Week 19: Phase 3: The steps: Week commencing July 5th.

 Monday writing at 00.30 - weather doesn't look too clever for the first part of this week, heavy rain and gales for today and more rain Tuesday. Let's see what happens.

Little bit of work Monday night before it rained. Joe made the last Gabion. I've started to move stuff around readying for Phase 4 - The patio. I'm not sure whether I need to get a skip as I've got a feeling there's going to be a fair bit of mud coming out over the next couple of weeks.

I'm kind of nervous about this next bit because of the costs involved and not wanting to make any mistakes. The damp course aspect is worrying me and that'll relate to how I dig out, but tonight doing my research I've found this video here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGhvkVdBCMY  and the bloke recommends that 2 courses of bricks should be above the surface (Driveway/patio). Alternatively as I've seen before, the patio can be higher if you have a gap that's filled with rocks/shingle to allow any water to drain away. I need to photograph what the situation is at the moment and what I've dug out already and ask someone for their advice. There's other videos that show the slabs against the wall and they have 2 complete bricks visible above the level of the slabs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNU9ECnVPVE

When I can, I reckon I'll take up a few more paving slabs and then start to prepare one half of the area that I need to cover.

Other complicated aspects include the laying of the slabs, there's a couple of conventions that you should stick to  (1) No cross joints (2) No straight lines longer than 3 slabs. Sounds pretty straight forward till you start to do it. I cut out some bits of paper proportionally the size of my slabs and then spent the best part of 4 hours trying to come up with a working template for the order my slabs will be laid. Here's the pattern...

Tueday 6/7/21 More rain, but I've had some ideas...

(1). Im concerned about the damp proof aspect and feel inclined to put a drainage border around the slabs so they don't butt right up against the wall. Similarly with the patio slabs being put down with a slope all of the rain water that drains off will end up at the base of the gabions and potentially form a puddle? The diagram above shows how I might address this issue using some of the waste that we've either got around or will generate over the coming weeks. 

(F) Is a 8" x 8" gabion cage in the same style as the steps - we've got a fair bit of this left so we can use that for the main drain as such. So the intention is dig a trench and line that with the 25mm -40mm stones (E)  that are under the concrete slabs that we've got at the moment. Then put the gabions in and fill them loosely with broken up bits of the concrete slabs (D) that we're about to take up. Then on top of that use the remainder of the cobbles that we've got left to make it look decent - might need to add some smaller cobbles which we'll have to buy. That as far as I'm concerned should be a fairly decent drain? *Note before finishing I'll wrap the gabion in geotextile so that there's no slow ingress of dirt/dust/leaves etc that'll clog up the drain. 

On the house side we wont use the gabions, instead just dig a smaller trench and line it with geotextile fabric, then the 25mm - 40mm stones, finished with the big cobbles...

The diagram here shows a cross section of the plan, but having shown Ben and looking at how much mesh we've got left, we're almost certainly going to scrap using the gabion (F) and just put the stones in loose as in the left hand side of the digram, but still wrap them in Geotextile. 

No work today...

This isn't a puddle this is looking out through our glass roof. 

This is the thing that concerns me the most. On the left is the existing paving slabs which sit a brick and a half below the painted part of the wall. I'm guessing the white part of the wall is above the damp course? These slabs have a gravel margin (not easy to see because the clay's got mixed in with the gravel. To the right is where I've removed the slabs and then dug down through a bed of pebbles and dirt. 

At the moment, I'm thinking If I dig dig enough out to lay about a bricks depth of MOT once it's compacted and then a bed of cement with a slab will leave approx one brick exposed. I'll also have a margin around the edges of the slabs. I've just seen this website and this has details about the use of a drainage gap https://www.pavingexpert.com/dpc01

Been thinking about the drainage and feeling that there needs to be some structure e.g. a box so I've been looking around and see these - https://www.sure-green.com/steel-welded-wire-panels.html

This evening I did an experiment at the bottom of the steps - going back to the idea of putting a Gabion in a hole as part of the drainage system... 

So the starting point is this...

This is the bottom of the steps before we've moved the clay and put any MOT down, So you can see water easily collects at the bottom of the steps and once the patio is finished all of the water will run off into this area along the line of the Gabions.

So the idea is to dig a hole about 20cm or more deeper and fill it with small stones. (Below).

Then a smaller gabion made of much smaller mesh 2" is formed into long gabions...

These will be filled with loose bits of broken up concrete paving slab like the one seen here that are coming out of the existing patio area. These will then fill the cavity. These gabions be wrapped in Terram Geotextile fabric so that the rain water can drain through the gabions, but wont allow any ingress from dirt or leaves which eventually would clog it up and effect the drainage capabilities. 

The images below are approximations using black fabric and testing the feasibility of using the larger cobbles that I've got left over and small stones. I think I'll have to buy smaller cobbles that Wickes sell and use them as they'll match the colour or perhaps some other form of stone, possibly even a slate grey type to match or maybe even contrast against the light grey slabs? 

These look good as a contrasting option and they're a good price £5.00 for a 20KG from Argos. Click on the image to go to the website.

Wednesday 7/7/21 - Called a skip hire company today with a view to having the skip parked in the parking layby at the back of the house. This is a lot more problematic than I'd have expected. (1) The price initially seemed okay £180. (2). It was going to take 12 days to sort as I needed a permit despite being in a parking bay. (3) The permit was another £60! So a grabber lorry is by far the best method. 

Thursday 8/7/21 - Dry day again today and last day at work for some weeks now, so should be able to crack on with the patio area soon. Tonight made a start on digging out the dirt in readiness for putting the MOT down. I'm still not sure about the damp course and what the deal is there with the proximity with the slabs. At the moment I've gone low on the house side, so will need to go lower on the gabion side, so potentially a lot of dirt. The image here resulted in about 20 -25 buckets and I'm gradually getting the stone out and sifting the dirt from them to potentially put back in with the MOT?

Friday 9/7/21 - Joe's birthday today, so didn't get out that much to do the garden. Manage to get several buckets dug out and sieved a load of stones from the main area. Also started to dig more of the drainage gully against the gabions, but that was done last thing, so the photos' don't really reflect how far I've managed to get today. 

The main news though is I've managed to score a wheel barrow and a cement mixer for free from a friend, I just need to drive up to Hertford to collect it. 

Saturday 11/07/21 Nothing today as I've played cricket and it's been raining again. What I will show you though is - Ecobricks in use. Ben and I have been doing this for some months now and we've managed to make about 7 bricks. A quick outline of what an Ecobrick is - You don't throw away your soft plastics, generally plastic recycling of this type is non existent and it'll either end up in the Ocean or being burned in some 3rd world country in a beautiful pristine environment. So you have a few options. The best one is don't buy products in plastic wrapping which isn't that easy and another is Ecobricks. An Ecobrick is a plastic bottle stuffed/rammed with soft plastics that have been cut up. Typically a 1.5 litre box takes about 2 - 3 pink sacks (large bin size) worth of soft plastic. There are rules e.g. there's a minimal weight for each size bottle. Once you've filled one up you register it with the Ecobrick people and then use it, making sure it doesn't go back into the 'Recycling' system because that's a load of BS. Admittedly in the UK at the moment there are not a lot of things you can do with your Ecobricks, but we could have used them in the gabions at any point, but we've ended up using them in the steps...

Sunday Phase 4 begins in earnest. 12/7/21

I've been kind of dabbling with ideas about what I'm going to do next and how to do it, but today I committed to a plan. The lower side is going to be dug to a depth of 4 bricks below the damp-proof line and the upper side 3 bricks below. I'm going to work on it a yard at a time and see how long that takes and how much earth comes out. The first yard took about 20 + buckets and about an hour or so to dig, so realistically I can get two a day done easily by my reckoning.

In the afternoon I drove over to Andrew and Jackie Benson's gaff and borrowed their cement mixer, wheel barrow and a shovel, so it really is all systems go and using the wheel barrow compared to working with a bucket at a time is so much easier, but that's obvious and it should mean now I'll make good progress if the weather holds out. It's rained tonight and the forecast is for rain all day tomorrow which is crap. I'll have to see how it goes. 

Week 18: Phase 3: The steps of woe: Week of June 28th

  Raining again, the rain's been heavy in between the sunny spells so it slows things down. This morning Ben and I were up at silly o'clock again to be at the wood yard for 7.30 and bought another 4 x 2.4 railway sleepers - another £112. Then on the way back home we stopped at PGR and sorted out the Wednesday delivery. They've refunded me for one of the bags of MOT and added a bag of sharp sand and 6 bags of cement. The price for the sand and the cement seemed very reasonable, so I'll have to check that tonight in case I've got the wrong stuff. I need to order the steel mesh today as well... another 2 sheets of 2 x 1 metre at either 4mm or 5mm gauge steel.

So, the orders gone through 2 panels 1 mtr x 2 mtr @4mm - cost £81.58.

Monday and it's rained on and off all day, so this evening all we did was move the Railway sleeper from the top to the bottom in readiness for the delivery on Wednesday. Looking at  the delivery note I saw that the cement bags are paper and not plastic, so we need to keep them dry, possibly store them in the garage as they're not required till the steps are finished, so possibly not still around July 8th. 

With the rain I'm not sure we're going to get the steps completed by July the 8th which was the intention.

Tuesday - Fine Mesh Metals delivered the mesh today, that's impressive with a less than 24 hour turn around! Tomorrow is a big delivery day - Sand, cement and MOT. I need to get the sand out of the garden as soon as it's delivered and get it in the garage to keep it dry. 

Wednesday - Still raining. The lorry turned up at 7.30 from PGR - half expected it to do so as we only live about 1/2 a mile from their yard. 

I had to go to work though leaving the cement in paper bags on top of one of the bulk bags albeit wrapped up in cling film. I've asked Ben to move them into the garage during the day if the rain eased off a bit, so hopefully he'll have done that by the time I get home? 

That evening. Yep, Ben had moved the cement and cut some of the mesh up to make step gabions. The rain has eased a bit today, but it's far too wet to do anything. 

Sunday. It had rained a bit in the morning, but the last couple of days I've had a trap over the steps to keep the clay as dry as I possibly can, so around 1pm the rain seemed to have stopped and we got outside (Ben and me) and made a start to see what we could do in between showers. 

Images above shows where we were at this morning (Sunday) with regards progress. Very little had been happening this week as it kept raining and we weren't able to get out and do anything.

This morning the rain eased and around midday the sun came out and we were able to get out and crack on with some work. I wanted the steps to be pretty much done by July 8th and it was looking touch and go, but with both Joe and Ben at home today we got on with it and good progress was made...

So tonight Joe and I finished off the top step and it looks like one more gabion will do it and that's it the steps are 95% done. In the short term as we're up and down the steps with dirt, cement rocks and crap we're leaving the concrete slabs on the gabions, but, nearer the finish they'll be replaced with sandstone slabs (Light grey). The intention is the final gabion will be in place by the end of tomorrow and then we'll be moving on to Phase 4 - the patio. 

Week 17: Phase 3: The steps of woe. 26/6/21

 Saturday - What no cricket? Ben got a message from test and trace saying that he'd been in the vicinity of someone who had Covid, so he had to isolate and the same for me until he got the results from his test through, so I had to contact the club and say I wouldn't be playing. So instead it was a day of gardening...

The plan going forwards was a step a day from now on, but I realised quickly I couldn't actually put in any further steps in because I need to put in the sleepers at the same time, so the plan for today was to do as much prep as possible.

The image above shows more of the sleepers put in place temporarily, giving an impression of how it'll look as the works done.

This image above illustrates an issue I need to address. It looks like the existing substrate under the paving slabs is substantial enough to go with before placing the sandstone tiles? Which means my order of 3 x bags of MOT may be well over the top, so on Monday I'm going to try and swap the order over for a bag of sand instead. Otherwise I reckon I'll have a whole bag of MOT stuck in the garden.

The image below shows one of the objectives - digging out the dirt and making it level with the step in front. This is now ready for the next load of paving slabs to go in to form the foundations.

Here you can see I've started to dig deeper holes to set the next set of sleepers in...

Dust everywhere from cutting up a batch of slabs to be used for foundations. In the meantime they're used as stepping stones on the mud.

Below the first experimental cutting of the sandstone. I've got a load of these massive slabs that are extra as these are what's going to be used on the steps....

Looking around and trying to keep up with the logistics of this, I still reckon there's space on the top half of the garden for more earth to be dumped as part of the leveling up. There's still a lot of earth that needs to come out of the bottom prior to putting the MOT down. It's amazing how space soon gets taken up with stuff and all this space here needs to be cleared soon for the MOT and sand delivery on Wednesday. 

The Sandstone slab above was cut to the size of the bottom step and I played around with seeing how it might be used and it looks at the moment that it just sits on top of the gabions and that may be enough. I'm going to leave it there as we work and see if it breaks over the next month or so. 

Week #17: Phase 3. The Steps of Woe. Friday 25/6/21

 Up early to get fleeced by the wood yard. On their website they're selling 2.4 Mtr sleepers for £20, when you get there, they're nearly £30! "Yeah we can't update our website fast enough, we buy them in and we don't know how we're going to have to pay for them, so yeah the price has gone up and I dunno how much they'll be for the next lot". Nice work if you can get it I guess.

So that was £112.00. On a roll and wanting to get shot of even more money we went into PGR on the way home and ordered the MOT Type 1 - 3 bags of the stuff + delivery using a Hiab, that came to £180 ish and that'll be delivered on Wednesday. So things are moving along at a pace now.

Here's Fridays activities...

Has some help in the last couple of days from Ben. Anyone that's in this business will probably laugh at our efforts, but here they are anyway. It may be the case that the whole lot caves in on itself, but looking at the arrangement and construction of the previous retaining wall and step my father in law Chris built nearly 40 years ago, I reckon what we've done will probably be good for a few years. This section though with these sleeper is probably the sketchiest....

Here's the sleepers we bought this morning. They're cut to 1.5 and are sunk into the ground to the same depth as the Gabions.

Ben below digging out the hole to set the Sleeper in.

This set of sleepers is the most problematic as they retain the largest amount of garden. Thankfully in engineering terms the majority of the force is at the base of the mass being retained. We're using loads of slabs to create the foundations of the steps, so the base of the 'Wall' seems to us to be secure.

The pressure lessons higher up the wall and we build the steps we'll be packing in as many concrete slabs to try and ensure the was is unable to be pushed in.

We have a contingency plan which we can put in place at a later date if this proves to be inadequate. which would be attach cable or thick nylon rope to the top of these longest sleepers and attach the other end well into the center of the garden to a lump of concrete to secure them further. 

Behind the sleepers at the base we've put another slab to prevent a pivot affect (See diagram below). 

This image here shows a dry run using the old paving slabs. These slabs are what we're building the foundations of the steps with, but we're using them in the short term in order that we can go up and down the steps whilst working, so as to not damage the nice slabs and getting them filthy.

We also use them to test how the slabs will work in a real life situation. As I've said before, I've not seen anything on the internet with regards how you make these steps, so everything we're doing is experimental. At the moment the theory is the Sandstone slabs will simply sit on top of the Gabions so we're trying to get the level of the gabions and the foundations exactly the same so that they're flush/level to facilitate that, but we're keeping an open mind about how successful or unsuccessful that might be. We've noted that these massive slabs break easily if on uneven surfaces. So it's a case of watch this space as we learn.

Goal for the day achieved - four steps in place along with the sleeper. You can see as the steps get high they're reducing the chance of the sleepers to be forced inwards.

Final image at the bottom here is the end of day image showing how far we've got.

Added up the costs today. So far £2600. 

Week #17 - Phase 3: The steps of woe: 23rd & 24th

 23/6/21 - Another dry day and the conundrum of the steps. Rather than tackle the steps I decided that I'd work on the top part of the garden. Along the back of the main Gabions between the top of the gabions and the grass, the intention was to run a length of railway sleeper to keep the earth from infiltrating the gabions. But in taking down the ramp we had a big length of wood, so tonight I put this in place running along the back of the gabions.

That now allows me to now dump earth and clay onto the top part of the garden with some sense of the level I need to work to. So the rest of the evening was spent digging out the gully for the steps and putting the earth onto the top section which will be the lawn eventually. 

It's getting to the point now where I'm going to have to buy the sleepers and start putting them in, but I'm holding off for the moment as the step platforms are not due till this Friday. I'm still uncertain about whether the plan for the sleepers will work long term, but I can only try it and give it a go and see how it pans out.

24/6/21 Then in the style of these building companies and their chosen transport options, the Slab company go and deliver the slabs a day early, which is brilliant if you're doing nothing and don't work...

Thnakfully both Ben and Joe are at home and Ben was able to see the delivery off the lorry and have it parked outside our gate.

Ben's now unloading the pallet and getting the slabs into the garden. It can't be left there in the road just in case car drives into it or people start nicking the slabs. Anyway they're here and by the time I get home they'll all be safe and secure in the garden. 

By 11.00 Ben had sent me this picture...

 I asked Ben how the unloading had gone and whether there was any breakages. He replied...

"Sketchy. Very sketchy.

I had taken one of the sides if the wooden crate to get them out and they all began immediately tipping over into the road. I managed to stop them using my body weight before they began to seriously fall. I was shouting to joe that I needed help in the most panicked voice I could so he would get out of bed and eventually he did come out. I was shouting so loud that neighbours from down the road came and helped me prop the slabs up whilst me and joe took the big ones from the back of the stack.

We ended up laying them flat on the palettes because they were so heavy the blue tub wasn't enough and tipped over after about 6 slabs.

None were broken".

Looking at the picture I'm a little concerned that they're laying on top of one another as I'd imagine they'll be getting scratched. But then it is natural stone, so maybe it'll be okay?

Once home we moved the slabs again and re-stacked them. I need the space for the bags of MOT which I'm hoping will be dropped into the garden over the wall.

The images below show where we are as today. The gully has been dug out some more and the earth which is coming out of it is quite sandy, so I'm putting that onto the grass area see image below...

The image below of the close up of the large piece of wood was last nights work.

We're up early tomorrow to go and get the railway sleepers, I'm hoping to be able to get at least 4 of them on the roof bars, but we'll have to wait and see. Looking at what we did tonight (Ben and me) I reckon it should be possible to do a step per night. In the short term to keep the sandstone slabs in good nick I'm putting flag stones on the steps as we build them. Big day tomorrow and hopefully a significant move forwards with these steps.