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The slab team from MBC arrived on site this morning. It's like having the building version of whirling dervishes who've just dropped a few speedballs. My word, they make progress! The team is headed up by Harry and he has 3 others in his team, but this will fluctuate a little over the course of the job with Harry needing to have a look at another job for most of tomorrow then the younger lad taking some leave to go to a music festival. Tsk, the youth of today! He worked like a machine, though, apart from the bit where he nearly rolled over one of the piles as he was looking in awed astonishment as a rather attractive young lady farmer drove past on the nearby track in a JCB that was most definitely bigger than the roller machine he was on. I don't think it was the vehicle that caught his attention so much as the driver. Sniggers all round. I arrived just after 8 am this morning and the first lot of hardcore had already been delivered. In total, there were 4 loads of type 1, but I piggybacked onto this and ordered an additional load (paid for by me) which the team will then spread and roller for me in the area beyond the bucket in the above photo, which will create a nice level area for the crane when it arrives to bring in the timber frame. I've had really good luck with the weather so far and hope it continues, but if it rains between now the completion of the timber frame, the site will turn to mud PDQ and slow things down horribly. Once the hardcore was going down and getting compacted, the piles were cut off to the correct height, leaving the rebar in position, ready to be tied into the beams. I have no idea what you call the digger thingy that they are using to move the stone around the site, but it's an impressive beast. It looks a lot like the bottom of a tank with its caterpillar tracks and then something a bit more transformers-like with its swivelly cab and arm. Either way, it was mechanical poetry in motion when driven by someone who clearly knew what they were doing. The team will have been working till 7pm this evening, so they will have got all the hardcore down and compacted and were going to start on the sand, if they had the time. The first load of sand arrived about 4.30 this afternoon, more to follow on tomorrow morning. As well as working 12 hour days, Harry has already had a chat with the neighbours to let them know that they will be working over the weekend, too, on both days. The insulation is due for delivery tomorrow and they will be putting the pipes that carry the service cables into this, along with the UFH pipes. I'm not sure when the steels will arrive, but that must be also imminent as the piles will need to be tied in before the concrete is poured. The building inspector is coming on Monday to check out everything before the pour. For interested parties, THE CONCRETE POUR IS CURRENTLY SCHEDULED FOR TUESDAY. I've read a couple of horror stories and some not-quite-horror-but-not-very-nice-stories about uneven slabs, so I've told Harry that before they leave site, I need him to demonstrate with a laser that everywhere that a wall rests is absolutely level and within tolerance. Harry is a man of few words and he didn't quite bat an eyelid, but I explained that I would much rather that something like that is demonstrated rather than just verbally assured. He seemed fine with it. So, one final picture of the hardcore going down, from the garage side of the house. More blow-by-blow action to follow tomorrow.

Hi all. Quick question, I had 8 tons of 6F2 recycled aggregate dumped on my garage site about 4 months ago, this contained some pretty big stuff - 3/4 bricks and lumps of concrete, fine it was just to get the base fill and once spread over 30m sq it was not that deep so the first layer of type 1 filled all the small voids, this first fill was just about perfect for running a vibrator plate over (less than 150mm rise in fact) and would have been the perfect plan at the time but that didn't work out. I then got another load type 1 delivered and decided to place that round the perimeter of the area to build it up as some will run off into a lower area, at this stage it was still within first compaction limits. I was then on the phone to my merchant who was looking at my account and said he would do me a better rate on the type 1 going forward because I was not being given the full trade price and had bought a lot, so I just jumped at the chance and ordered another load. This load was carefully tipped at one end of the site so my plan was to compact the area that is about level and then shovel all the new stuff out then compact it again, the issue is the area the stuff was dumped on, I am going to need to dig it back down to a suitable depth for first compaction then whack it all, then pull the type 1 back over the area. This just sounds like a lot of extra work, my fault I know but what are peoples thoughts on whacking say a 250mm depth of type 1? By the way, this stuff was compacted to an extent as it went down as I continue to park my Defender on the hardcore and the area that would need dug up has been run over with the Landy about 100 times and feels like concrete now. The loose stuff now sits on top of this. I am going to get the whacker tomorrow morning so could get a fairly big one, I was thinking of the 400mm 12kN or if it would help with my depth issues I could get the 500mm with 15kN but at the same time I have been advised by my structural engineer that using too big a plate could cause issues with surrounding buildings foundations and could also damage my rear retaining wall. So, what are peoples thoughts here, any similar stories or issues?