Fence post foundations are not up to the job

There are several types of foundation used in garden room design from the traditional concrete slab to plinth foundations made from recycled materials, but the one system that is not used by the professionals is metal spiked fence post foundations.

Believe it or not, this is what one general builder was suggesting to their client, who contacted us via our sister site The Garden Room Guide asking us if her gut feeling that fence post foundations weren’t a suitable basis for her garden room was right – it absolutely was right, they are not up to the job!

Even at tight spacings, this type of foundation would not support the load of a garden room that would sit upon it. You would be opening yourself up to no end of problems, and your time, effort and money would all be in vain.

The foundation is the basis of every good garden room. The foundation system will be one of the most expensive parts of your garden room build-up, but if you spend time researching your options, assessing your site conditions and installing the right foundation, you will be creating the ideal basis from which to build your garden room.

There is no one foundation that is right for every situation, as every proposed site is different. You need to take into account how level your site is, the composition of your soil and the size of the room you are building.

As we say you have several options when it comes to the foundation system, and we look at them in the Self Build Garden Room Guide eBook. The suppliers of these foundations systems will be happy to advise you on your options and will work out the layout for you based on the loads of your building. It is a good idea to have your initial drawings and specification to send to them, so they know exactly what you are looking to achieve.

There are lots of foundation systems that are up to the job when building a garden room, but fence posts are not one of them, so please don’t even consider them!