Timbres
• Compactable Gravel
• Wood Sealer Preservative