We Are Under Way with the Build

From Tuesday last things really started to happen with a 3.5 ton JCB excavating as necessary for foundations for the extension. The steeply sloping site has meant that a great deal of thought and calculation has had to go on beforehand. The finished floor level (FFL) is somewhere near half way up the embankment and the actual foundations are something like 1200mm below that so a lot of earth and boulder clay has had to be moved, mostly to be re-located on site.

In just four days most of the digging has been done. The pictures do not reflect the magnitude of the task.

Below is our existing summer house, with its balcony removed and sitting rather high and dry. Below is the temporary digger access road, which may remain as part of the eventual landscaping, this going a long way to taming the formerly ungardenable slope:

The Sidings entrance area has become a temporary store for some topsoil and a huge number of glacial boulders which will be incorporated into the slope as has been done with success at the north end of the site.

Ground conditions are exactly as had been predicted with lots of good but previously unused topsoil below which is heavy boulder clay.

The extent to which the steep embankment has been tamed is seen below: