I did that years ago using clay pavers and it works well. Here are the steps if you want to do a good job:

1. Excavate the dirt floor down several inches and get it as level as possible.

2. Compact the soil (I simply used a 6' length of 4X4).

3. Spread 5/8 minus gravel to a depth of about 2"; flatten it with a straight 2X4 and a level; compact it.

4. Spread sand to a depth of at least 1"; flatten and level it with your 2X4

5. Lay the pavers as tightly as you can and use a rubber mallet to tamp them in place so they are flush with one another; when you're done, throw fine sand on top of the floor and broom it into all the cracks.

Here is what mine looks like:

Yaardvark- Good clarifications...

Hello all,

Thank you for the directions. I also have one possible problem. My greenhouse is built directly into the earth. it has 12, 2 inch wide and 18 inch deep steel spikes stuck into concrete filled holes underground. Because it isn’t built on a pad or anything, the bottom of the base meets the top soil to seal out the elements. In other words, where on the picture above, the base looks like it is raised and built into stones. In my case that’s where the ground is for me. I also have to be mindful of a buried power line for my heater.

If I excavate, i am concerned I’ll end up with a big gap between the base and the ground for air to blow under (which I am not sure I could put bricks to fill as there are the metal rods which may obstruct them going in). Even now, I’m always having to buy dirt to patch up areas where the ground erodes under the base and makes a gap. How do I go about this project with this in mind?

How difficult would it be to temporarily move the greenhouse? You could install a row of cinderblocks in a rectangular shape and set the greenhouse on that. Then you would have plenty of height to accommodate a new floor, avoid the problems you described, and even pick up a few inches of height inside. Could be a bit of work, but worth it in the long run.

A correction needs to be made here. Your base of class 5 should be at least 4 inches thick at a minimum, anything less and you may have problems.

Use a hammer drill like a Milwaukee bulldog to chisel out the concrete footings down 3 1/2" and you will need to cut bricks to fill around the posts.

It isn’t really a moveable structure. I will post some photos to show the base and a photo of the floor.

The concrete footings are fortunately buried down pretty deep (the holes were 16 inches deep and 6 inches wide). The concrete “weights” are about 11 inches by 6 inches as I remember so there’s about 2-4 inches of dirt on top of the 14 x 6 inch concrete filled holes with the anchors.

Some landscape border is visible in the second photo was was installed as an attempt to minimize erosion.

What if you excavated around the inside perimeter just enough so that you could plant brick pavers on end all around the edge, and, once those are in place as a mini-retaining wall, you could excavate the floor and then do the paver process described above?

That’s doable I think. How would I fit the bricks around the metal anchors? Do I cut the bricks to fit around them or do I push them in just far enough to make a seal? (There is space between the anchors and the interior edges of the base but it’s less than 0.5 inches). Should I put them around the outside perimeter as well if there is space? If I do this, do the pavers I put under the base need any sand to be placed on? Thank you all so much.

There can’t be that many anchors, so I’m thinking you could cut the bricks however you needed to fit around them.

There are 12 anchors. Do I put sand or gravel under the retaining wall bricks? What about in between them? What would be the best tool for cutting them? Aren't there some bricks that already have three holes in them? Maybe I can break one in half and set the broken hole section around the anchor.

Some bricks have holes in them; clay paver bricks don’t. When I was doing my floor I used a $70 tile wet saw from Harbor Freight; or you can rent a better one. My pavers were about 1-1/4” thick, so you might need a different saw if yours are really thick, or do one cut halfway through and then flip the brick over.

I think it would be easiest to put sand under the perimeter bricks, but even setting them in dirt would work, too.

Cutting bricks by hand is simple and easy. Many, including myself can use a brick hammer or you can use a wide chisel like the guy used in this video.

splitting pavers by hand

Keep in mind that the only reason one excavates is so that one can turn right around and fill up the whole excavation with gravel, paver base, sand and pavers. In other words, whatever gap at the base of the structure was created, would only be temporary. One calculates the excavation depth based on the total thickness of all the granular and paver layers combined. And one determines before excavating what the finished elevation of the paver floor will be. So there's no reason there would be a gap in the finished product where there is not one now.