Concrete base for summer house and sheds - Lots of annoying issues

[Forestboy1978]

I am really stuck here. I'll try and explain the situation as clearly as possible!

I have recently undertaken a large garden clearance and medium fencing job to prepare for a fairly complicated garden makeover!

The garden is to be split up into several areas;

main patio terrace backing onto the house then are circular lawn with circumnavigating pathway of scree which is then encompased by plants and borders.

Further down the garden on the left there is to be a large concrete base constructed for a summer house and 2 adjacent sheds. In front of these is a smaller paved area and in front of this another smaller rectangular patch of grass.

The final area at the bottom of the garden is made up of vegetable frames etc etc and surrounded by gravel. This area is seperated from the summerhouse, patio 2, grass area 2 etc by trellace and I was thinking timber edging......

[Pablo]

whats your question mate

[Forestboy1978]

Now this is where it gets a bit tricky to explain....

The whole area has been excavated and very very roughly levelled. My fencing is spot bollock straight and the bottom of the gravel boards are near as dammit 5" below the damp proof course on the house! This is where the entire garden's top level is going to be!

I am commencing the concrete base tomorrow! I am competing with a huge award winning landscape company on the rest of the garden. It's tight, I can beat their quotes for sure but the customer will want a significant reduction for taking my new company on instead of their multi award winning company. Anyway that's by the by!

Both patios will be bound as some of the flags are large! The 2 sheds that flank the summer house are not the same size as the summer house. In effect from bottom to top of the garden you have a small square then a larger wider square then another small square 1 after the other if you can visualise that?

Now,, the easiest way is to make the formwork big enough for the summer house (which is in the middle) and keep it rectangular so that it runs quite a bit in front of the 2 adjacent sheds. In fact this is what the other company (who designed the garden) have specified. This is where I get confused!!!!

If I have to mount a say 30mm flag on top of say 30mm mortar and keep the lay of the land corresponding to the top of the large patio "at least 4" below the damp proof course then the concrete base will have to be below ground right? I mean only because the guy want a rectangular base with proud areas in front of the to recessed sheds which has to have mortar based flag stones set?

I would like to avoid this problem by spending more time on creating formwork that is exactly to the perimeter of the set of structures. This would allow me to have my concrete base higher and just excavate accordingly to lay my flags.

Did anyone understand any of that and I am being stupid?

[Pablo]

Do it as the client wants it then if you get the job cut the concrete out and lay the paving up to it. Don't make things awkward with the client now best keep em sweet and deal with it later. The garden will likely have been designed by someone who's never built one in their life so problems like this are not on their radar. The sheds will also be sitting off the concrete to keep the wood dry so you could in theory pave up to them and hide the gap with a timber skirt like this.

Just be sure to angle the pads so the water runs to an unblocked edge.
Huge award winning company means f#ck all they have to charge significantly higher because they have huge overheads so it's very easy and still profitable to undercut them. Usually they do a job with an eye on entering it in a competition but I find their normal work to be average at best. Also it takes a lot of money to enter these competitions I used to bother with them and after all the presentations travel and lobbying / marketing I'd have spent at least £5000 and that was per category so the chances of winning were high because there wasn't much competition.

[seanandruby]

can't you put a step in the concrete so that you have a concrete base for your flags? That way it's all dug out in one hit.

[Forestboy1978]

Cheers Pablo!

Trouble with cutting is... if I get the rest of the work, how the hell would I cut that close to the summer house. It's being erected on the 13th and I wont be at that stage before then, I'll have just finished the main patio if I'm lucky. The company that are building the summer house have specified for the base to be made precisely flush with the structure, no bossing or whatever it's called!

[Forestboy1978]

can't you put a step in the concrete so that you have a concrete base for your flags? That way it's all dug out in one hit.

I don't really have much experience in this area. Wouldn't putting a step in that massive base mean a bit of trickery with the formwork. I can think of how it might be possible but i've really got to get this whole thing made in 2 days to make any money at all really!

[Pablo]

You can reverse the cutting arm on most concrete saws so you can cut tight to something it's very easy and takes 5mins.

[Forestboy1978]

Ah of course! I didn't think I would be able to get it that tight!

Oh well that's that problem solved. I'll just do as I'm told!

Thanks

[local patios and driveway]

Be careful that you dont get sucked in to trying to beat an awardwinning price that may be fictional unless you've seen the quote yourself! I used to sub for a leading landscaping company in the south east aund i can tell you hey charged a fortune and the quality of finish had to be spot on.

[Forestboy1978]

Well guys I thought i'd give an update on the debacle that was that damn concrete base.

Well... 8 tons of concrete later. Several tons of type 1 and dpm etc. My first and what I said would be my last concrete base......

I was at the recycling centre for 7am cos I had a 45 min round trip to pick up and drop each load and I needed approx 4 loads with my little truck filled beyond capacity.

We finished in the dark at 5 pm under a work light and bearing in mind the recycling centre closes to business at 4.30pm so no more concrete after then. Literally I had to scrape out the last shovel of concrete we had to finish the job. I guess the odds on that are 1 in a thousand!

Well I was stressed and very very tired and swore never again........

The company that are fitting the summer house and sheds said it was the best base they had ever seen. They also thought our fencing was superb. They have asked us to drop our business cards to their office so they can recommend us to people for doing bases for them.

Can you bloody beleive it lol!

[Forestboy1978]

So my next idea is this!

Is it possibe to cut and fit a door little hatch (say 8" x8") in the back of the truck. What I thought was, I could pick up the concrete and instead of shovelling into wheel barrows I could just unlock and open the hatch and tip the truck if need be and poor the concrete straight into the wheel barrows!

Would this hatch lessen to the structural integrity of the flippy back door thingy what ever it's called, too much. Would I need to buy another?

OR is there such a thing as a cheap mobile concrete pump?

Cheers

[lutonlagerlout]

OR is there such a thing as a cheap mobile concrete pump?

the hatch idea is complete lunacy

cheap concrete pumps do not exist AFAIK
TBH you would have been better to use a volumetric concrete company,we did an oversite Friday with 2 pushing barrows and me leveling and it took us an hour to lay 2.6m3 including a 30 M push
cheers LLL

[Carberry]

OR is there such a thing as a cheap mobile concrete pump?

Cheers

A polish bloke with a wheelbarrow?

Agree with LLL about it being silly to cut a hatch.

[DNgroundworks]

Does he mean like on a tarmac wagon, where it pours out into barrows? Also does the concrete not puddle transporting around on the back of a tipper?