When we purchased our garden room from Dunster House, we also purchased their rapid grid foundation system for the base. While we could have used other types of bases, we liked the simplicity of the idea of this and also the lower environmental impact, not to mention lower cost, so we thought we would give it a try.
Preparing The Ground
Prior to the delivery of our garden cabin, we needed to prepare the ground, in readiness for laying the rapid grid foundation, as per the instructions on the Dunster House website. As the area of ground we were placing our cabin on was already free of grass, we just had to make sure that we had an area of firm ground the right size that was level. This took several hours of painstaking mud-shifting to achieve – definitely the hardest part of the whole thing! We checked and re-checked the ground using a large spirit level. I can’t emphasise enough how important preparing the ground well is!
Laying out the Rapid Grid System
Once our garden cabin components and the rapid grid system had been delivered, we then set about laying out first the anti-weed membrane, and then the rapid grid foundation itself. It was at this stage that it became obvious how important getting the ground level initially was. We had a couple of ‘lumps’ that meant the rapid grids didn’t sit properly flat on the ground. Therefore a little bit more earth shuffling was required to sort this out. The actual process of laying the grids out was really simple and took no time at all – see my video below to see how it went:
Filling the Rapid Grid Foundation System Up
Once we were happy that the rapid grids were in place and level, we began filling them with pea shingle. I would recommend using small-size pea shingle. We used slightly larger shingle, which was fine but I think the smaller stuff would have been better. The shingle pushed the grids fully flat and we continued to check all was level with the spirit level as we went.
Start Building!
Once the grids were full to the top with pea shingle, and we had checked all over once again with the spirit level, that was it! We could start building. And that’s pretty much it! 6 months in since we’ve built the garden room and all is looking good.
