Had our structural engineer on site today. Dug four trial holes and he agreed that our clay was suitable for standard strip foundations. This was a big relief as I guess you never really know what the engineer is going to say.

 

Does everybody feel tense before this visit? 

 

Getting this done today was covering the last area that was specific to our site as we got our access and services installed a couple of year's ago.

 

Just out interested what have users paid for a m3 cube of concrete, figure discussed was £150, little higher than I was expecting. I'm building in Highlands where I would imagine we will would end up paying a premium for haulage of materials etc. Hopefully now I will be able to work out a fairly good estimate of the costings for our foundations.

 

The dream got a little closer today!

hi @thedreamer,

concrete should be about £100 a cube unless it's on a mix on site lorry and then up to £120 a cube, how deep do you need to dig to get to suitable clay? we had to go down to 1.2m

cheers

2 minutes ago, Simplysimon said:

hi @thedreamer,

concrete should be about £100 a cube unless it's on a mix on site lorry and then up to £120 a cube, how deep do you need to dig to get to suitable clay? we had to go down to 1.2m

cheers

 

Thanks for that. Can't remember the exact figure, but it was less than 1.2m. Our site is on a slight slope and we already knew that we had clay underneath. When the top soil/softer clay was extracted it was replaced with rotten rock from our site, this was compacted at layers. This has settled really well and although the concrete will sit within the firm clay, the top of the trench made up of the rotten rock looks solid and unlikely to collapse. 

We were the same. Our subsoil is "sandy clay" and was declared okay for standard strip foundations but with a strong concrete mix with reinforcing mesh.  I pretty much knew that as we had previously built 100 metres away.

 

How far has the concrete lorry got to come? the hourly rate might start to push the price up.

4 minutes ago, ProDave said:

We were the same. Our subsoil is "sandy clay" and was declared okay for standard strip foundations but with a strong concrete mix with reinforcing mesh.  I pretty much knew that as we had previously built 100 metres away.

 

How far has the concrete lorry got to come? the hourly rate might start to push the price up.

 

Not really sure to be honest, as I've never ordered concrete before on Skye.

 

I believe Letiths have a base in the south of Island, which would be 80-90 minutes and another  plant hire business has a wagon perhaps 45-50 minutes away. I believe the plant hire wagon can be mixed to the quantity desired on site.  

@Crofter is your man to advise where to get what on Skye

Leiths are pricey because they are based down in Torrin.

You'll probably find it's cheaper to use Eyre Plant Hire's volumetric mixing lorry- my concrete cost about £120/cube from them eighteen months or so ago. They're based near Portree so significantly lower transport costs. They are almost impossible to get hold of- no website etc- but I think I have the mobile number for the driver somewhere.

9 hours ago, Crofter said:

Leiths are pricey because they are based down in Torrin.

You'll probably find it's cheaper to use Eyre Plant Hire's volumetric mixing lorry- my concrete cost about £120/cube from them eighteen months or so ago. They're based near Portree so significantly lower transport costs. They are almost impossible to get hold of- no website etc- but I think I have the mobile number for the driver somewhere.

 

Thanks Crofter. I don't really see the Leiths one in Staffin that much. But see the wagon that looks like this http://www.accumix.co.uk/ I actually looked up Eyre details and couldn't see a website. Hopefully I will start the foundations in April/May next year and although this is over 6 months away when you put outline planning in 2009 it's seems quite close. I've been trying to gather info on prices to work out costings, so that very helpful. This might sound daft, but do you know if do they do difference strengths? Will the concrete in the foundations be a different grade to the slab? My previous experience with concrete has been mixing in a old wheelbarrow for posts.

9 hours ago, Thedreamer said:

 

Thanks Crofter. I don't really see the Leiths one in Staffin that much. But see the wagon that looks like this http://www.accumix.co.uk/ I actually looked up Eyre details and couldn't see a website. Hopefully I will start the foundations in April/May next year and although this is over 6 months away when you put outline planning in 2009 it's seems quite close. I've been trying to gather info on prices to work out costings, so that very helpful. This might sound daft, but do you know if do they do difference strengths? Will the concrete in the foundations be a different grade to the slab? My previous experience with concrete has been mixing in a old wheelbarrow for posts.

 

They offered me C25 or C35 (I got the latter).

The nice thing about volumetric lorries is that you only pay for what goes in the hole- with a readymix lorry you pay for a fixed load, and unless you're bang-on with your measurements you'll need to over-order, then have somewhere to dump the excess.