The Brew Cabin

I'm planning on relaying the path and re-building the step to my font door. Having never laid a flag in my life I wanted to ask a few questions.

1. The soil here is very heavy clay and I was wondering if a sub-base of 40mm scalpings about 100mm deep and base of sharp sand about 50mm would be ok for laying the flags? I was planning on laying them directly onto the sand without a mortar bed and then pointing after. Would this be OK?

2. I've also got to renew a manhole which is sited within the paving, Any pointers on how best to remove the old one and lay the new one?

3. Whats the best way of building a step. I thought a concrete foundation, then make the risers from precast walling with brick supports inside and finally topping off with flags. Does this sound OK?

4. Finally, whats the best order to do everything. I was thinking steps first, then new manhole then lay the flags up to everything else.

I'm begining to get quite daunted by it all so any advice would be very much appreciated. Thanks.

Another apology for a delayed response, but I do have a note from me mum! ;)

Your proposed construction sounds fine. Compact the sub-base before placing the bedding layer, and then just follow the advice give on the Laying Flags page and you'll be fine.

As for the manhole, if you've not already done it, you need to tell me what sort of manhole it is - a brick chamber? A round, plastic Inspection Chamber? Is it just the cover or is it the whole structure?

For your steps, take a look at thetwo pages that deal with building steps for small, domestic projects, that's the Steps page and the Steps for Block Paving page, which should give you some ideas.

Finally, your planned order of works sounds fine. I would probably do the manhole first, as that involves most disturbance to the sub-base, then the steps and then finish off with the actual paving, but, as I'm not familiar with the site, I'm only guessing and you should use your own judgement.

Hope that helps, even if it is tardy!

Thanks for the reply. The manhole is a round, plastic inspection chamber with a rectangular brick collar and the cover bedded on mortar. Today, I excavated round it and found the brick 'collar' to be very loose so I removed the lot down to the concrete base round the top of the round chamber. If you can advise on the rebuilding procedure it would help greatly. Do I need to get special bricks? as they'll be buried. I've got a rough idea of how to rebuild it by taking note of how the old one was constructed but it did seem very 'thrown together'. One thing I did forget to sort before starting to dig out was to hire a skip. Now I've got a great pile of dirt, sand, rubble and old flags on the front lawn which needs to be moved for a second time into a skip. A lesson learnt ther I think! One last question, any tips for soothing aching muscles and a knackered back? I don't know how people manage to do this for a living - I'm absolutely bolloxed.....

Have a look at the Recess Trays page to see how a circular IC is normally dealt with when a new cover is needed. If you need further guidance over and above what's shown on that page, just ask. :)

Don't worry about 'special' bricks - as long as they are concrete blocks/bricks, engineering quality bricks, or even bits of broken flags/slabs, that will be ok. It's just some of the softer (ie, cheaper) facing bricks that can turn to mush when in permanent contact with the ground.

Never a good idea top start digging out when you've nowhere to dump the shite. it just doubles the amount of work needed, and if you think you;re aching now, just wait until you've loaded it all into a skip!!

And to soothe "those aches and pains that we all get from time to time", I usually recommend a bucket of Guinness, a warm bath, and a hot woman with a penchant for massage, but not nesser celery in that order. :)