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.