Our build thread, renovation and extension
Discussion
I haven't updated my spreadsheet in a little while but I think about £25k all in which isn't too bad, for the size and the quality of the finish. The only thing left to do inside that actually costs any money is tiling the floor, I am allowing about £1k for that.
The cladding is Marley Cedral in slate grey.
The cladding is Marley Cedral in slate grey.
OK, now that the scaffolding is down the next job is sieving all of the soil to fill the beds and provide at least 200mm of good soil for the lawn.
The soil itself is actually very good, no clay, free draining and not a lot of stones, but it has loads of building rubble in it. It's all been dug over so many times it's very well mixed, but compacted in parts.
We spent all of last weekend and 3 days over this weekend feeding the soil through the rotary sieve, it works well but it's a pretty laborious process. It's only designed for having shovel loads put through it and if I was doing it like that I'd still be going next christmas! The improvised chute works fairly well, but it does need someone with a hoe poking it as the soil does consistently block the chute.
The most difficult part of the whole exercise is working in a confined space, I got to a point on saturday where the digger was sitting on top of a massive pile of soil and I had completely run out of room to work. Once "good" soil has been put down I don't want to drive over it with the digger again as it just compacts it too much. Nethertheless I think we're 90% of the way through it, I just need to scrape back a little more in the final corner, sift that level off the remaining good soil. Once the skip is out of the way I cane then move the digger onto the drive and do the final leveling. The idea is to leave it for about a month to settle and then seed it when I am back from holiday on the 10th September.
We have filled an 8 yard skip full of stone and brick and I think sifted about 60 tonnes, which is several hundred wheel barrows worth. Fortunately without counting too many chickens, I think we will have the perfect volume of soil left to bit the right levels once spread, which is either really good planning, or being really lucky!
As long as the weather is good next weekend (you cannot sieve it when it is wet) I should be done next weekend. Oh yeah, I ache a lot today!
The soil itself is actually very good, no clay, free draining and not a lot of stones, but it has loads of building rubble in it. It's all been dug over so many times it's very well mixed, but compacted in parts.
We spent all of last weekend and 3 days over this weekend feeding the soil through the rotary sieve, it works well but it's a pretty laborious process. It's only designed for having shovel loads put through it and if I was doing it like that I'd still be going next christmas! The improvised chute works fairly well, but it does need someone with a hoe poking it as the soil does consistently block the chute.
The most difficult part of the whole exercise is working in a confined space, I got to a point on saturday where the digger was sitting on top of a massive pile of soil and I had completely run out of room to work. Once "good" soil has been put down I don't want to drive over it with the digger again as it just compacts it too much. Nethertheless I think we're 90% of the way through it, I just need to scrape back a little more in the final corner, sift that level off the remaining good soil. Once the skip is out of the way I cane then move the digger onto the drive and do the final leveling. The idea is to leave it for about a month to settle and then seed it when I am back from holiday on the 10th September.
We have filled an 8 yard skip full of stone and brick and I think sifted about 60 tonnes, which is several hundred wheel barrows worth. Fortunately without counting too many chickens, I think we will have the perfect volume of soil left to bit the right levels once spread, which is either really good planning, or being really lucky!
As long as the weather is good next weekend (you cannot sieve it when it is wet) I should be done next weekend. Oh yeah, I ache a lot today!
Looking for some advice here, I need to lay around 300 square meters of type 1 over the driveway, there is already a fairly decent depth of type 1, albeit it's uneven and has too many large chunks and not enough lose infill. Before I used a conventional whacker plate which has ok, but too slow really and a bit tricky to control. That whacker plate which I had borrowed before is now broken so I'm going to have to hire something this time around. I figure a roller type compactor will be better, but the question is do I want a single roller, a double roller, or a ride on one? Obviously the ride on one will be more fun....
uk66fastback said:
Looks great - the irony being you have created your own bowling green ...
Seriously, fantastic job. Now stop sodding about and fit that garage out ...
Cheers, got to finish off the patio and do the driveway first, I can bugger about inside the garage during the winter when it is cold and wet. My uncle is however lined up to fit the consumer unit for that any time now however.Seriously, fantastic job. Now stop sodding about and fit that garage out ...
Just to update this I've had a chance to go through a huge pile of invoices for the last year and update my spreadsheets. The total garage cost comes in a touch under £30k (£23.5k materials, £6.5k labour), the only unknowns is the floor tile cost but I have a reasonable provisional sum in there for that.
That puts the whole build cost @ £170k for absolutely everything, about £300k "up" on paper according to the latest valuation (not that I am planning to move any time soon.
That puts the whole build cost @ £170k for absolutely everything, about £300k "up" on paper according to the latest valuation (not that I am planning to move any time soon.
Any suggestions chaps?
The garage electrics should start to be connected up tomorrow and this morning another 20 tonnes of MOT type 1 was dumped on my drive, hopefully I will get a chance to start spreading it at the weekend, with a ride on twin roller arriving next week to compact it.
The garage electrics should start to be connected up tomorrow and this morning another 20 tonnes of MOT type 1 was dumped on my drive, hopefully I will get a chance to start spreading it at the weekend, with a ride on twin roller arriving next week to compact it.
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