Best base to use for garden gym

[Brezbrendon]

Hi guys,

I’m building a garden gym and I am researching the best base to use. I was initially wanting to go with a concrete base and then I was thinking I would like to put insulation in the concrete but I’m not sure. People have told me about these new systems but they don’t sound substantial enough for a gym floor with heavy weights. Also, I’m not keen on a timber floor or even a timber floor on concrete as it can be noisy or weak when slamming weights down on.

I’m also looking for it to be cost-effective.

Any advice on on any system or method would be much appreciated. Thanks.

 

[kingandy2nd]

100mm insulation with 100mm concrete on top will be fine. Add a 6mm steel mesh to the concrete for extra strength if you want.

Wont be that cheap though...depends on the size of your gym I guess.

 

[Brezbrendon]

Thanks.

It’s going to be 8m x 3.75m so may be costly.

 

[mrrusty]

about £2k

 

[Brezbrendon]

Looking at £500-£600 for concrete. Is the mesh and insulation really that expensive?

 

[kingandy2nd]

No, 40 quid a sheet for 100mm insulation, mesh would probably be £150

 

[cdbe]

Why bother with floor insulation for a gym, it's not cheap and in an unheated building it won't do much. I presume you're aware that it won't need building regs. If you do want some kind of heating you may wish to consider infra red which is good for quickly taking the chill off. If you could identify a particular area where the weights are going you could thicken the slab there.

 

[Brezbrendon]

Why bother with floor insulation for a gym, it's not cheap and in an unheated building it won't do much. I presume you're aware that it won't need building regs. If you do want some kind of heating you may wish to consider infra red which is good for quickly taking the chill off. If you could identify a particular area where the weights are going you could thicken the slab there.

It’s always good to have the option, just in case in years to come I can transform the building into a garden office or something. Also, it can get cold in the winter so I really wanted to add heating so it can be used for yoga etc too.

 

[Brezbrendon]

Are there any suitable alternatives to a concrete base that would work maybe?

 

[^woody^]

To get the benefit of an insulated concrete slab, the room would have to be heated for several hours beforehand for the mass to actually heat up (which it may never actually do) - and that benefit is only that the heating is used very slightly less. It literally will be a few pounds a year, and that's even when the place is used for hours daily, and no difference in comfort.

Only a very small percentage of heat is lost through a floor and there will be much more loss through the walls and roof and gaps.

Spend the money elsewhere, and consider heat recovery fan/ventilation instead

 

[mrrusty]

I recently did a 9 x 3.3 raft garage base which was 130mm thick with a 300 x 450 beam around the edge. Took 8 cubes of C30 at I think it was £120/cub. Plus £220 for diggerman plus 3 bags MOT as subbase plus reinforcing. Plus some timber and road pins for shuttering and it was near as dammit £2K all in.

 

[bolst3r]

To get the benefit of an insulated concrete slab, the room would have to be heated for several hours beforehand for the mass to actually heat up (which it may never actually do) - and that benefit is only that the heating is used very slightly less. It literally will be a few pounds a year, and that's even when the place is used for hours daily, and no difference in comfort.

Only a very small percentage of heat is lost through a floor and there will be much more loss through the walls and roof and gaps.

Spend the money elsewhere, and consider heat recovery fan/ventilation instead

This sounds like good advice and makes total sense, i'm embarking on the same and was weighing up floor insulation. Reading this I think i'll lay a concrete slab and interlocking PCV tiles over the top. This should make for a suitable gym floor and save a wedge of the costs...