Easy way to tell if my ground is classed as soft?

[ken300]

Hi,

I about to lay a garden path, it's my first attempt at this sort of thing. My question is simply:

Is there a 'rule of thumb' or a simple test i can do to tell if my ground is 'soft' or not??

What makes me think the ground is likely to be soft is that there is a very old brick paved area further up the garden that hasn't got any sub-base at all (it's just bricks laid on top of the soil) and they've settled and are very uneven. It's not just that the individual bricks have all gone 'on the lean' but the whole area has become concave dipping down in the centre (where I assume it's had the most wear & tear) by as much as 4cm in height (the area is 2m wide) whilst areas that have pipes buried under them or have been concreted to surrounding structures appear not to have settled at all.

Thanks in advance,

Ken

[GB_Groundworks]

take something roughly 16mm in diameter and blunt ended, a stick will do or some rebar, dowel? broom handle? etc and try to force it in the the ground, if it goes in easy then its soft ground if you have to drive it in then its firm. there is a test device called a Macintosh probe that uses a drop weight slide hammer to test the resistance but they're like £350 bit over kill

[Dave_L]

Yep, if you can push a road pin into the ground by hand then that is soft ground!

[ken300]

Thank you both - i think my wife's hoe has got a handle that's the perfect size, she'll never know....

[seanandruby]

Was it laid on top of soil, or sub soil. If your planning on upgrading you'll need to replace with mot.