Turning a plot into a Building Site...

[Mulberry View]

So. here's the vision...

 

 

...and here's the current situation from the same position on the plot...

 

 

We have already completed around 150 metres of service trenching, to bring all services into the plot and onwardly connected to our static caravan. We are awaiting the final stage Technical pack from our Architect in conjunction with the Structural Engineers output.

 

I'm starting to think we can tackle some or even all of the groundworks ourselves. As an intermediate DIY'er, able to read plans and operate a digger at a novice/intermediate level, what can I reasonably take on here?

 

What's the process of readying this plot for the arrival of concrete for foundations? Is removal of the topsoil from the build area a logical starting point? Then get a setting out surveyor to mark out the footprint? Or leave it all to a groundworks company?

[Mr Punter]

A decent groundworker / machine operator will do this 4 times faster than you with no major cockups.  It won't cost that much.  Don't do it yourself.  It will cost you a lot in machine hire, extra concrete, sleepless nights etc.

 

I like the house.  Are you actually wanting to use white mortar in the brickwork?  It could work if you have a local supplier of white sand but otherwise very hard to achieve.

[nod]

8 hours ago, Mr Punter said:

A decent groundworker / machine operator will do this 4 times faster than you with no major cockups.  It won't cost that much.  Don't do it yourself.  It will cost you a lot in machine hire, extra concrete, sleepless nights etc.

 

I like the house.  Are you actually wanting to use white mortar in the brickwork?  It could work if you have a local supplier of white sand but otherwise very hard to achieve.

I agree 

I carefully trimmed back the entrance 

Shouldn’t really now we are in bird nesting season 

I decided that driving a dozer isn’t a lot harder than a dumper 

and took 20 meters of hedgerow out 

[ProDave]

I did my own foundations with my own little ancient 3 ton digger.  I pegged out and marked the centreline of each trench on the ground with ground marking spray paint, which was then easy to align with the centre of the bucket when digging.

 

I dug down to what i thought was hard ground and then called BC to inspect and they were happy.  The builders came along to take over, they looked at my trenches and said there was no way they were right doing it that way.  They then spent a day with their surveying equipment and set up the profiles and at the end of the day said what a good job I had done, there was just one corner that needed squaring off slightly which we did by hand.

 

They brought their own larger digger with a much longer reach for pouring the concrete.

 

The one thing I did different to most sites, is I only stripped the top soil off the actual build area plus a metre or so just to give room to run the digger tracks while trenching.  My reason was we only had limited space to store spoil on site, and all of the excavated soil will be used to raise the ground level and make it more flat on our sloping site.  So all the soil surrounding the house there was no point removing it just to put it back and some more, so it was all left and just added to from the piles of stored top soil.