Initial groundworks just complete

So - only 2 weeks late and still not sure how much over budget, the ground works are nearly coming to a close. With moving the house area about a little, filling in the soft ground at the front, and removing a large volume of extra clay the area now just needs to be squared off on the walls of the lower area, and graded flat.  Then its time for the builder.

Thursday saw a lot of 4" stone go in, again Tom had it all arranged including vetting the quality of the stone.  They were giving us stone that had been laying about for a while, and it starts to deteriorate, get brittle and start to break up.  With the threat of going to a different quarry they then gave us fresh stone in the next loads and it will make a difference when it comes to the stability of the base. Our engineer was up on Saturday morning and we marked out the house on the dug area, it was exciting to be able to stand in where the rooms will be and visualize it, its getting tangible!

For most of Saturday we were getting rid of excess soil that had been dug up, but would have left no room at the front of the house, you can see in the picture above the ridge of earth to the right hand side.  It gave me an appreciation of the scale as we had 2 9-ton dumpers (Tom driving the wheels off one of them) and 2 20-ton trailers hitched to tractors running non-stop for most of the day.  The two trailers were a god-send as luckily another neighbour was looking for filling to make into a yard area below.  He had the trailers, and we had the filling so we saved the rental cost of these and the drivers, he saved the cost of the filling.  It makes for a lot more room on site.

So - next contractor in is the builder.  We have an added cost over expected straight away, as rather than just a raft foundation we need to build in 3 pads of concrete connected with a ground-beam of concrete at the front of the raft - about 3/4 the distance out in the picture above, under the left wheels of the tractor above (as looking from this angle).  More slippage.  But naturally its better to have it stable and lasting rather than fall apart in a few years.

Final part of Saturday was cleaning the road after the vehicles were plying up and down all day.  A lot of loose stone and mud were left and likely to chip a windscreen of a car.  So 2 1/2 hrs of road sweeping followed, I might not be useful when it comes to construction but years of cleaning in a fast-food restaurant stood to me then.

Next week has a good forecast for weather, hopefully this allows us to get a move on with the house itself.  My one and only concern now is to get weather-tight before the end of September otherwise we could be left with a few months of nothing over winter.  With the building sealed we can continue the fit out inside and keep making progress.

Rain stops play

After the Easter break is over, the weather has rolled in.  A pity - over the Easter weekend we had decent weather that we could have finished the truck access road and started to pull back the excavation by another 2 meters - but the quarry supplying the stone was closed and we'll need to get the stone on top of the exposed hard-clay as soon as it's cleared to prevent it from mucking up from the excavator tracks.  So it's an effective 3 day delay between religious holidays and the weather.  Forecast for the next few days is to clear so we're on track to be ready for the foundation by week end.  Funnily that's also when the operator wants to get finished, so I'd expect a push this week to do so.  Suits me.

Its unknown how much all this will cost extra.  On top of that, we have a huge amount of earth dug out that has to go somewhere, and it's cluttering up the site.  I really want to ignore it at the moment to get a start on the house, but it won't go away on its own.  The downside is that with the wet weather and mucky site we can't remove it from our field as it will track a lot of that mud on the road, and that has to be cleaned off after.  Easier to wait for a dry spell (as well as the hard road onto the site) and clear it off at a later date.  We're lucky in the fact that we have an area to dump it; otherwise we'd be paying for someone to take it off our hands, so the cost of it will be in the hire of the equipment to load it into a vehicle and dump it across the road.

Regarding the extra 2 meters, due to the springs discovered, and the fact the harder shale falls deeper towards the front of the house, we are pulling back the location of the house by 2 meters to reduce the amount of filling that has to go into that area.  It's much cheaper to dig out than fill in so pulling it back is a better option.  We'll have to step back the sides of the excavation more to prevent the house being lost into the side of the hill.

Water Drained - French Drain Installed

Today we got the drain piped and filled with 2" stone. Tom had it all arranged by the time I got there, and on site was all the drainage pipe, first load of 2" and it was underway in terms getting installed.

We are installing a French drain, named after the man who initially designed and popularised it - Mr Henry French in the mid 1800's.  As above we dig a trench and bed with 2" gravel.  A perforated drainage pipe sits on that and that is topped with gravel.  Depending on how close to the surface, what will roll over it, and the volume of water you can use a rigid or flexible pipe in different diameters.  The water can flow through the drainage stone, around the pipe and into it through the perforations.  Of course it also flows out through them, but it's easier for the water to flow through the pipe.

The drain took the entire day, at the end when we started to clear the mud off the top near the gate we unearthed another spring right at the gate.  While this meant more work today, it was a lot better to find it now rather than for it to bubble up when the trucks start rolling over it.  The drain will extend from beyond the right hand side of the house under the basement area and down past the gate into the existing drain.  Ultimately if we hadn't of caught this it would have seeped up and started to undermine the foundation.  Good to have it cleared.  It was impressive to see the sheer volume of water flowing through it - and it hasn't been all that wet recently!!!

Next job is that we have to start building back up to the right level with 4" stone that will allow us to build on, and get trucks up to the house area.  We have a substantial amount of filling to go in which will add to the cost of this groundworks stage but can't avoid it.  This is the least controllable stage, as until you get into the ground you don't know if you encounter rock, water, clay all the way etc. Once we get this built up, the house will start, and then we should be on track.

A River runs through it

On site this morning to have a look at the proposals to work-around the springs right where our basement is planned to go. First - and part of the plan - we open up the side lane and put down some 4" stone for access. Second, we start clearing out some of the clay lower down and see what that does to the spring - it may move the water egress further downhill (good) or leave it as it is (not as good). With the latter we'll have to add some 6" drainage pipe covered with drainage stone and lean mix, backfilled.

The other issue to come to light is that the fall of the shale substrate goes away from the surface lower down. This will be a problem as the foundation needs to be bedded into it, and either we pull all the levels down (bad) or fill-in where the slate has fallen off. Either way is more expensive for time on the machinery and of course filler stone. Snow and Rain today makes doing anything on the site impossible, with our engineer getting stuck above his calves and still sinking right in the middle of the field. But there is always a solution, and while it will add a few grand onto the cost of this section the only other alternative is to fill it all in and stay where we are! And it could have been much worse - it could have been solid rock under the topsoil. Hopefully by the end of the week we'll have a much better idea on how it will play out.

Taking bets that when we drill the well we won't find water!