saveasteading

I am also taken with some recent publicity on Beechgrove Garden and Gardener's World programmes of 'Prairie planting'. big area of daisy-like plants. I've got a few in pots that grow to 3 ft and flower for months...and produce hundreds of seeds. Brilliant colours, but subtlety and texture is also possible. So it is cheap too, and maintenance is easy. The aim is to have swathes of colours and textures that look natural but dramatic too.

I was liucky to be in spain during thd worst of it. If there was an outbreak they forebade travel to and from that community, except essential services. The benefit showed dramatically in the death figure. I try to get into deniers' mindset on this, but can't. The best i can manage is an extreme fear of science... people knowing things that they themselves can't begin to comprehend. I don't understand therefore it is conspiracy?

You could use a thin layer of concrete very locally, using grit or gravel instead of the usual ballast stone, to suit the thinness. Or if you have ballast, pick the big stones out. That will be as strong as the footing.

Meadows are the way ahead. So much more interest, less work and better for nature. Cut just once a year, very low, and all put in the compost heap. Mulching is good for the the lawn but feeds the meadow too much. Or have areas of both. Interesting flowers and grasses can be introduced. Yellow rattle is a must. Our small experimental area is now a favourite spot to sit. Leaving some lawn for kicking a ball about.

Make it so. Or use perforated duct. It doesn't need to be twin wall.

And yet the one i bought with the kiosk was white on the long leg and red on the short leg. It was too narrow for the big cable so I used a bigger black pipe without issues.

That's a very good point. But assuming all the ground is the same then the trench below the box should act as a soakaway as fast as it enters. At worst, the cable ends are well clear of such water and the box to base is not sealed so it would run out.

I mean that the cable comes down the pole into the ground, so they need a hole there. Then underground either alone or in a duct. Then at the box again it has to emerge from the ground and go through your hockey stick. In my eyes your case it is only 3 ft. Take away the hole at the pole leaves 18"? Leave hockey stick expose, another 1ft gone. So has a negligible trench so doesn't need a duct. But if you had a bit handy they could drape it over the cable if they wanted to.

A tactical withdrawal is preferable to suffering a massacre. Well done General.

No. If the box and pole were 20m apart then they would need an exposed pit at each. In your case they join so it is all pit.

Feel even better about it, as you are still overthinking. What comes next? Blockwork? As @nodsays, a bricklayer (you in this case) will use a string line and smooth that line out, and up. Relax, work out what level your first block goes at, and move on. If there is a high spot, you could regard that as your new datum and lift the building a few mm.

The point being that concrete is hard work, the workers are busy with what they do best, and not esp skilled with lasers etc. Ie do the precision at leisure. 10mm either way is absolutely fine though and better low than high. 15mm is probably typical of decent work.

For future reference, I tended to either bang pegs in the bottom and mark depth with a nail. In clay, knock nails or bars in the sides at finished level. Very formally for precision ( big structures) we would have T profiles along the side at say 2m above finished level and a 'traveller' a T that we placed on the concrete and lined up with the profiles by eye. A laser can replace this if used skilfully. Big IF. Hence the nails.

It's OK. I've seen very much worse. Lasers aren't always accurate and are only used approximately in trench footings. Successive processes get more accurate but For perspective: the published tolerances in timber buildings are plus/minus 10mm.

what you show was state of the art, but about 30 years ago. It's thin, irregular, and gappy. And there are old bridges from the room through the timbers to outside. Its a matter of balancing cost and benefit. Youll find much more previous dicsussion on here. I think, 1. keep what is there but straighten it out, and add an extra thickness... how much would it take? 20mm? PIR is best for insulation. Or replace what is there with PIR. BUT it is tricky to fit tight so maybe you'd end up pushing in the fibreglass again, or a boarded version. Then an insulating inner layer over the surface would kill the cold bridging.