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A Winter of Peckering


Triassic

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Our site slopes, so we had the idea of digging into the slope and creating a walk in basement. Having done two trial pits into nice soil and clay  during the initial design phase, we were confident that it was a simple soil dig out sort of thing! Once the bungalow was demolished it became clear we’d quite by chance dig into the only two areas of soil and clay and the house had been constructed on a large lump of limestone rock called Cumbria.  After a hit of head scratching and a coffee with my neighbour Brian, he’s the ‘go to guy’ if you have a problem, as he’s usually got a solution and the solution was a local guy called Chris, a man with a machine and a pecker.

 

Chris arrived on 1st November and twelve weeks and an estimated 1,200 tonnes of rock later we had a basement.

 

Here he is starting clearing the site.

 

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The basement hole starts to take shape.

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This is about half of the stone removed from the basement hole.

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Goodness!  Are you going to take up dry stone walling as a hobby?  Might be time to think about it, if not!

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I have about 40m of new dry stone wall to build, so a lot will be used there, the rest will be ‘lost’ around the plot levelling up sloping areas to form patios and level lawned areas.

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1 hour ago, Triassic said:

I have about 40m of new dry stone wall to build, so a lot will be used there, the rest will be ‘lost’ around the plot levelling up sloping areas to form patios and level lawned areas.

 

I reckon the wall will need about 8-10% of that amount ... :ph34r: (assuming it is good stuff).

 

Build a maze or labyrinth? Or sell them to hikers to sneak into their mate's rucksacks for £1 to repair the nearest cairn?

Edited by Ferdinand
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200 tonnes clearing a site and digging reasonably deep foundations isn’t unreasonable.  It’s one of the big issues with even slightly sloping sites - a 5 degree slope on an 8x11 footprint can soon create 100 tonnes extra. 

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a 20 tonne load looks like nothing when it's tipped out. Heck we recently lost about five tonnes of blinding, filling potholes in the lane.

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8 hours ago, Russell griffiths said:

Isn’t it funny , one mans trash is another mans treasure 

ive just bought 100 ton of crushed rock. 

 

The economics of distribution are always fun.

 

According to my calcs it is only ever worth me getting free pressed Council slabs from within about 5 miles due to collection and time costs, vs buy/deliver of new ones.

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9 hours ago, PeterW said:

200 tonnes clearing a site and digging reasonably deep foundations isn’t unreasonable.  It’s one of the big issues with even slightly sloping sites - a 5 degree slope on an 8x11 footprint can soon create 100 tonnes extra. 

 

The initial clearing and levelling of our site took away around 900 tonnes, and then we had to take away about another 100 tonnes to get the garden, drive and patio to the right level.

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Just to add, Chris the pecker guy got through four peckers due to various mechanical problems, things falling off or shearing or coming loose inside. Luckily he’d started the job with a brand new pecker and the supplier is only three miles away, so replacement  and repair was easy.

Edited by Triassic
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