A pause for breath… (& to take stock of cost of foundations…)
Entry posted by G and J in Groundworks and Foundations
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Well, sort of. Working physically hard is sooo emotionally easy compared to the frenetic whirlwind of strip foundation digging and filling. If that means that to you, I sound an emotional fruitbat then I commend your perceptivenes. I find it impossible to predict in advance the bits that will be most stressful.
In the last two weeks I’ve had all but two days on my own on site, as Steve has been on his hols. So it’s background organisation tasks and planning for the most part. That means tip runs; getting blocks and bricks and sand and cement delivered for below damp; yet more manual moving of soil; generally tidying up; bumping out stupidly heavy 140mm concrete blocks; breaking up soft reds from the demolition for hardcore; and lots and lots of measuring and thinking.
The two days Steve was there were spent setting out and getting some blocks laid. Setting out would have taken Steve on his own just a couple of hours. However, he had me to help him, so it took over half a day. I did learn a lot and because of concerns about preserving the precise sizes of the alleyways either side, and making sure the front face of the house is nicely co-planer with next door, and by the way still sitting properly on the foundations, and working out where to set block levels to, and my constant re measuring and questioning, I managed to burn a lot time more than just the morning.
The levels thing was, in hindsight, quite comical. Not at the time however. We ran round the foundations with the laser level trying to spot the highest point, allowing for the 225mm steps. With the best will in the world foundations don’t end up perfectly level, so one finds the high spot, and all blockwork works to that level which saves stupid amounts of block cutting - adding more pug (perhaps a Suffolk word for mortar) is a lot easier than taking some off of a block. But with a laser level a higher number means a lower level, and one of the two of us just kept getting confused by that. I’ll let you guess which one.
Confusion is, however, contagious it seems, as eventually I asked enough silly questions to get Steve confused too. It’s nice that I do have something to contribute to the process.
Steve’s relief when he finally could get on with some blockwork was palpable. To his credit he must have been sorely tempted to insert the laser level staff somewhere painful, but he kept his patience, bless him.
So we didn’t get that many blocks laid but we did enough to be ready for the windframe for the back of the house. Getting that fitted was fun. 200kg is not much by steel standards but my goodness it took some grunt. Because of the slope of the site instead of the legs (columns) being just over 2.5m long they were 3.5m long. The crew were a man short but I knew that when I asked them to come fit it so I gleefully volunteered to help.
They were a brilliant pair - it was a constant stream of jokes and leg pulls and laughter. The only exception was getting each leg upright - that was pure grunt work - done nearly silently apart from grunts and barked orders. But the three of us got the first leg vertical. They then told me to ‘keep ‘old of that’ which turned out to be hard work, as keeping a near 12’ length of 1’ wide steel still on a blustery day wasn’t trivial.
I also found it hard to believe that some goo squirted from a mastic gun would hold it up. I’ve read about but never seen a chemical anchor. Amazing.
The other leg done we attached both legs to the previously lifted beam (with a genie lift - bloody handy that is) - and 16 bolts later we had a windframe. After weeks of a flat site it looks way too big, but after measuring many times I can now confidently confirm that I hope it’s right. Fingers crossed.
The other thing this week is that the costs for the strip foundations are now all in, and we are quietly pleased. We were offered a fixed price of £16.5k, and lord knows what the extras would have really totalled as we did go deeper and use more concrete in many places due to soft ground. Instead, overall on day rate they cost us:
- Digger hire and diesel: £800
- Labour (Steve and Kev the Dig) £4,400
- Ply (some second hand) and cutting discs £700
- 47m3 of concrete £5,200.
- Waiting time for concrete lorry £74
- Rebar (for steps and joins in foundations) £100
- Spoil away £1,600
Total just under £13k. Happy days.
It’s amazing what one doesn’t know and can’t imagine. When ordering concrete from the company we used (they only do 8m3 wagons) ordering 1+ means they send a full lorry then wait for us to tell them how much to send in the second lorry which turns up half an hour or so later. Ordering 2+ means two full wagons turn up at once - yikes! Ours site is just too small for that - hence the charge for waiting time.
Anyway, next week Steve is back Wednesday so it’s blockwork to damp and over site over the next few weeks. And after a year of not doing anything towards my man cave at the bottom of the garden suddenly now I need to progress that too. It’s a nice problem to have.
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