Start Up

Finally. The snow has gone and the thaw has begun in earnest.
The groundwork contracter removed the snowcovering just over a week ago, this allowed the top to thaw out a little bit, enabling us to start that little bit earlier, though deep down I would have liked to have started at the begining of the month,



the first 20cm of topsoil, put to one side, this will be kept seperate from the clay soil, it will be redistibuted in the garden area later




























Making the driveway.
First we had to lay down a fabric membrane, this ensures that the rather chunky hardcore that is put on top does not eventually disappear into the clay.


































Now we have access.
First order of business was to expose the water connection valve and the drainage pipes, the council in their wisdom, when the pipes were laid left a couple of marker posts in place, saves a lot of time not having to hunt or guess where they are. In the photo, Ari, our labourer digging out the ends of the pipes, it was still quite wet and muddy at this stage.








Connected.
Two drains, sewage and rainwater drains, the thinner black pipe is the mains water supply.





Ari and Joukko (Digger driver) connecting pipes







Joukko checking the height of the rainwater separation drain. This is fitted with a vent incase of flooding so the rainwater cannot be pushed back out.






More drain fitting, orange drain is for sewage, black is rainwater.









Sewage and rainwater pipes being led off to the left, going to the house, trench being continued leading to the garage






Pipework leading to the garage





Fine grade sand on top of the pipes, no stones as over time these could damage the pipes.



Filling it in, fine grade sand on top to start with, followed by the clay returned to its original place.







membrane laid out on the garage area.




Now all the pipes are in place, time to put down some hardcore, this is a grade of stones varying from 32mm to 0.1mm this then gets packed down hard. Pipe is the sewage pipe and the flexible pipe are the water mains to the house also the house to the garage.

Delivery of hardcore







Spreading the hardcore, prior to packing








Hardcore laid on garage area, initial packing done, this will be ´´fine tuned´´ later to give us the correct starting height.






























Hardcore house area






Ari checking the heights prior to packing




Driving the packer, this is the starting height for the foundation blocks.




All done and dusted, just waiting on delivery of the foundation blocks.



Joukko, our excellent digger driver, a big thank you to him for keeping me right on this part of the job, one area that I am not so profficient in.

After the excitement of the snowplough arriving and taking the crust off, things have slowed down again, the contracter is unable to start before the 18th April, hopefully this will allow the plot to dry out a bit more before we turn it into something resembling a trench from WW1


We took delivery of some stuff from the suppliers, namely the drains and pipes that have to be put down at the begining




DRAINS AND PIPES, FOR SEWAGE, RAIN AND SEEPAGE, GREY PIPES ARE SEWAGE, BLACK AND WHITE ARE FOR THE SEEPAGE DRAINS, BLACK AND ORANGE ARE RAINWATER.





Into the swamp, at present it is terribly muddy, due to all the snow and freezing conditions we have experienced this year, an exceedingly long winter that has effectivley put us back by 3 weeks. Also the water does not drain so well due to the clay underneath, have to rely on evaporation as opposed to draining.




STARTING POINT



















EVERY PLACE HAS A STARTING POINT, The town surveyor arrived and marked out the corners of the house and garage, using his GPS system he was able to accurately position the house, this small post with the nail in it exactly points out where one corner of the house will be.







Welcome to my swamp, at least there are no alligators.




Hope it can dry out a bit before we start, makes things a lot easier if your feet do not become stuck in the ground.


DESTRUCTION OF HABITAT.




















We wanted to save these trees, we have been looking at these trees for the past 3 years, it is quite astounding the amount of wildlife they attract, most prolfic are the Pheasants, every year the cock has been making this his ´´des res´´ with a couple of hens soon arriving the place filled up with chicks in no time, also seen occasionally were deer, though one has to get up early and they are not so visible in urbanised areas anymore, but as this is on the edge of the village they still appear now and then.
We have to take most of these down, some are dead or pretty close to it, others are in the way of the building and we have to put our driveway there, we tried to save them but there was no leeway with the townplanners, they were very strict allowing no changes to their ´´masterplan´´ So much for all their talk about the envirionment, just bullshit.


MORE MUD AND OUR TREES




















BEFORE THE DESTRUCTION






















AND AFTER




We still have to tidy it up and probably take 2 or 3 of the trunks that are leaning down as well, not able to do that until the towns gardner makes an appearance, asked him to come two weeks ago, this week he is on holiday, I love council workers, trying to get them out of their offices is an art form, when you succeed you are generally unsatisfied with the result.
If they ever decide to form a pop group, I have the name ready for them.
THE UNDERACHIEVERS.

The contractor that is going to do the groundwork for us arrived to do a little bit of snow clearing.
This is in anticipation of the council surveyor coming on Monday to mark out the position of the buildings, they are quite exacting measurements and it is done with a global positioning satellite, the tolerance for us is + - 15cms, anything outside that entails a visit to the council offices without tea and biscuits.

Taking the icy crust off



Clearing the plot, let the sun do the rest