Laying timber sleepers as garden border - DPC?

[Taylor James]

rigga said:

Taylor James said:

rigga said:

Taylor James said:

Are you aware how long it has been since trains flushed their toilets directly onto tracks in this country? How much faecal matter do you think has survived since then?

As I posted earlier, we were using trains in the west midlands until late 2020 that emptied onto the tracks, they are now being employed elsewhere in the country, still doing the same thing, not practicle to modify them to sealed tanks due to design layout, that never envisaged them being a thing.
They will continue in service for many years still.

Unless I missed it, you were referring to early 2000s not 2020?

Where are these trains in use now?

Year 2k we started to use class 170 turbostar units, which had CET equipment underframe to capture waste, these are then pumped out end of day at the depot. Till that point we had class 150 153 156 and 158, all emptied onto the tracks, overtime these units were cascaded down to other train operating companies, or TOC's, and they are still in use today.
The 153 units we were still using up until last year (2020) and they have gone to wales and borders i believe, who also had the 158's, 156 units went to Scott rail way back, 150 went to southern, although I think they were upgraded to CET spec later on...... but as i said, the single car 153 units that dump to the track, were still used by ourselves only a few months back.

That's a disgusting practice that should be banned forthwith. I'm shocked it's still legal. However, my sleepers have been in my garden for over a decade so I reckon any poo has long gone.

[rigga]

Taylor James said:

That's a disgusting practice that should be banned forthwith. I'm shocked it's still legal. However, my sleepers have been in my garden for over a decade so I reckon any poo has long gone.

Absolutely no danger to yourself after a period of time, but its an issue to be aware of using reclaimed railway timber, most are being replaced with concrete sleepers, so they do come to market for garden use.

[Prawo Jazdy]

PhilboSE said:

100 x 200 x 2.4 in oak is around 100kg.

Yikes. I have seen softwood sleepers online with a weight of 11kg for 1200 x 200 x 100. Is oak five times heavier?! I assume oak looks and lasts a lot better, but if it means someone has to come and help me every time I want to move one, that significantly increases the complexity of the job!

People have written that membrane is a no-no as it holds moisture against the wood surface. But what do people use to protect the wood from the soil inside the raised bed?

Thanks.

[sherman]

Prawo Jazdy said:

Yikes. I have seen softwood sleepers online with a weight of 11kg for 1200 x 200 x 100. Is oak five times heavier?! I assume oak looks and lasts a lot better, but if it means someone has to come and help me every time I want to move one, that significantly increases the complexity of the job!

People have written that membrane is a no-no as it holds moisture against the wood surface. But what do people use to protect the wood from the soil inside the raised bed?

Thanks.

Nothing on the inside of the raised bed. The very bottom of my raised bed has a few inches of fine gravel to aid drainage then we threw in the turf sods that we cut to place the bed then topsoil/conpost and well rotted manure to top it all up.

[PhilboSE]

Prawo Jazdy said:

Yikes. I have seen softwood sleepers online with a weight of 11kg for 1200 x 200 x 100. Is oak five times heavier?! I assume oak looks and lasts a lot better, but if it means someone has to come and help me every time I want to move one, that significantly increases the complexity of the job!

People have written that membrane is a no-no as it holds moisture against the wood surface. But what do people use to protect the wood from the soil inside the raised bed?

Thanks.

I can’t see a softwood sleeper of those dimensions being 11kg. A 2.4 sleeper in softwood is 50-60kg. Oak is 90-100kg.

It is possible to manhandle oak sleepers on your own but it is hard work. I carried 32 over 2 days 120m to where I needed them but I knew about it afterwards!

[Steve Campbell]

Looks like oak is 48kgs. Where is the 100kgs coming from ?

[TeaNoSugar]

Taylor James said:

I despair. Faecal matter? FFS who comes up with this cobblers - some millennial at the council? I suppose the one good thing is it provides some clear justification for getting rid of cats in the garden or is cat st special and acceptable?

I know, it’s ridiculous isn’t it!! Faecal matter? They’ll have been sat in rail salvage yard for years, as they replaced all these with concrete sleepers years ago. Jet wash them before use and they’re fine.

I used about 30 “grade A” Australian Jarrah sleepers to make a retaining wall around the side of my house. 10in x 5in x 9ft, and around 70-80kg in weight each. Im 42 and I have no doubt that even if I live to 100, they’ll outlive me. In fact, if you cut through jarrah sleepers the colour of the wood is absolutely beautiful. I keep meaning to buy some more to make them into some garden furniture.

[Chrisgr31]

sherman said:

Nothing on the inside of the raised bed. The very bottom of my raised bed has a few inches of fine gravel to aid drainage then we threw in the turf sods that we cut to place the bed then topsoil/conpost and well rotted manure to top it all up.

I used pea shingle the whole way up the back of mine. Same reason to aid drainage.

[Mack11]

Just to add, I used JT Timber for some oak sleepers and recommend them if you are in the South.
I used thinner 75 x 200 and 50 x 200 “ Retain it posts” (galvanised steel) and come in end/joiner or corner posts.
It makes creating a retaining wall or planting area very easy and you can cap with full size sleepers.

[Pheo]

Mack11 said:

Just to add, I used JT Timber for some oak sleepers and recommend them if you are in the South.
I used thinner 75 x 200 and 50 x 200 “ Retain it posts” (galvanised steel) and come in end/joiner or corner posts.
It makes creating a retaining wall or planting area very easy and you can cap with full size sleepers.

That sounds sensible. How much did Jt Timber cost to deliver? I'm outside of the M25 so wondering if anyone has a ballpark.

[Mack11]

If you buy enough he will deliver I am sure of it.

As for the posts, message me if you are interested as I can get them very cheap.

[TCruise]

TeaNoSugar said:

I know, it’s ridiculous isn’t it!! Faecal matter? They’ll have been sat in rail salvage yard for years, as they replaced all these with concrete sleepers years ago. Jet wash them before use and they’re fine.

I used about 30 “grade A” Australian Jarrah sleepers to make a retaining wall around the side of my house. 10in x 5in x 9ft, and around 70-80kg in weight each. Im 42 and I have no doubt that even if I live to 100, they’ll outlive me. In fact, if you cut through jarrah sleepers the colour of the wood is absolutely beautiful. I keep meaning to buy some more to make them into some garden furniture.

Hi, a few questions please

where did you get these from?

What did you lay them on?

How did you fix them to the ground?

Also, how did you fix them to each other?

Many thanks

[TCruise]

AlvinSultana said:

We used over 100 green oak sleepers as retaining walls when we landscaped.
As previously stated bloody heavy but fantastic end result. Again we paid about £22 each which is good value for the quality of the product. We just laid them in a shallow trench and used large iron staples to fix the joints. ( for the aesthetic as much as the practical )



Oak from www.tradeoakbuildingkits.com

Staples from eBay.

Hi any further details of the iron staples, had a. Look but unsure what you mean. Did you hammer them in?

Thanks

[PH5121]

Thanks for the advice about how to do this, we (my wife and I, as we couldn't persuade the children to help) spent the weekend installing the sleepers.

We dug a shallow trench, put in a couple of inches of a combination of gravel and crushed brick and stone rubble and sat the sleepers straight on it.

They had a coat of wood preserver before they went down, and the cut ends had a good soaking in it. I used galvanised unistrut / channel fittings to join the pieces together as below:

https://www.cef.co.uk/catalogue/products/71703-4-h...

These tees were ideal to hold the intersection of three sleepers together, with some 70mm coach bolts. We'll staple some dpc or visqueen on the back faces of the sleepers before we fill it with soil next weekend.

The hardest part was smashing up the rubble to make aggregate, I could have bought it but it seemed like a good idea to use some of the debris we had laying around from the ongoing house extension.

[TeaNoSugar]

TCruise said:

Hi, a few questions please

where did you get these from?

What did you lay them on?

How did you fix them to the ground?

Also, how did you fix them to each other?

Many thanks

I actually used them differently. I tried doing some basic calcs to work out what sort of strength I’d need as I was retaining a reasonable embankment (with a neighbours house at the top!). It looked ok to me given the slope angle and what I was actually removing and replacing it with, but I wanted to go a bit belt and braces so:

I dug a few trial holes and got a chap who does ground works to have a look at it. He was adamant that ground was previously undisturbed and wouldn’t budge, however I didn’t trust that so I dug a 1.2m deep trench and stood the sleepers vertically (so I get the benefit that each sleeper is providing its full strength - as opposed to laying horizontally where you only get the strength of the vertical posts), then set them in concrete (lots of concrete!) and made sure there was a continuous curve to the wall so that any pressure would be spread - like a shallow arch). I then waited for the concrete to go off and back filled gradually and checked for any movement. They seem to be totally rock solid nearly 2 years later.

I also checked on line to find some info on the properties of Jarrah. It’s more dense and stronger than oak (not stronger than the “heart wood” but generally stronger than oak sleepers), and the resistance to bending is pretty significant.

I was going to post a photo in response to another similar thread ages ago but I imagined the collected wisdom of PH coming down on me like a ton of bricks to tell me that the embankment would collapse my wall and my neighbours house would definitely be in my drive in no time, so I didn’t bother!

I bought the sleepers from a rail yard in Worksop. They had thousands of Jarrah and oak sleepers, including the ones they use where there are points on the railway, so they’re about 20ft long rather than 8-9ft.

I’ll try and find the place and post a link.

Also, I only joined them together with some long screws angled through the back to “stitch” them while the concrete set. They won’t move I don’t think, as they’re all over 3ft deep in concrete!. I also didn’t put any drainage behind them as they are quite rough surfaces and the gaps between them allow for plenty of drainage.

[TeaNoSugar]

The place I got them from is:

KJ Bownes and Sons
2 Bungalow Cornmill Farm, Wallingwells, Worksop S81 8DA

From memory the prices were £21 for grade A, £18 grade B and £15 grade C. All mine are roughly 10in x 5in x 8ft 6 or 9ft long.

To be honest I think we decided against grade A because I really couldn’t see much difference and only needed 1 decent face on the sleepers. We also got £1.50 off each sleeper as the chap working with me was looking at buying loads more for some big landscaping projects he’d got coming up.
From memory the Grade C sleepers looked pretty ropey.

The lady who ran the place said don’t put any preservative on Jarrah, they’ll last for over 200 years and they rot very very slowly. I imagine they’re already at least 100 years old though, but I am sure they’ll last long enough for me.

[AlvinSultana]

TCruise said:

AlvinSultana said:

We used over 100 green oak sleepers as retaining walls when we landscaped.
As previously stated bloody heavy but fantastic end result. Again we paid about £22 each which is good value for the quality of the product. We just laid them in a shallow trench and used large iron staples to fix the joints. ( for the aesthetic as much as the practical )



Oak from www.tradeoakbuildingkits.com

Staples from eBay.

Hi any further details of the iron staples, had a. Look but unsure what you mean. Did you hammer them in?

Thanks

Something like this :

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/263108398604?chn=ps&amp...

Although I think we paid about £3 each for them.

Drill small pilot holes then whack them in. The pilot holes stop the wood from splitting.

[AlvinSultana]

I took some photos of the staples today.










The oak dowels were also effective and pleasing to the eye.

[gmaz]

Steve Campbell said:

Interesting photos. They all have the sleepers “lay down”. I was thinking of having them “end on” to create a wall 40cms high and 10cms thick so don’t have to bend down as much. Plan was 8 * 2.4m and cut them in half so I would end up with a square 1.3 m across a side.....
Like this but hopefully with straighter cuts :-). Anyone done this ?

Yes I did ours like that and used brackets at each corner, and along the long edge

https://www.indooroutdoors.co.uk/collections/stake...

Be sure to use strong screws to secure them as I used decking screws and some have snapped, so I had to drill and drive home 200mm screws into the external corners to keep them together

https://www.screwfix.com/p/timbascrew-flange-timbe...

[TCruise]

TeaNoSugar said:

The place I got them from is:

KJ Bownes and Sons
2 Bungalow Cornmill Farm, Wallingwells, Worksop S81 8DA

From memory the prices were £21 for grade A, £18 grade B and £15 grade C. All mine are roughly 10in x 5in x 8ft 6 or 9ft long.

To be honest I think we decided against grade A because I really couldn’t see much difference and only needed 1 decent face on the sleepers. We also got £1.50 off each sleeper as the chap working with me was looking at buying loads more for some big landscaping projects he’d got coming up.
From memory the Grade C sleepers looked pretty ropey.

The lady who ran the place said don’t put any preservative on Jarrah, they’ll last for over 200 years and they rot very very slowly. I imagine they’re already at least 100 years old though, but I am sure they’ll last long enough for me.

Thanks very much for all the information. Most helpful.

The Jarrah sleepers, I believe are only available reclaimed?

For a raised garden bed that we want to look "smart" and uniform, it looks like we might be forced to choose oak sleepers.