Week #16: Phase 3 - The Steps of Woe: WK commencing 14/6/21

 Got in from work and expected to make a start on the Gabions. Dug a hole and put in a big lump of breeze block as a base and then started to look more closely at the width on offer so that perhaps I could then start cutting the Gabions. I know the Sleepers are 100mm thick and looking at it I then realised that the steps themselves would be quite narrow. Michelle suggested using scaffold boards instead and for a while that seemed like a viable option, but then made the point that the scaffold boards would held in place at the base by the actual steps. He said the weight of the grass that they'd be supporting - only really fixed at the base by the steps there'd be a fulcrum effect. He also pointed out that once they got wet they may even buckle and distort. 

So at the moment I'm a bit flummoxed and again erring towards using Rail sleepers and having quite narrow steps. I've also realised that the sleepers should be embedded into the clay below the step level as much as possible, but to do that I'm possibly going to have to did a lot of earth out to make holes and then fill them in to hold them in place - perhaps even consider cementing them in place? 

This above is a cross-section of the steps.Once the earth has been dug out you can see the 3rd step will be flanked by earth either side. (1) I don't want to see this and (2) It'll quickly fall into the steps, so the step walls as such will (a) Need to be lined and (b) be strong enough to support the weight of the earth behind it. So In affect the walls of the steps are basically retaining walls and this is most apparent at the lower end of the steps directly beyond the Gabions (Light blue). The two Railway sleepers will need to be over a metre high from the steps up to the grass level. The sleepers adjacent to steps (D) and (E) will be about a metre. By my reckoning these will need to be embedded into the earth almost down to 'Patio' level and that means and awful more digging to sink the Sleepers. 

With the indecision I decided to make a decisive move on digging out the 'Gully' for the steps. I'd also brought home a board with wheels on to enable the filling of crates and moving the earth around. With all the digging I've now pretty much filled up my 1 tonne bags and really need to call in another Lorry to get rid of it all. 

I'm also 3 weeks away from my summer break, so I need to start ordering the next round of stuff.

16/6/21

Last night some progress was made with regards decisions as to how the steps might be constructed and it became apparent that we need the slabs that finish off the steps, so that we can build them 1 by one as we cut into the garden. I've found a place  that sells individual slabs that are 900 x 600 for about £15 each so I'm hopefully ordering 5 of these tomorrow. These will be cut down the long length so that they're two 300 x 900 slabs and the width of the steps cut off the ends - the width being around 720 and the depth of the steps a consistent 300. These slabs will probably be a slightly different colour to the patio, but I don't think that matters too much.

The objective over the next 7 - 10 days...

(1). Order the slabs.

(2). Book the grabber lorry and get rid of all the tat and mud

(3). Order three 1 x 1 mtr 4mm gabion grids

(4). Make the Gabion step boxes

(5). Move all the stuff in the patio area to the 'Tony's side'. Reason being that once we start laying the patio I want to start on 'Marks side' so that if we run short due to slabs being broken the broken slabs will be on Tony's side. 

(6) Start buying the Sleepers and getting them in. 

(7). Order the patio slabs and the MOT, sand and cement for delivery July 8th (PGR)?

(8). Look at how much a cement mixer is

(9). Buy a long spirit level, trowels and new buckets?

18/6/21

Some big movements forwards. Today Friday 18th. The grabber lorry turned up and took away the latest batch of clay and the garden is clear at the top now and from now on any dirt that needs moving we'll get rid more local to home in smaller amounts, probably leave it over at the Paddock and it can be used in repairs of the cricket wicket. There's not a great deal to by my estimation and a lot of it will get used leveling the grass area at the top. 

I've ordered the patio slabs and they might come Monday, I'm waiting for email back from the company to confirm that, otherwise they'll be here next Friday as arranged. The rain has been biblical in the last 24 hours, so it's impossible to do anything at the moment as it's getting to be like WW1 trench out there. I've been looking at how much MOT I need and an on-line calculator has suggested it might be as many as 4! So that's another £200.

Just spoke on Phone to the slab company and it'll be Friday now as previously arranged. 

The next day... (14th June)

15th June... Here I started to look at how the plan for the steps might work. One of the breeze blocks from the previous steps was buried at the bottom of what will be the new steps and the first Gabion placed on that. Behind this is then filled with concrete slabs which we got off a bloke a few weeks back as well as the slabs at the bottom of the garden in the 'Patio area'. At this stage the Gabion steps seemed feasible and relatively easy.

18th June 'Rain stopped play'. We'd had some really hot weather at the start of June, but on Wednesday it started to change and for the next 3 days it rained and rained turning the mud into something that started to resemble a WWI trench! I bit the bullet and had to accept that another grabber lorry was needed and on Friday morning it turned up and the bloke took away all the big bulk bags full of earth and clay. There were a few bits of wire that were used to contain the earth and he moaned about that and I had to pull it all out. The bags were a bit of an issue as well. It's obvious as well as making money from me taking the stuff away they obviously sell it to whoever takes it and therefore it has to be clean e.g. just clay or earth.

The blue tarp was an attempt to keep the area dry, but it didn't work that well. 

The image above is the area cleared of the Bulk bags. The shot below is a new angle I might start shooting from.

In between this shot and the next series of images Ben cut up a load of the mesh grids and made a step gabion using wire to construct it. He said that it was very difficult and had taken over an hour just to make one gabion and suggested using cable ties...

20th June

It's been cloudy now for the last 48hrs and a lot less rain so I was able to get out and do some work this afternoon.

This is Ben's Gabion that he made using the wire to construct it. I finished off one of the ends and that end took about 45 mins to do. Once finished I guessed that it was going to be tricky to wedge between the two big gabions either side of it....

You can see in the shot below that the wires are un-sightly.

I tried placing the Gabion in the step position, between the 2 main Gabions but as suspected, there was no way that constructed it was going to go in. But as in the image below if you placed two sections at a time and constructed the steps in situ it was possible. It also worked out that if you constructed the gabion using cable ties first that helped and the cable ties could then be supported with the use of wire once in place. 

This image above is the Gabion with the stones in and below is a rough approximation of what the Gabion step will look like. This temporary step is about the thickness of the slabs I've ordered, but they'll be deeper. The tread area will be about 11" deep if all goes to plan.

With the clay and earth still soaking wet, the only thing I could do today was cut more Gabions up for the steps and move a load of the stuff from the Patio area up to the top part of the garden in readiness for the MOT. I've managed to score a petrol compactor for the MOT and the stones will be here on Friday. I've got to find a supplier for the MOT who can deliver it with a Hiab so that it can be dropped into the garden rather than leave it outside on a pallet otherwise it'll all have to be brought into the garden in buckets - (4 tonnes of it)! I then started to lift some of the slabs...

I this shot above and below you can see that I've brought all the remaining cobbles up to the top again. 

That's it Week #16 done. Need to look into the MOT issue.