Getting out the ground is the hard bit I'm told...

[Mulberry View]

 

What an absolute cluster-f**k of a week.

 

I had a friend who owns a Groundworks company offer to dig our Foundations as a 'mate'. He didn't want paying for it, he said it'd be a weekends work and would be a breeze for him. SWMBO wasn't keen and I had my doubts, but the offer seemed too good to refuse. However, we finally agreed that we would pay a proper company, too much was at stake.

 

Then, my mate appeared. He said how disappointed he would be if we didn't allow him to flex his great digger skills. So, it was decided that we would do it between us.

 

I hired a 5T machine and a small Dumper, we officially broke ground last Saturday (20th August). A relief for sure. We were digging most of Saturday/Sunday. I have a fairly good understanding of most aspects of this build, but the Foundations had concerned me, I felt out of my depth and made that clear. He assured me that he had this all in hand.

 

After he went, the Wife and I proceeded to survey the bottoms of the trenches. Though obvious we'd hit the solid ground we had been specified to reach, we begun to notice that some areas didn't appear deep enough in terms of their relationship to the finished floor levels. As we got further and further, we realised that a whole section was wrong. If you look at the layout photo and imagine the hardest corner to dig on there, that's the one that was wrong. Not deep enough by almost half a metre!!

The week since has been filled with a lot of swearing, frustration and no support from my 'mate. So, realising that nobody was coming to fish us out of the doo-doo, we cracked on. Straddling trenches in ways I never want to repeat, digger balancing on Heras blocks etc, we carefully scratched and scraped our way down through the flint-filled chalk, digger shaking like a shittin' dog, butthole clenched tight the whole time.

 

The nasty stuff is almost done, I have one more tricky trench to fix. it requires me to climb the machine over a trench and onto an 'island' with a foot-or-so of leeway around the digger, before re-pulling one of the middle trenches. Oh, and lots of clearing up and manual removal of spoil from trenches that I could not reach with the digger without risking the walls of the trenches. The focus went off tidiness and onto survival. The place is carnage.

 

Oh, and to add the cherry on the top. We have had to cancel the concrete pour which was planned for next Wednesday because I just don't think I can be confidently ready. This sees us going into September prices, and, I'm told, a 10% price rise. Happy days!

 

Does it get better?!

 

 

Edited August 26, 2022 by Mulberry View

[ProDave]

If you have hit hard ground that has the digger "digger shaking like a shittin' dog" do you really have to scrape it any deeper?

[Kelvin]

Bloody hell. At least you’ve started! I’d be triple checking everything is in the right place. 

[Mulberry View]

3 minutes ago, ProDave said:

If you have hit hard ground that has the digger "digger shaking like a shittin' dog" do you really have to scrape it any deeper?

 

Yes, sadly, due to the FFL's. Our building has 4 'ground floor' levels. The main 'block' is somewhat sunken in the sloped plot, the rear section is quite a way into the ground, so despite only probably ending up with 450mm of concrete, the top of concrete will be over a metre underground. That was the point the 'groundworker' seemed to miss. His trenches were, in the main it turns out, sloped with the plot.

[nod]

It does get easier from here on

This time and last I’ve had a torrid time digging out In my humble opinion a 5 tone machine isn’t man enough in tough ground 

I ended up hiring a dozer to move all the spoil 500 per day for the machine plus 300 per day for the fuel 

Groundwork’s is the only unknown part of your build The rest should be plain sailing 

[Mulberry View]

Just now, nod said:

It does get easier from here on

This time and last I’ve had a torrid time digging out In my humble opinion a 5 tone machine isn’t man enough in tough ground 

I ended up hiring a dozer to move all the spoil 500 per day for the machine plus 300 per day for the fuel 

Groundwork’s is the only unknown part of your build The rest should be plain sailing 

 

Many others have said that once we're out of the ground, we're in the clear. I took that for granted a bit.

 

The 5T machine has done OK to be honest and I'm grateful that it's a littleun' now that I'm climbing out onto risky precipices. I'm only experienced up to 3T and even that to me is a big machine, so this 5T has been a step out of my comfort zone. The footprint of it is noticeably bigger.

 

It felt far shadier than it looks here. About 2 foot of the rear of the tracks is on soil and the bar was supported on a stack of Heras blocks due to it needing to be directly in line with another trench. We had to pull several like that.

 

 

 

[BadgerBadger]

Tough stressful week, but it sounds like you're there and you have your trenches for much less than you'd budgeted? 

👍

Edited August 27, 2022 by BadgerBadger

[BadgerBadger]

We're a few months ahead of you and one thing I've really learnt is that when you break a build down into trades, it's ultimately you who's responsible for getting everything right. 

 

I've found it best to really own that responsibility - so now is the time to double-check your setting out, make sure you know your site levels and be ready to check the pour is bang on. I wouldn't fancy having to correct that...!

[nod]

8 hours ago, Mulberry View said:

 

Many others have said that once we're out of the ground, we're in the clear. I took that for granted a bit.

 

The 5T machine has done OK to be honest and I'm grateful that it's a littleun' now that I'm climbing out onto risky precipices. I'm only experienced up to 3T and even that to me is a big machine, so this 5T has been a step out of my comfort zone. The footprint of it is noticeably bigger.

 

It felt far shadier than it looks here. About 2 foot of the rear of the tracks is on soil and the bar was supported on a stack of Heras blocks due to it needing to be directly in line with another trench. We had to pull several like that.

 

 

 

It does get easier from here on

This time and last I’ve had a torrid time digging out In my humble opinion a 5 tone machine isn’t man enough in tough ground 

I ended up hiring a dozer to move all the spoil 500 per day for the machine plus 300 per day for the fuel 

Groundwork’s is the only unknown part of your build The rest should be plain sailing 

 

Im pretty inexperienced with larger diggers also 

I had the loan of a 8 tone machine and a GPS system Incredible leap forward 

The engineer uses the Topo to program it Then follow the screen like a sat nav It even tells you when you have reached the required depth 

The only drawback is you can’t deviate from the program 

We have a large workshop that could have done to be moved a meter further out from the boundary 

[ToughButterCup]

I started worrying for you by the end of the first sentence.

 

"friend", "mate"

 

It doesn't matter what the discipline is , trying to impose friendship on a properly professional relationship never seems to end well. There are several similar stories on BH.

If you've got mother mates in the building food-chain, smile and as politely as you can refuse. That in itself is really really hard.

 

My hope for you is that the first Oh-FFS moment is over. Only a few more to go.

 

It gets better

[Mr Punter]

That looks like no fun to set out.  I assume you got a guy with a Total Station?  For tricky foundation depths it would have been better to have one person checking with a laser as you go.  Hindsight I suppose.  It is really annoying going back over trenches that would have been easy to get right with a bit more care and attention.

[Pocster]

You’ve done well . Your “ mate “ ( I can use other words here but the automated expletive remover will go wild ) deserves a punch .

With no skills ( and still none 😁 ) digging out an underground house I know how easy it is to feel completely out of your depth . “ oh (expletive deleted) what have I done “ . It does get easier I.e it feels more manageable even if you haven’t got a clue . Use this forum ; ask even more dumb questions than me and you’ll get there !

[Pocster]

4 hours ago, Mr Punter said:

For tricky foundation depths it would have been better to have one person checking with a laser as you go.  Hindsight I suppos

Even I bought a cheap Chinese spinny laser sending a rough red dot around the site . Surprising how far out you can be whilst visually it doesn’t look “ too bad “ . 

[Mulberry View]

5 hours ago, ToughButterCup said:

I started worrying for you by the end of the first sentence.

 

"friend", "mate"

 

It doesn't matter what the discipline is , trying to impose friendship on a properly professional relationship never seems to end well. There are several similar stories on BH.

If you've got mother mates in the building food-chain, smile and as politely as you can refuse. That in itself is really really hard.

 

My hope for you is that the first Oh-FFS moment is over. Only a few more to go.

 

It gets better

 

We had all those debates, having been in the 'mate' trap before. We'd decided against it, but got toppled at the final hour. It's a regret now for sure.

[Mulberry View]

1 hour ago, pocster said:

You’ve done well . Your “ mate “ ( I can use other words here but the automated expletive remover will go wild ) deserves a punch .

With no skills ( and still none 😁 ) digging out an underground house I know how easy it is to feel completely out of your depth . “ oh (expletive deleted) what have I done “ . It does get easier I.e it feels more manageable even if you haven’t got a clue . Use this forum ; ask even more dumb questions than me and you’ll get there !

 

To be clear, my 'mate' is a very experienced guy. He's owns a civil engineering business (but did this job outside of his business), very good with multiple simple houses in larger developments, but a single unusually shaped house with a variety of levels would probably have caught many out. I don't want to hate on this guy, I should have known better and taken control. It's a steep learning curve.

 

No other part of this build intimidates me as much as the foundations.

[Mulberry View]

Question time -

 

Our foundation spec is 600mm wide by 300mm minimum concrete, found onto hard chalk. That's it, no steel in the spec (just Claymaster, I'll post separately about that nonsense).

 

I believe I am at hard chalk (no clay in sight whatsoever), but the trenches vary in depth as in some places we had to dig through some soft stuff. I'm planning to survey the trench depths over the next couple of days and produce a plan with spot levels on it, but believe we'll be no less than 400mm concrete and as much as 600-700mm in some places. Is this OK?

 

Can anyone show me an example of how to correctly shutter a stepped footing?

 

How many bodies do I need on pour day? We'll have a 42m boom pump and operator, I'll be leading the effort and armed with a rotary level, which I plan to attach to a previously calibrated depth gauge/tamping arrangement. Will I need chaps with rakes? Or does the pump do a good job of spreading? I'm thinking of one further labourer in addition to me and the pump guy. I think it'll be about 50 cube.

 

On pour day, how can I predict that amount of concrete I'll need at a given stage? For example, if I'm 1" from the top of concrete and the concrete truck is almost empty, how will I know how much to order for the final load?

 

Thanks in advance.

[Miek]

My pump operator placed all the concrete to within 50mm of level, just me with a rake, no need for lots of people , the pump does all the work. If you have a laser its dead easy to get it accurate.

 

Up to you whether you step the footings or just spend more on concrete.