Onoff Posted February 1, 2017 Share Posted February 1, 2017 "The natives are getting restless. My impatient wife is deperate to have a bathroom that resembles a bathroom." You really can't have a crack yourself with input from here? Sometimes it takes another pair of eyes. A big tidy up a la clean slate can help. Could you maybe hire a small crusher for the day, pick a spot then just feed it all your assorted hard-core. That way you've a ready source of graded stuff for use plus you've not got to get rid of it. Burn all the timber on site if you can. Collect all the scrap metal in one pile. Bet you've that "where to start feeling" sometimes. Getting some sleepers delivered and screwing together is a doddle though cutting them you might struggle if not au fait. Sketch a plan up and put to the masses for some suggestions. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daiking Posted February 1, 2017 Author Share Posted February 1, 2017 I'll get round to it... Need some more recent pictures as I did clear the garage of all the mess. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daiking Posted February 1, 2017 Author Share Posted February 1, 2017 A mini crusher is over £500 for a weekend! scrap that, I'll give my boys a lump hammer and a chisel each Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeterW Posted February 1, 2017 Share Posted February 1, 2017 Nice sleepers (new french oak) can be had for £20 each for a load of 30, so plan wisely and you can soon sort the levels. They need a hardcore free draining base and some cheap DPC round the inside to keep them tidy. Use timberlok screws and pre-drill the holes unless you have a good impact driver. For sorting your levels, ring a couple of the muckaway companies and see how much it is to get an 18 tonner of inert fill delivered - I pay about £50 which is the cost of the diesel basically. Road planings make good hardcore and can be whacked down hard to give a really good base for pretty much anything - clean and cheap. Turf is quick but if you can keep the kids/dogs off it, then a raked and seeded lawn done in April will be well on by July with a good quality seed for a 1/3rd of the price. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Onoff Posted February 1, 2017 Share Posted February 1, 2017 (edited) 11 minutes ago, daiking said: A mini crusher is over £500 for a weekend! scrap that, I'll give my boys a lump hammer and a chisel each Thought someone on here had a crusher for sub £200 the day? Don't forget goggles! I graded some of the old bathroom floor through a 40mm mesh by hand, breaking up the big bits with a clubbie. Got there in the end. Someone here reckoned I removed about 7 tonne by hand including all the soil I removed. That graded stuff became the sub base for the new bathroom floor. Still got about 10 jumbo bags of ungraded hard core from that and where I removed the path alongside the house to redo the water main. Hours of raking / bending / barrowing. Soul destroying when the ground is mixed debris though, you just have to segregate it all I think. Unless you've cash to get it all diggered and skipped. Edited February 1, 2017 by Onoff Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daiking Posted February 1, 2017 Author Share Posted February 1, 2017 (edited) 34 minutes ago, PeterW said: Nice sleepers (new french oak) can be had for £20 each for a load of 30, so plan wisely and you can soon sort the levels. They need a hardcore free draining base and some cheap DPC round the inside to keep them tidy. Use timberlok screws and pre-drill the holes unless you have a good impact driver. For sorting your levels, ring a couple of the muckaway companies and see how much it is to get an 18 tonner of inert fill delivered - I pay about £50 which is the cost of the diesel basically. Road planings make good hardcore and can be whacked down hard to give a really good base for pretty much anything - clean and cheap. Turf is quick but if you can keep the kids/dogs off it, then a raked and seeded lawn done in April will be well on by July with a good quality seed for a 1/3rd of the price. Steady on, I've got a thousand @Onoff style prepping questions first. Ive been given a deadline of 1st July. I asked her, which year? Edited February 1, 2017 by daiking Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Onoff Posted February 1, 2017 Share Posted February 1, 2017 Just now, daiking said: Steady on, I've got a thousand @Onoff style prepping questions first. Ive been given a deadline of 1st July. I asked her, which year? Reminds me of that Rab C Nesbitt episode where he meets his Spanish double on holiday! "Hands across the sea eh?" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Onoff Posted February 1, 2017 Share Posted February 1, 2017 (edited) You can get your pegs in for setting out with a water level and a bit of Pythagoras. Spray them with a bit of paint and cap with some old lids for safety and you feel like your getting somewhere! You WILL / CAN get there.....and I should know! ....mind I'm not there yet! Edited February 1, 2017 by Onoff Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daiking Posted February 1, 2017 Author Share Posted February 1, 2017 (edited) 18 minutes ago, Onoff said: You can get your pegs in for setting out with a water level and a bit of Pythagoras. Spray them with a bit of paint and cap with some old lids for safety and you feel like your getting somewhere! You WILL / CAN get there.....and I should know! ....mind I'm not there yet! They will be the easy bits. Initially its the details... Do I trust my drains? Wife wants a level threshold from the bi-folds, they have a cill below the threshold level This level would also be above the air bricks for the suspended floor ventilation What sort of drainage do I need, if any? As we've a stream along one boundary and the garden is higher than that level, the garden itself does not seem particularly boggy but is that because of the vegetation that lives on it. will it need a small land drain? I'll knock some sketches up and maybe start a blog. Edited February 1, 2017 by daiking Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daiking Posted April 18, 2017 Author Share Posted April 18, 2017 Wifey is really not happy now. She keeps calling guys to come take a look and quote. Many don't come back and those who do are coming back at higher than we can afford. and the more detailed you try to be so that you can compare things more equally, the higher the prices get... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nickfromwales Posted April 18, 2017 Share Posted April 18, 2017 At least she can now see your frustration Cant you get labourers and be there with them? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ferdinand Posted April 18, 2017 Share Posted April 18, 2017 (edited) Is this really as big as 13k having to be done *now*? What does the management actually want? Is it the whole caboodle finished and landscaped and planted yesterday? Or is it a nice garden to sit out in this year, entertain friends to a BBQ and chuck the kids (?) outside to play without them breaking their necks? Or is it to look respectable to the public after several years of chaos? And do you need to do it *all* now? I have a couple of thoughts I'll post if I have half an hour later, but I am thinking (based on the maps and photos upthread), that perhaps it is not prudent to do all of it to Chelsea standard if you still have extensive groundworks and still need a "building site" type area for the purposed of doing your building. I am thinking of terracing the bit to the stream by next door, providing something outside the bifolds and doing a shortish term (up to 5-8 year life) visual break between that and the rest so there is a domestic area and a building site and the twain shall not meet if you are being domestic. Perhaps something to make the garage look respectable from the street too. F Edited April 18, 2017 by Ferdinand Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Onoff Posted April 18, 2017 Share Posted April 18, 2017 Approach from another angle......You CAN wield a spade/fork etc. The labourer's you'd get in....well their sh1t smells the same as yours! These things are mustard btw IF you can find one: https://www.shopcade.com/product/qualcast-easy-dig-carbon-steel/4fbfafd4646fcb182100070d/GB Just decide on what you want, bang some levelling pegs in and start digging a bit at a time, a few shovels / barrows each evening. I'd recommend Fosters or maybe Carling as a working beer but don't go mad on it or operate power tools! Even without a digger you'll get there and it's cheaper than the gym! Just summoning up the energy to start tidying up this lot so I can get the ride on mower down to the front lawn. Bonus that after running levels about I can lose a high manhole and clay drain that's just sub surface and get everything WELL below the DPC which was below ground level. Maybe another beer first..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeterW Posted April 18, 2017 Share Posted April 18, 2017 Look how much a local "man and a digger" outfit is. I pay £250 for a JCB and £195 for a mini digger per day if I am not self driving. A machine can move a lot of muck in a day, especially if it's just level changes etc. Get someone to do the grunt work and then finish it yourself. Sleepers on river banks are ok, but there is a much cheaper alternative that helps you lose the muck - sandbags ...! Fill them with the spoil you dig out and either stitch the tops (one for 'er indoors...) or just 3/4 fill and fold the tops. Stack and batter back at about 30 degrees. Hazel pins can be useful to stop them moving but not normally needed. Plant them up with stabilising plants and job done .... 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Onoff Posted April 18, 2017 Share Posted April 18, 2017 5 minutes ago, PeterW said: Look how much a local "man and a digger" outfit is. I pay £250 for a JCB and £195 for a mini digger per day if I am not self driving. A machine can move a lot of muck in a day, especially if it's just level changes etc. Get someone to do the grunt work and then finish it yourself. Sleepers on river banks are ok, but there is a much cheaper alternative that helps you lose the muck - sandbags ...! Fill them with the spoil you dig out and either stitch the tops (one for 'er indoors...) or just 3/4 fill and fold the tops. Stack and batter back at about 30 degrees. Hazel pins can be useful to stop them moving but not normally needed. Plant them up with stabilising plants and job done .... Fair shout there. But then I live to upset my missus! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daiking Posted April 18, 2017 Author Share Posted April 18, 2017 4 hours ago, Ferdinand said: Is this really as big as 13k having to be done *now*? What does the management actually want? Is it the whole caboodle finished and landscaped and planted yesterday? Or is it a nice garden to sit out in this year, entertain friends to a BBQ and chuck the kids (?) outside to play without them breaking their necks? Or is it to look respectable to the public after several years of chaos? And do you need to do it *all* now? I have a couple of thoughts I'll post if I have half an hour later, but I am thinking (based on the maps and photos upthread), that perhaps it is not prudent to do all of it to Chelsea standard if you still have extensive groundworks and still need a "building site" type area for the purposed of doing your building. I am thinking of terracing the bit to the stream by next door, providing something outside the bifolds and doing a shortish term (up to 5-8 year life) visual break between that and the rest so there is a domestic area and a building site and the twain shall not meet if you are being domestic. Perhaps something to make the garage look respectable from the street too. F I would wait until I've put up some more pictures, maybe tomorrow. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ferdinand Posted April 18, 2017 Share Posted April 18, 2017 Will do. When I needed to hide a big pile of rubble I made a raised area, on the basis that it was unlikely to move and free draining. Levelled it off filling in with gravel, then weed membrane and made it part borders and part gravelled seating area ... so that it could be relevelled with a rake when the underlying compacted over time. F Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daiking Posted July 3, 2017 Author Share Posted July 3, 2017 On 18/04/2017 at 21:49, daiking said: I would wait until I've put up some more pictures, maybe tomorrow. And the rest.... 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jack Posted July 4, 2017 Share Posted July 4, 2017 So 1 July (2017, at least) has been and gone. Let's see pics of the finished job @daiking. We're dying to know how it turned out! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Onoff Posted July 4, 2017 Share Posted July 4, 2017 51 minutes ago, jack said: So 1 July (2017, at least) has been and gone. Let's see pics of the finished job @daiking. We're dying to know how it turned out! One thing I'll say about @daiking is that he doesn't hang about. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daiking Posted July 4, 2017 Author Share Posted July 4, 2017 (edited) 1 hour ago, Onoff said: One thing I'll say about @daiking is that he doesn't hang about. I've been waiting on finding some (un)professionals to sort it out and have now given up. Need to start a new thread. Edited July 4, 2017 by daiking Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daiking Posted July 11, 2017 Author Share Posted July 11, 2017 Duck it, I'll carry on here. 2 days work starts tomorrow. Should get rid of all the green and grey stuff and leave us with a very brown garden. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daiking Posted July 12, 2017 Author Share Posted July 12, 2017 The garage was demolished before half 8 this morning but now WW3 has broken out between my wife and I. She wants the whole thing turfed this weekend when she knows full well that I am away all weekend and nevermind the fact we don't actually know how the banking along the stream will look after clearing. She's pleased with herself that she's got a price of only £320 for 200 sq m of turf* - so god's know what sort of crap that is and probably half dead. She also assures me we don't need fertiliser before turfing because the turf is already fertilised. 200 sq m was a round guess for quoting purposes, I haven't even measured it up properly yet. fml. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeterW Posted July 12, 2017 Share Posted July 12, 2017 I pay 80p a square yard for meadow turf - sounds like she needs to shop around .... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Onoff Posted July 12, 2017 Share Posted July 12, 2017 You do realise your kids will quite likely develop agoraphobia with all this mass of new, open space? Along with "Daddy, where's my pet brick gone?" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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