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Lets travel back in time~~~to 2019 Hello, I'm fortunate enough to be building a house. I've bought a lovely little plot of land, maybe an acre or two, in the centre of a little English village. There's planning permission in place, and I've paid for advice from planning to change things a little bit and they're totally positive on my ideas and welcome the application that they've promised me will be passed. We've estimated the building costs using quite a clever accounting whatnot system and done las Vegas or something algorithms on it, and allowed a six month period to build, during which we'll rent locally. Its a stable block and (ooh get you)menage. Which I'd never heard of but its like a a horse practice area. full of special sand. The site has gone through some planning hell, the village is a conservation area, with the owner/seller desperately trying to replace the existing stable block (a shed) with lesser and lesser buildings. Permission is now for a single storey affair restrained by, but not totally to, the stable block's footprint. Anyway heres some pictures: existing stable block  proposed floorplan  Proposed elevations  real life pictures   ~~~and back to 2022 I'm knee deep in unfinished building and ready to get posting. Perhaps this thread should really be a post-mortem on a moron and their self build. lets go
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Apr 9, 2022 22:14
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I'm as interested as you are looking back through the photos, maybe a little less. So it turns out I inadvertently got in a relationship with a lass at this point and theres certain pictures there I should delete. yeah so money and stuff hadn't come through yet. i was still living over an hour and a half away from site. But i got a crowbar and started taking my frustrations out, and they were many.    weirdly that first building had a tow bar? I dunno, people said it was a trailer they just cemented into the ground, need timeteam really to figure it out.
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Apr 11, 2022 22:12
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We decided to make it a bit bigger, lose some wasteful stuff etc.  We paid the local planning department to offer pre application advice. They were wholly supportive, said it was no problem, everything we wanted would be handwaved through. So we applied and paid out money. English heritage who didnt want the house built in the first place reiterate their initial complaints against the original planning, which is we're miserable bastards that hate everything. Apparently this blindsides planning, who we assumed we've bought off. Now we need to go to a planning committee to get the local tory busybody bastards to agree to our changes. then a little old thing called a coronavirus pandemic comes along... during which committees do not meet...
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Apr 11, 2022 22:54
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Covid is weird But regardless we crack on, and how. It didn't feel like I was making much progress demolishing the stable block with my screwdriver and raw anger. But a week with a minidigger makes light work of the remaining structure.   And with the right weapon selected,  the pecking begins  And soon the concrete pad foundations are a pile of future problems further down the site. 
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Apr 18, 2022 23:52
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So still not sure whats going on with planning... But bored and got some cash so time to make some wise and intelligent purchases. Need this for site office/workshop/storage etc.  Neighbour comes out to complain immediately about where we've optimally planned for months to put it meaning it ends up miles away at bottom of site which we won't be able to run power or water to and will end up being a massive ballache. At least its nice inside.  ah.  DIGGA bought without seeing as we weren't allowed out. Turns up and cannot perform the things we saw on the youtube video. Things like turn corners. So have to drive forward as far as possible. put bucket down to lift up the front wheels. turn front wheels in new direction. lift bucket up. repeat, until you're where you want to be... probably fine  oh and a little toy 
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Apr 20, 2022 22:27
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Planning finally goes through, on a zoom call. 14-0 councillors vote us through and question why we've been brought before them. English heritage decline to attend or explain themselves. gently caress sake. So now we can dig the hole the size we want for the house. We get some quotes for groundworks, much rather have someone else do this and then we'll work off the solid, square base rather than get it wrong at the start and forever be playing catchup. The floor is going to be beam and block construction and now we know the actual beam of the building we can get all this ordered. So this is what I think we need roughly:  5.2m beams to sit on supporting walls each 100mm wide with 5000mm span. Suppliers do some calculations about putting together triple beams under internal walls an stuff. Looks good get it ordered.   
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Apr 22, 2022 23:30
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Difficult to sort out the electrics. We want a 3 phase connection and initially the charge was I think 16k? They aren't very helpful but through a process of elimination managed to get them to agree to a substantial saving by us placing a unit halfway from the road to the house. Had to buy a special unit of course that was best part of 500 quid. Getting those fat diameter "hockey sticks" was actually the hardest thing.    
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Apr 23, 2022 21:38
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We get quotes from various people to dig the groundworks. It feels sensible to let someone that knows what theyre doing sort us out and then how wrong can we get it working from their solid, level base? The quotes vary in price by a factor of like 10. 60grand top end I seem to remember. hmmm. But none of them see any real issues, bread and butter for them. We select one of the cheaper guys who we feel like we can work nicely with and make the deal. They'll bring their favoured tame building inspector with them on the day, but basically they'll come and fully dig and pour us the foundations in a weekish.   Up they turn, get things pegged out. Building inspector turns up and... we're hosed. cannot dig the strip foundations in this clay soil with the trees nearby etc. No groundworker noticed any of this somehow. Need a structural engineer and soil analysis and yada yada so all we get is this sample hole dug 
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Apr 25, 2022 23:36
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The big digger is because I wanted one. But also the site is quite large and the plan was to buy in any and all materials as covid and brexit sent material prices skywards and store them all on the horsey area. Then use the digger as a big forklift to move materials around. The thinking is that I'm incredibly bad at planning and slow as heck so buying and selling on plant will work much better than renting things and getting everything done in a timely and sensible fashion. Also also plan is for a ground source heat pump which needs I think 400m of metre deep trench dug to lay ground collector pipes in. Digger lets us do this ourselves. Also also also the house is a good 100m from the highway and need to dig trenches through the only accessway for power/water/sewage/data. and, again, it means I get a digger. Its got a 4 in 1 bucket on the front which I think should really have flip over forks. But they were missing. So bought some separate forks on ebay. Heavy fuckers.    So its a bit of a pain in the arse. Rather than just flip the forks over you have to take off the whole front bucket and put on the forks instead. And theres no quick release hydraulics on it so you need a set of spanners and whatnot and put stoppers on. But I'm pretty quick at it now and actually in practice, the visibility is much better than it would be trying to line up the forks with the whole bucket in the way. Oh also the digger only came with one bucket on the arm. And it wasn't the right one, held on with sellotape. Fortunately moved it on for the price of a different one that actually fitted and have bought two more since. So got 900, 600 and 300mm buckets now. Although the 300 took some editing.  But to do that, needed a trailer which a family member has long term lent me, but also needed a towbar. So got one on ebay and fitted it. Apparently this isn't allowed.  Anyway now I can collect all sorts of things bought of eBay to save a bit more money. pipes  oil drums so I can bulk buy red diesel to run the digger  aforementioned digger buckets (with free babies) 
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Apr 27, 2022 22:48
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Structural engineer is a nice lad, offers to send my soil off for analysis but admits its a waste of time. The big elm trees a few metres away and the clay means a strip foundation is all but impossible. He's got a bunch of charts and graphs but it would be like 4.2m deep which is ridiculous, would collapse, cost a fortune to fill with concrete and just no. Another builder lad comes along and derails things for a bit with claims of doing a raft, but disappears when my engineer says we'd need like a mile wide pyramid of gravel underneath it. Not for the first time in my life I'm told by an expert I'm just going to have to accept its piles. Sorry I realise people might not know wtf some things are, I probably didn't either at the time? Certainly not fully grok what it meant. So piles are basically vertically driven or bored steel and or concrete foundations that either find bedrock to support the building on top or are just sufficiently long and embedded in the ground that the frictional forces upon them are sufficient to support the building. So with us the problem is not so much the roots of the trees physically loving about with the foundations but more so that the seasonal difference in the water content of the clay soil will lead to significant shrinkage/swelling of the ground. Our build is very long and thin which will further stress the foundations. With one end amongst the trees whilst the other is out in the open, it means that, as the clay soil retains the water for so long, preventing it from percolating down, during the summer the trees will dry out the soil within their reach much more, thus shrinking it. The ground at one end of the house will fall away and it could snap in half. A more compact square house would suffer far less and a raft foundation would probably work fine. Does that make sense? I don't really understand either. Apparently cutting the trees down is no good either, you'd have to wait several years for the ground to rebalance itself. Oh so and on top of the piles you still need basically normal strip foundations but very shallow, reinforced with steel. Ground beams that tie all the stilts together and you build the actual house off of that. Here's a surprisingly cheap set of structural engineer's drawings for what we need:  I send off for quotes but I havent included a bending schedule and so i need that. It looks like this: 
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Apr 27, 2022 23:54
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Predictably, piling quotes vary by tens of thousands of pounds. We select a team, a big company, I think really they're more used to much bigger commercial jobs but whatever. But they only do the piles not the ground beams... fine. Ground beams are just foundations anyway I'll get the original groundworkers back in to do that. But the piles need special equipment and knowhow so pay the money and get it done, summers almost over and we haven't even started. We do not want to be doing groundworks in the winter weathers. Its a done deal. Except theres some small print. We need a toilet and a break room and all sorts of other stuff. And a piling mat? Wtf is that? Google establishes that a piling mat isn't like a little door mat or something I can get at B&Ms. Its hundreds of tonnes of certified hardcore poured to a depth of a foot over and above the whole site to allow the monster piling rig to come in and not get stuck. And I'm responsible for marking out the 37 piling locations we need to within a 75mm margin of error. Right so I've got like a fortnight to get that done. Oh and afterwards you have to dig it all out again and get rid of it. Piling is poo poo. I get back in touch with my trusty groundworks team to see if they're interested in digging out and levelling off a piling mat for me. They are not. Right. Lucky I bought a big gently caress off digger isn't it?    Less lucky I didn't buy and had to rent, a dumper  A dumpy level  A baby road roller(?)  And a shithouse  Still, a big pile of mud later  And things aren't looking half bad 
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Apr 28, 2022 23:11
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Ok so thats a nice hole. But it isn't a piling mat. Need a foot of 6F2 recycled hardcore put down over the whole lot. 20 tonnes a time, I think we order 160 tonnes. I'm hungover and asleep and miss a few calls... balls.  right, gates open... eurgh get on with it  We end up trying entry both ways  And we're tipping  Its supposed to be mainly recycled concrete but its also a bunch of any old poo poo  trucks go all over, in the hole and whatever, good bunch of lads, they treat our somewhat compromised access and site as good internal competition. But we're all winners really  Right now I've got to use the digger's 4 in 1 bucket to drag it all out best I can  OK, then time for the baby roller   Smooth. Use the dumpy level and I dunno guesswork to get it all pretty level and peg out the exact positions where I want each pile... piled.   Each little yellow blob is a pile centre point. i like the edges of the hole where the grass kind of cascades over. It reminds me of sonic the hedgehog levels or something.
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Apr 29, 2022 21:54
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Decoy Badger posted:How deep are these piles going? I always thought basic screw piles could be installed with just a hydraulic attachment on a small backhoe. That clay must be pretty drat thick or unconsolidated. The piles are required to achieve a 100kN bearing. Mainly, a few need 150. The engineer stressed this was down to the pilers to confirm what they would need to do to achieve this. He felt it would be around 6 metres (I met a guy later who had augured piles down to 12m!). You're absolutely right that an augured pile can be done with a much smaller machine, like something not much bigger than a ride on lawn mower. I felt very confused when asking for quotes whether I was talking to the right people or not. For instance a local company, who are perhaps more used to putting augured piles into tricky little extension situations came back to me with a quote for around £30k. But to 2m depth with £200 per metre per pile for any extra. I pointed out the engineer wanted 6m piles, but it could be more. They went wow! thats a lot yes that would probably double our quote. So I went with the big boys, Who are going to drive our piles. As in absolutely bosh them in. I checked with them and had a guy come out to confirm he didnt think it was going to be a vibration issue or anything. Ultimately we put letters through the next door neighbours to say probably hold on to your expensive china lol ok cheers.
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Apr 30, 2022 22:04
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But also as part of the contract we need to provide welfare facilities for the lads coming on site. Obviously already got the shitter, but need a handwashing area and a break room. But we have no water or power on site yet. Firstly buy a water bowser and some cheap patio chairs.  Container is obvious contender for the breakroom. But mings. Lets paint it  Buy some bits om gumtree for next to nowt  Install framework in container without compromising outer shell  doormat  Havent bought the key to open lid of bowser so pressure fill from bottom lol  Award winning handwash station (they literally had their pictures taken next to it they were so impressed) 
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Apr 30, 2022 22:33
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And the day finally comes. The big boy arrives.  and unloads  and easily fits into site with no issues or people making GBS threads themselves  I mean, easy   It gets wider by the way, the tracks go out. Also its rained...  Oh and need this, could have used our digger but whatever  Becoming erect  The piles start to arrive  so these are 200mm by 200mm concrete with steel reinforcement running the 6.5m length I think 
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Apr 30, 2022 22:59
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I said earlier that I think that firm were more used to operating on much bigger sites, like building whole estates of homes or a supermarket or that kind of thing. The contract stipulated the toilet and breakroom, think it specified things like having to have coat hooks! When the site liaison guy came out to inspect the piling mat before they came I tried to sound him out about it all and said look I'm a silly little self builder is all this really needed? He pulled a funny face and seemed uncomfortable about not having it all so I took it as necessary. I also bought a big flask to fill with hot water each day, provided tea bags and coffee and a tray of biscuits. No one used any of it. They sat in their van. Oh and the minimum hire on the toilet was a month. They were only on site like two days.
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May 1, 2022 08:52
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***spoilers! I've put some videos on here which I've never done before and don't know how thats going to work? they're just imgurs so we'll see.*** ** Never mind figured it all out on my own with NO help - TURN SOUND ON THOUGH ** Before we get going I have another delivery turn up. 2 grands worth of cellcore polystyrene. This needs to be installed underneath the groundbeams to prevent the ground heave of the clay from expanding and I dunno somehow snapping our steel reinforced concrete foundations. Its like a beehive of polystyrene and mainly air. Anyway its the first thing I've had to unload at the roadside of an artic with the digger.  So I'm a bit stressed but do really well and don't gently caress anything up. So I shoot off down the site I know like the back of my hand with 12 feet high of polystyrene on the front forks blocking my view, completely forgetting I've just told another lad to park the telehandler in the middle of site (so I could give them the legally mandated site safety briefing). So I steam into the back of that and smash up half the polystyrene. Everyone laughs at me. It is pretty lol. I get the rest set down.  Then it all blows away anyway.  Anyway we move on. Piling time.   It's... somewhat loud https://i.imgur.com/7hrvDt9.mp4 I'm not on facebook but my sister in law kept me up to date on the increasingly angry village page lol. The lads that run the pub next door had had a letter informing them and apologising in advance and they stuck up for us and all the passive aggressive nimbys started to fall over themselves to apologise. Which I wouldn't it was loving ridiculous. Between the rain and the telehandler bringing the piles up and down its basically ruined site, now a mudbath. I just keep out of it and let them figure it all out. https://i.imgur.com/8IfEzbe.mp4 We ask them to get into some pretty tight spots but they're equal to the task.  The team make short work of the piling and we're mostly done, minus two last piles that the rig will put in as it exits the mat. We unfortunately have to wait until after the weekend for the test team to come in and... test the piles are strong enough? yeah. You may have noticed some of the piles are sticking out more, they're longer test ones. The guy comes and drill into them and plugs his laptop in. The lads then whack it with the piling rig 3 times and somehow, science stuff, they know how strong the piles are. 
NotJustANumber99 fucked around with this message at 22:54 on May 2, 2022 |
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May 2, 2022 22:46
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They turn up and do the whacking test. I'm not one to complain. But we're after 100kN on most piles and 150 on three of the corner ones. First pile tested comes out at 650kN. Riiiight. So could I have just done some normal foundations and we'd be fine? Lots of people sucking their teeth, well mate, who knows... Brilliant. My brother and I, mainly to upset ourselves calculate how many fully laden jumbo jet 747s we could park on our house. And frankly its more jumbo jets than anyone should ever need to park on their house. Its important to stay calm.
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May 4, 2022 22:31
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And now the lads are on their way out, they need to drive the last two piles. The final pile they realise they really want to drive from in/onside the mat and its dubious whether its going to be OK. everything falling to me, I take an executive decision and allow them only millimetres to drive it in and get out over. I'm probably smarting from the whole maybe I didn't need to spend 30k on any of this situation. They get out fine, they know what they're doing. But the lad to pick up the rig is for some reason convinced he can, completely unnecessarily get himself into site to directly pick up the rig...  He's sure he can do... which no-one needs  And of course ultimately he can't and we unload the rig the same way it came in lol.  But then its a bit awkward. Dunno if you remember but our contract was for piles at a 75mm margin of error.   Dunno if you can read that, but thats like 160mm... Its a bit awkward cos we've all enjoyed each others company, I mean no one has even set foot in my welfare box or even nibbled the slightest, and varied, biscuit. But still we've kind of got a contract and... I have to halt everything and ring my engineer. My advice is always have an engineer or an architect or just anyone really you can blame when you're not sure. So you can either ring them, pretend to ring them, ring your dad while you ask what he thinks or anything in between really. Because the contract said if you aren't happy say before we leave. So I was glad I did. You really do need to stand your ground and it can be incredibly difficult. It was like greenpeace, me standing infront of the rig gandalfing at it that it shall not pass. nah lol it was OK in the end. I quickly mocked up a diagram and sent it to the engineer with some options that varied from find a way to suck a pile out of the ground, through put some extra ground beams in to cover the discrepancy to ignore it altogether.  he said chuck some extra bits of steel rod in, no biggie. I think the fact it was still with the groundbeam area meant who cares. Right so then, as mentioned I need to drag out all that piling mat material. I make a a bit of a hash of it to start with and wonder what the gently caress, how is this ever going to work... piles are a terrible solution  And the steels arrive for the groundbeams to install horizontally between the piles  and the provided instructions are first class  ???
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May 4, 2022 23:03
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I can't really remember why, but at this point we decide to break on the foundations and focus on the main service trench that we need to bring water, power and data on to site. This will compromise all access to site. I guess it was because we had the big rig come through already and probably the water and power company timescales aligning to make this the priority. What isn't aligned is the bloody portoloo. Don't want it anymore but can't be sure how long access will be messed up so try to get it removed but the company is impossible to deal with and completely uninterested in helping out. So gently caress it. Pick it up with the digger and put it out the front and they can collect whenever. We're next to a pub and if anyone fancies using on the way home fair enough.  Everything on site is our responsibility to dig. Power company need a fat bit of trench near the road for their engineers to get in and make the connection between our power and their fat wire.  Then after that we need to stick to these rules, we don't have gas so ignore that one.  You can't really see there but theres a drain there we had to avoid, hence the kink around it where the letterbox fence is. The pipework is deeper than us so no worries there.  So power is coming round to the kiosk and back out to rejoin the water and data carrying on straight past, but also we've got separate little data power going back towards the gate for eventual electric gate/intercom etc.   And finish up everyday 
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May 6, 2022 00:19
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Nova69 posted:How are the neighbours treating you at this stage? Hmmm, reading between the lines, I probably am almost as well respected and loved a villager as I am a forums poster. Lol. It varies a bit between neighbours but nothing too terrible, although obviously some of them would rather we weren't there. The key relationship is with the elderly couple on the corner right next to our access. They've lived there for 50 years. Thankfully he used to be a digger operator and loves us. Constantly round to tell me whats what and she brings me relentless cups of tea I have to find opportunity to chuck in the hedge when she's not looking. I let him, in his 80's, drive the dumper around which he loved, and did me a favour. He's handy knowledge to have around too.
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May 6, 2022 22:23
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Back to the big hole in the ground. We need to scrape back off all the piling hardcore we put down but then also dig down around a metre between each pile to produce this pattern: So that is a 450mm deep concrete ground beam arrangement, 525mm wide with 75mm of polysterene to its internal perimeter, sitting atop 220mm of polysterene/air lattice stuff (that I crashed and smashed up). Plus leave around 500mm of pile sticking up above that to crimp the concrete off leaving exposed steel rebar to fold down into the groundbeam. Oh and the pile cropper (a thing you hang off a digger to do that crimping) needs an 8 tonne digger. Our machine's arm is rated probably equivalent to a 5 tonne, isnt piped anyway and can't get in the hole. We're renting plant. So we need a machine big enough to hoist the pile cropper but also one small and nimble enough to get in amongst the piles. So two machines.     
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May 11, 2022 22:20
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Lol sorry forgot about closing up the utilities trench down our only access. water in first  bunch of sand to bed it all, then power on top as per earlier diagram round to cabinet.  Then we've got bt conduit that we need to put a pull through line down and connect together, also run data and power back to the gate in the same trench for an eventual electric gate and camera system etc.   cover in sand again and then backfill  oh and put yellow tape over electric before final backfill  fat old electric cable, (spoilers) currently buying the final run of cable to connect cabinet to house and its over a thousand pounds. 
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May 11, 2022 22:40
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initially I was over an hour away, but quite quickly rented a place in just the next village, 5 mins drive away. It was only going to be for 6 months.
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May 12, 2022 23:41
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The cropping commences You dangle this big chopper over the pile, lower it down and then CRUNCH. You can total crunch to chop the pile completely to a certain height then semi crunch to break the concrete off the steel reinforcement, leaving it for manipulation later into the groundbeams. You have to do this almost inch by inch, and whilst scary, it is quite satisfying.   Leaving you with this flaccid mess of a thing that you hope isn't a horrible mistake  Yeah by now the weather is poo poo and everything is flooded. Everything collapses back in as quickly as we can dig it out, nothing is tidy. But its get the material out, the piles cropped whilst we have all this plant on hire then we'll deal with whatever mess is left afterwards.  Then theres another issue   lol. When that trench was open earlier I did my ankle a bit jumping down into it but stretching oddly to not land on the pipes in the bottom. Ignored it for a while. Things got worse and eventually so painful needed to go get it checked out. The doctors were a crazy mix of completely blasé and massively over the top, I thought. I was on the verge of getting told I was a big wimp and could go home as x rays showing nothing but then my bloods came back and everyone looked all sour faced. And well  I'm incarcerated away from all my massive(ly expensive machinery). I don't understand the menu system and order toast without butter one morning because I couldn't see how the numbers system allowed me both? Surely the blue lines are dividers for a reason? Like what is to stop me ticking every single box? madness  this is a hospital so I guess they know about health and my meal portions at home should be more this size I guess? Which begs the question why are plates so wastefully large?  This is life changing  Anyway a few days later I get released with the only crutches they have that are far too small. I cannot go to site so family tries to take over meaning I have to babysit instead. My nephew finds my crutches hilarious.  And promptly dismantles them and runs off with all the bits. I am fired as babysitter  In my enforced absence my brothers battle valiantly to do justice to me, creating as much of a loving mess as they can.   
NotJustANumber99 fucked around with this message at 22:26 on May 18, 2022 |
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May 18, 2022 22:23
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NotJustANumber99 posted:We do not want to be doing groundworks in the winter weathers.      https://i.imgur.com/yb6PTpB.mp4 https://i.imgur.com/5WcoEa9.mp4 https://i.imgur.com/M5IHGpO.mp4 
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May 24, 2022 22:54
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apologies for the big delay, turns out I'm as slow and lazy at making posts as I am at building houses. Yeah so this all sucks horribly. But we're sort of getting there, these 600mm wide sections of 220mm polysterene honeycomb stuff has to get put in under all the groundbeams, with the pile heads just penetrating through sort of like this:  more like this  we're a bit of a way down actually  and then above the honeycomb stuff we've got the sacrificial plastic U-shape formwork that will contain the actual concrete pour  but all held together by backfill so it looks like this  then with the steel cage lifted in, used the digger arm, and polystyrene clayguard applied to the inside perimeter to prevent the completely unimaginable groundheave  But now we need to backfill against the steel and plastic spacers to allow for the concrete pour. But there is no mud. So I put some mud in a bag and lift it in  and attempt to sort of spade/shovel it across the groundbeam formwork into the backfill space. It is loving poo poo  then setup a corner and start of down the rest of the layout  housebuilding is very fun
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Jun 8, 2022 23:36
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Hadlock posted:What kind of foundations do the buildings on either side of you look like The village high street which we access site from is a conservation area, with the buildings in between us and the road being a late 16th century manor house (with cheese pegging room?!) and similar age pub (Wall paintings, possibly early C17 in first floor room of four large figures dressed for hunting?!). The old boys house on the corner was a blacksmiths. So foundation of probably like a handful of pebbles or something each and been fine for centuries. Builder chap in a new build halfway down our site is on a raft. But its a much more compact building rather than our daft elongated L. I am desperate for an earthquake.
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Jun 10, 2022 21:49
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 It really sucks trying to shovel poo poo clay mud into a bag and then also out of a bag so spent some money and bought some cheap ballast to use instead. to get me out of this hole.   but its really pissing it down again  hmmm, the bits I haven't weighted down with steel cages are floating out of the ground and wrecking themselves  and the bits that aren't floating up are getting crushed by the trenches collapsing in the wet.  and all my poo poo is blowing away  and the saab estate car, my most important vehicle with towbar and roofrack  has drowned itself. well I suppose I did it. Brilliant!
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Jun 10, 2022 23:13
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Cheers guys for the warm words and jesus swamp allegations A picture of craning in the steel cages as I don't think I've shown that.  At the corners we've got a bunch of.... L shaped steel rebar... that needs tying together with little metal ties and a cool twisty metal tier puller thingy   still having to pump out water relentlessly, but the pump keeps getting jammed up with stones and stuff meaning it needs dismantling like a few times a day  hmmm I can't even remember this but its a different machine in the picture so i guess the digger broke or something and spent yet more money on renting plant. lol  but making progress. How satisfying is that grid of metalwork and formwork. phwoar  By the way, I have employees now. Like this is miserable and family and friends can't be expected to take up the slack so we put an advert on an online recruiter website thing. It recommended I think like 80 quid or something a day for a labourer, but this job is poo poo, people wouldn't stay more than a day, so offered 100 quid. The website takes an extra I dunno tenner. Lad replies and comes down for the day. Need to buy him steel wellies and a boiler suit but hes really good, smartly proactive and great to work with. He offers to work for 105 a day to get paid direct and save us 5 quid a day to the agents, thats cool. Hes says hes got like loads of other guys he could bring because hes a temporarily embarrassed company owner, OK cool. He turns up with just his brother, but hes cool too. Need to buy him wellies but really dry sense of humour which offsets the miserable wet work. They're Latvians and we'll pay original brother both their money and he'll sort second brother out and all is good.  hmmm. but the second brother texts me a few days in to ask how much I'm paying for him. Uh-oh. We'd agreed to just pay the same flat rate 105 quid but I reckon his brother is fleecing him the extra fiver so I white lie that were paying just the 100quid. Lol, his own brother was actually pocketing 35quid and only paying him 70 a day. lmao. So he apologises to me but quits instantly and I dunno probably not great considering they live together. Anyway, heres a selfie of what I look like at the end of everyday at the moment lol, just so you don't think I'm sitting in my digger not getting stuck in myself. 
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Jun 11, 2022 23:24
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Motronic posted:I again have to say this is such insane overkill for a single story house foundation. Or any house foundation, but drat if you're not doing it well. I wish you were my building inspector! I would be interested to talk off the record to someone as to why I've had to do all this. No one can understand it. Yeah we knew the digger was a jack of all/master of none and it is so nice when we've got rented plant and things just work and are easy. But there are just so many jobs that it can just about do. Like right now (spoilers) its broken again and it means I can't dig the hole I need or bring bags of sand up to do mix mortar/concrete, or bring up pallets of roof tiles. You don't miss it till its broken, which is always. Also should have got a JCB. The spare part I need for it is currently doing laps round Illinois, hopefully to be put on a plane soon. Machine was made in France, but everything has to come from the US. I will probably get charged extra import tax when it arrives.
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Jun 11, 2022 23:55
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Yeah its a new holland!
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Jun 12, 2022 00:04
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Jun 12, 2022 00:08
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Aahh good shout! I'll try that. i've paid for the brand new part. Its just still in Chicago. Too be honest you don't want to get involved, by the end of it you will have shipped me an entirely new machine.
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Jun 12, 2022 00:17
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Hadlock posted:Are these posts on a time delay? Is it really that wet and gray in England in June? Seems awfully wet Apologies yes. This is all in the (like recent) past. When I say things like this is me now! I am talking about the me, then. Apart from the digger being broken, that is true right now. But also, then. When/if we get to now I will do a big bright celebration post or something to mark the occasion. Docjowles posted:OP what is your occupation / background. Like before embarking on this adventure had you driven diggers much? Assisted in building other houses? Just curious because I would have absolutely no idea where to even begin thinking about such a project. Whereas you seem pretty capable despite all the comedy and tragedy along the way. I am. Pretty capable. Lol My gf's(at the time) ex pestered her with messages lamenting her lowering her standards so much to be with, as he called me, "some fat builder" with my actual builder friend laughing when I told him the story, through fits and giggles managing back "but you're not even a builder!" So there we are. My parents bought an old barn when I was a kid. We lived in caravans for a year on site, converting it. I was bullied at school for being a gypsy, but other than the emotional scars I didn't really contribute much to the process. I wanted to be an architect but got a D at art and was told I wasn't allowed. I failed out of an industry or five, developing my skills, or at least understanding of lack thereof. I'm hesitant to say too much about myself, its a thread about the project but absolutely interrogating myself about it eh... i did and I didn't have that much experience. All my 'normal' friends that maybe kind of do some DIY or whatever think I'm amazing, all the ones that work in any kind of related industry consider me a pleasantly deluded idiot or something like that? It's certainly my first full house build.
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Jun 13, 2022 23:55
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if it were not for the time stamp I'd assume this was taken in late November
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I've made a purchase though to solve the pump clogging up! and we're making progress!  even looks like the weather's changing!  lol. obviously for the worse. (obv in the winter now for those I'd accidently mislead)  not much doing for a few days  but things start to thaw and away again    digger remains a right diva https://i.imgur.com/jOT7T5y.mp4 https://i.imgur.com/vSaYuRQ.mp4 yah whatever man, trace back the problem  new hose from good lads just 5mins down the road  And we're away again I'm aware this is getting a bit old, being stuck in the ground, trust me, I know it. Another post or two and I'll get us a bit further. NotJustANumber99 fucked around with this message at 00:27 on Jun 14, 2022 |
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Jun 14, 2022 00:22
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Working on another post just looking through my hugely, very bigly disorganised folder of building files and found something lol. I think i had my laptop delivered to me when I was in hospital so I could try and send useful stuff to my brothers in my absence. I drew this up trying to explain to them how to mark up and actually crop the piles. I was on (not a doctor) some really powerful painkillers/antibiotics into my veins at the time and this was probably totally clear to me what I was explaining to them, like I can see it now and its all right its just probably not clear to someone not totally involved.  They lolled and said nah no chance you'll be doing that when you get back. edit! also my new digger track end thingy is now in the uk. in london. if the online tracking is to be believed if flew from chicago to detroit and then here? NotJustANumber99 fucked around with this message at 23:57 on Jun 15, 2022 |
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Jun 15, 2022 23:45
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things are getting very gunky so ordered 20 tonne of fun hardcore to scatter down about and any leftover well theres a driveway. Possibly I was just bored and hadnt had a truck through in a while. Still making progress  But I've still got like 200quid a day lads on site helping me out, when they turn up. And the pump has broken again  You can maybe see that bit close to the camera is missing  so unfortunately when you've got guys on site on your dime, you make terrible decisions to keep the railroad going and drive off and buy a whole new pump to keep said guys on site and working  Then it bloody snows again and you send them all home, lol  You can see we have a new strategy of building little damns and pumping out locally to keep us moving but current weather has defeated us. Yeah frozen  smash that out and pump  But just wasting our time really  So now we've got a bit further on I've realised I've got no idea what I paid the steel cages guy for really earlier... like a bunch of them just havent been made, because they were complicated and I have a bag of bits to put together myself. I do enjoy putting together bags of bits but it seems kind of a gently caress you that I paid all this money and some turned up made up and others didnt and noone mentioned any of why? anyway    And then I start making up the corners and connections, I've been quite looking forward to this bit     I still have to bend down the left over pile steels into the ground beams and noone seems to have much advice on how. So I shamble into my pile of destroyed stable block  This looks promising and grind it out  and get bending  Also a fallen tree to deal with, lovely logs 
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Jun 16, 2022 23:40
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Back in the present and my digger part has arrived from that there America! And it's the wrong part!   The left and right end are threaded the opposite way to each other where they screw into the ends of the track rod. And at some point someone has evidently swapped it round. So my right hand side party actually needs to be a left. So there's another two weeks and shipping cost to wait before the digger is back in action. Lol
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Jun 17, 2022 14:19
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Before the groundbeams can be poured I need to have a bit of a think about the sewers. The plans show the main sewer serving the kitchen/utility and a toilet running right under the house before picking up the other connections on the front side of the house. The site slopes down from the road, in exactly the least helpful way with our shallowest sewer at the lowest point of the building site. To find out where the sewer is in the road involves having to physically go to the water company offices in a nearby town, sit in their lobby and take pictures of the info on a iPad thing bolted to the wall.  Its not even particularly accurate, drain 8801 is our nearest but is actually the other side of our access track to where it is shown on the system. But its 2.77m deep. I used the dumpy level to plot the levels from the road all the way back to the far point of the building and keeping with a minimum fall of 1 in 80 it should be just about possible to get the drains to work out. But I'm not allowed to dig in the road and the bit I can dig on my land is going to get to almost 3metres deep which is a bit intimidating. Anyway the quote I get for someone licensed to do roadworks is like £15 grand so, nah. We'll buy a pump, bury it somewhere close to the house and avoid all that upfront cost and difficult, deep digging. Also I can lay things at 1 in 40 slope rather than the bare minimum. But for now we still need to set the pipework up that goes under the house at groundbeam level, all the other connections will happen later through the blockwork support walls under the beam and block floor.   Get 20 tonnes of shingle delivered for filling around all the underground pipes.  Get all the underground pipes delivered. It was cheaper to buy a whole pallet than the individual pipes actually needed, anything left over can go on Ebay.  I've used a fatter bit of pipe as a conduit that I'll push the actual drain pipe through and spray some foam in the gap to prevent any ground changes from damaging the pipe where it goes through the concrete as per building regs.   Stick some shingle down  And pipe  I'll stop up the ends and come back and join on either end later on when I do the rest of the drains. But now its just backfilling against the formwork so it doesn't all burst open when the concrete gets poured.    Starting to look not like total poo poo. 
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Jun 18, 2022 17:38
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