Another "Happy Days" post

[Cambs]

Following on from @newhome's post earlier, here's another good news story....

 

We had our soil survey done today, so it finally feels like we are getting started after two years of buying the plot and getting planning permission for our plot which sits in the curtilage of a listed building.

 

I went out to four or five structural engineers nearby who could do the survey - prices ranged from £620 + we supply the digger and driver to almost £4K!!

 

We went with the £620 one - his response was professional, they were a local firm and our groundworker knew of him and, I have to say, we weren't disappointed in how today went.

 

The groundworker turned up just after 8am, unloaded his little Kubota digger, grubbed up a few bushes to make access easier and was on site within half an hour.  The structural engineer turned up as promised at 9am, took his geological map out, looked at the area and said "I expect to hit sandstone at about one and a half metres down"

 

He then said to the digger driver "Dig a hole there...."  The groundworker is a bit of a JCB artiste, so we had a hole almost exactly one small bucket wide.  We stopped about a metre down so the engineer could have a look and take some photos.  After another half a metre there was a clank as we hit the expected solid stone.  A few more photos, the engineer looked over what we dug out and said he knew exactly what we had, so need need to go any deeper

 

Another hole dug at the back of the plot (there are some large poplars at the end of the plot) - same process again, dig a metre, stop, have a look and keep digging until the "clank" happens as we hit stone at about one and a half metres down.  There are a few roots from the poplars among the mix of soil, light clay and stone, but nothing to worry about.

 

Looking at what comes out of the holes, Structural engineer says no need to take "shear vane tests to estimate safe bearing pressure in clay soils" and no need to spend an extra £250 on further soil testing "if clay soils are apparent"  - the bits in quotation marks are what was mentioned in his quote to us.

 

Groundworker fills the holes in.  You'd hardly know he had been there.

 

We now wait for the structural engineer's report, but foundations should be fairly straightforward which is a big weight off any self builder's mind - you can plan for everything once you get out of the ground.

 

Had a walk round with the groundworker and found the water - running in a straight line along the pavement a couple of feet from the front of the plot - as expected from the DigDat data that I had got earlier and then spotted the mains sewer (with a manhole we may be able to tap in to) in the middle of the road, again, exactly as expected from the DigDat data.  Two more good outcomes..... 

 

Meeting the timber frame company on site to look at access later on today - hope that goes as well as this morning has gone.

 

Here are some photos .......

 

The moment that ground was broken

 

 

Let's see what we've got here ......

 

 

 

.... and after the second hole was filled in.

 

[ProDave]

I did the same for our plot with the SE looking at what came out of the hole.  The only difference I left one hole open, with just a sheet of OSB covering it so I could look down it from time to time and see how the water table went up and down. I left it like that for nearly a year until we were ready to start.

[joe90]

Ha, with our site ( yellow clay) the building inspector said he knew what we would find so specced 800mm deep trench, when dug out he visited and said “yup, I was right, fill er up”. No S.E. no fees ?

[Temp]

You've got some nice looking young trees in the background, will you be able to keep them?

[Cambs]

3 hours ago, Temp said:

You've got some nice looking young trees in the background, will you be able to keep them?

 

Some will actually end up in next door's garden - it's their side garden that we've bought, but we'll keep what we can

[Thedreamer]

@Cambs it's a great feeling to get some certainty over the foundations. I remember it was pouring when ours were done. 

 

 

[Nickfromwales]

The only time that 'hitting rock bottom' puts a smile on your face  

[Grendel]

Hello Cambs - How did you find your soil engineers to do the soil assessments?

We are based in East Leicestershire, but I can only find massive national companies

[Hecateh]

8 hours ago, Grendel said:

Hello Cambs - How did you find your soil engineers to do the soil assessments?

We are based in East Leicestershire, but I can only find massive national companies

This is who I used

http://www.bore-it.co.uk/

 

A small family company, very helpful

 

Edited July 8, 2018 by Hecateh

[Cambs]

17 hours ago, Grendel said:

Hello Cambs - How did you find your soil engineers to do the soil assessments?

We are based in East Leicestershire, but I can only find massive national companies

 

We had one that we had used previously but he had retired.  Yell was my starting point - search term "ground investigation"  + a county will turn up specialist site investigators + structural engineers who do this.

 

Big specialist companies seemed to lack local knowledge and so quotes didn't necessarily reflect local geology, I suspect.  Alternatively, they perhaps had a "one size fits all model" - they seemed to plan for drilling multiple deep holes.  We went for a structural engineer.  Our structural engineer was a small practice from out in the Fens, so about 20 miles east of us, but he was willing (had to, because of being out in the country) travel.  He had a pretty good idea of what he would find before he turned up, because he knew the area.  We provided the digger and driver and he was happy with trial pits.

 

Give "Ground Investigation" or "Site Investigation" + East Leicestershire a try on Yell ........

 

It might be worth having a look online for the British Geological Survey map for your area.  It was this series - "Geological Survey of England and Wales 1:63,360/1:50,000 geological map series, New Series"  that our SE used, I believe.

 

Here's a link to the region selector:

 

http://www.bgs.ac.uk/data/maps/maps.cfc?method=listResults&MapName=&series=E50k&scale=&getLatest=Y&pageSize=100

 

Here are a couple of screen grabs from the online maps.  Our area was one of the yellow ones "BwL" below - Blisworth Limestone, expected at 1.9m down and he found it at 1.6m.

 

Edited July 9, 2018 by Cambs
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