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Sorry to have taken so long to get back to you rod, I was away for a few days.
How I have always laid the sand cement mix is to lay the sand down, level off, lay the slab roughly, then as I do the final adjustment I just sprinkle a handful of cement dust onto the sand, particularly on the patches where corners of the slabs are to go. This stiffens up when moisture gets to it, and basically holds it that little bit firmer. The cement takes a long time to set, but that usually doesn't matter. The soil underneath doesn't need to be totally even by the way, and clay soil I'd expect to be pretty inert once dried, excluding droughts.
I have never used nothing but mortar or concrete to lay slabs on - if you are already using a screed (level plinth of concrete) to lay the slabs on, you could just as well level that off finely and just plonk the shed onto it, save on slabs. After all, this is not a heavy-load bearing structure.
At all times, check the spirit level - the longer it is, the better you will do at levelling the whole area, hence all the posh jobs you can see that are as tall as a man, in industrial supply outlets.
Murphy's Law says you read this just as you return from doing the job !
Kiwirach, this method is the "proper"/professional/longterm way of creating a shed base, but for many folk it is not appropriate. After all, you might move house, and want to take the shed with you, and not be allowed to leave any signs of its' presence ! That's my situation. So what I have done with my shed, is I put an old timber batten down each side and at the ends, fastened it to those with coach bolts, and then just cut strips of scrap metal coaming I had to length and laid them across as flooring. You could do the same with smaller pieces of wood - the ones I had were like railway sleepers, but they didn't need to be that long - and use plywood as flooring. The whole shed is tied down to stakes.
How I have always laid the sand cement mix is to lay the sand down, level off, lay the slab roughly, then as I do the final adjustment I just sprinkle a handful of cement dust onto the sand, particularly on the patches where corners of the slabs are to go. This stiffens up when moisture gets to it, and basically holds it that little bit firmer. The cement takes a long time to set, but that usually doesn't matter. The soil underneath doesn't need to be totally even by the way, and clay soil I'd expect to be pretty inert once dried, excluding droughts.
I have never used nothing but mortar or concrete to lay slabs on - if you are already using a screed (level plinth of concrete) to lay the slabs on, you could just as well level that off finely and just plonk the shed onto it, save on slabs. After all, this is not a heavy-load bearing structure.
At all times, check the spirit level - the longer it is, the better you will do at levelling the whole area, hence all the posh jobs you can see that are as tall as a man, in industrial supply outlets.
Murphy's Law says you read this just as you return from doing the job !Kiwirach, this method is the "proper"/professional/longterm way of creating a shed base, but for many folk it is not appropriate. After all, you might move house, and want to take the shed with you, and not be allowed to leave any signs of its' presence ! That's my situation. So what I have done with my shed, is I put an old timber batten down each side and at the ends, fastened it to those with coach bolts, and then just cut strips of scrap metal coaming I had to length and laid them across as flooring. You could do the same with smaller pieces of wood - the ones I had were like railway sleepers, but they didn't need to be that long - and use plywood as flooring. The whole shed is tied down to stakes.
Wasn't too bad. Not perfectly level like, but it's not a bad effort for my very first attempt at paving.
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