daiking

We have 2 x 71 litres cut and shuts. It was the largest single oven I could find at the time for the wife.

Groundworks crew doing a couple of days this week (Weds & Thurs) to clear the site and bring in some topsoil. Potentially there's opportunity to dig trenches for main retaining wall and my little retaining wall although I understand there could be a bucket size issue. Ignoring that, we can estimate the size of the patio we want but I don't know what we're making the wall out of. Is there a generic trench that can be dug that would save some spade work in the future?

Sounds promising. Roll on the next week or so and I'll be able to see what's what

Just buy it if you need this type of hammer and you're going to use it. Its not that expensive.

I have no idea. The only thing we're looking for properly at places the moment is paving stone. For the walls, most people who come round want to wall from sleepers or brick

Provisionally, guys booked for next Weds/Thurs or following Tues/Weds to clear, remove, grade and re-fill.

Just seems to be a complete lack of mainland uk suppliers for these specific things. Its surprising.

This is not too dissimilar to the slab idea. Can I ask why so much stuff seems to be Northern Irish? When I search for the AG and Tobermore wall systems and now the dwarf wall kerbs?

You can. Apparently a quickcrete wall is an actual thing

http://www.pavingexpert.com/featur04.htm#bag now we're talking Can't get much simpler than this

Lol, this is why she turns the hot water temp up - when she wants to run a bath so its 'quicker'.

I shall experiment later.

So that only happens because the wife turns up the hot water temp on the boiler beyond the level it needs to be?

You wouldn't see them, hence why I'm considering them. You'd only see them sticking 250-300mm high if you were stood in the stream looking up to the garden. In the garden I'd like to turf right up to/on top of them so you can't see them. An 'infinity lawn' if you will.

thanks for suggesting, maybe for a later project to M.Y.O fence posts when there's more time. Looking to move a bit quicker this time, when the garden gets cleared, have something in quite soon and then turfed quickly.

A dozen+ times... and fix with post crete Or get the digger to make a trench anf mix and lay 1 cubic m of concrete...

as it stands I have acquired a knackered old cement mixer that I don't even know still works and have no experience of making and working with cement and concrete. I like them but the wife is not a fan for the large wall that would show them and I think they are a bit cumbersome for the short wall. I don't think I'm going to be getting crushed concrete anyway. It will be 'peckered' with the digger, and not crushed. A crusher makes no economic sense for small amounts. Something like that although shorter than 1m would be even better. There's not that many old bricks now. A stack in the garage I'm keeping but certainly not enough to fill these. Even at 300mm wide these would take up quite a bit more space than I'd like them too.

Simple and effective but looks like a lot of concrete to me which is a) hard work and b) more cost. So its not my preferred option at the moment.

I like gabions myself but they take up quite a bit of space so not really an option for this short wall.

We're intending to use a small area of astroturf on the side return at the back of the extension. This area is relatively dark and wet and the children have access to it from their play room but I don't want to use much, it would be a shame to use it other than when genuinely practical in such a green looking space. In time I think some sort of hedging type plant would be useful against the chain link fence, in part to stabilise the bank but we'd be looking at under 4 foot tall as we enjoy the feeling of space you get looking through/over the fence as you get the extra few metres of the stream. The birds already piss us off, so I don't want to encourage them wth 10 foot hedges Muck away will be off the drive, dumper hire is an extra £50 a day on top of the digger and driver hire to save borrowing. Everything just needs to go. Spent to long now trying to think about saving this or saving that. I've just skipped an entire skip load of bits of wood and building related tat as its too hard to work around stuff in the garden. I still need to take down the shed and move it into the very corner of the garden and bring the playhouse up to the front of the house before work can begin. Its been mentioned to use the sections of concrete garage to form the short retainer I need but I can't handle them between 2 people let alone by myself. I've been looking at the Tobermore and AG block retainer systems and one of the Tobermore methods for taller walls is to put a layer of membrane with each course to stabilise the ground. Ultimately my proper wall will need a patio on top and handrails so I'm not sure that those blocks are suitable.

That's partly why its taken so long. Landscapers not typically keen on the wall part of it so we're going with the (near) instant fix instead and do the wall later. In the grand scheme of things it isn't much, it will be full of green things and building rubble anyway so not worth keeping. Even in the past when talking about using the garage rubble for infill, its going to be all much to big pieces to work properly.

Double up in width. Gravel boards would work I think. Putting in posts seems a lot less work than bedding and haunching something all the way along. With sleepers, I'd need to do the bed prep, need expensive fasteners, expensive sleepers (double height at least). I'm not actually trying to retain much, just hold the edge together and look reasonably tidy. There's a picture in the new garden thread, it's not exactly the grand canyon although it gets bigger further up toward the neighbours fence

At this stage, it will just be quicker and easier to get someone in with a mini digger, £250 a day for a couple of days to sort. I think we're looking at 3+ grab wagon loads for the top few inches of soil and green stuff as well as demolishing the remaining garage and slab it sits on.

If we compare to here: We're now much, much tidier, I've even dismantled the trampoline, just a question of getting rid of the weeds to see what an earth is going on

I did have a ready supply of rocking horse poo. It's dried up at the moment but hopefully more will be available in the autumn.