The conservatory is approximately 22sqm and has 2 facets; one facet joins to the house and the other, at a lower level, to the garage. The house is 14 years old and on a fairly large estate.
Sorry for going quiet on this, I live in Salisbury and on Friday we had heavy rain storms pass through that have collapsed parts of the trenches; so I have been looking out the window and crying at the devastation. Oh well, it’s drying out now.
This obviously means I need to shore up the sides, was going to use 11mm OSB2 and 100mm*50mm cross braces, and back fill. I was going to leave the boards in when I pour and remove the braces as the pour gets to that level. (noseall posted something a few years ago about this I think) Is 11mm going to do the job? Do I want this to sit slightly above the finished pour level? Or is there a cunning way I can use this to set the level?
I have been looking at the soil type for this area and it should be a chalky silty loam. Not soil expert but I’m trying a test involving a jam jar and separating the silt, clay and sand that make up the soil. I know what you’re thinking, bit nerdy, but a bit of science can’t hurt. The soil that I have is 40% sand, 30% silt and 30% clay. So I was wrong with my description as being clay soil.
The other thing I have noticed is that (before the rain!) the ground was very damp so I guess after a pretty dry summer on the whole the heave is not going to be as bad as expected. Having said that, I am now digging down another 150mm because of the rain and to get to 900mm.
So my plan for the next week is to finish digging, shoring as I go, ready for a pour Friday morning. Weather forecast looks good with no weather warnings, fingers crossed eh.
I was thinking about adding rebar where I’ve got steps in the footings, didn’t know if it would be good practise to add elsewhere.
Any thoughts or guidance would be much appreciated.
