Thanks All - A slow worker, but I get there in the end (not helped by being sick for the last 3 days, and a downpour of rain filling the hole!).
I now have a trench slightly larger than before - but minus the pipe. So, it now looks like a 'T', with the width of 500mm, a depth of just over 500mm, with the width of the bottom part around 120mm.
A few final questions, if I may?
Fill with a mix of ballast:cement:water with a mix of 6:1:0.6 by volume? Or more ballast? (Why?)
Do I line the trench with DPM first?
As I have a delivery of rebar due early next week, does anyone have any tips about how I best lay this out?
Is there anything else that I have missed? Or should I be good to mix and fill? Any other tips?
No need for membrane. Sub grade should be sound no soft spots, or organic material. You would of been better off using stepoc blocks. Don't know what you have allowed for with the rebar but i usually put in mesh on spacers, fix L bars to the mesh so you have starter bars sticking up out of the base. Work out that the starter bars come up in the cavity if your doing a double skin, or where the hollows on the blocks will be, not easy :;):
If your just using lengths of rebar set them out at about 200/300 centres .
