Grab lorry excavation

[Scrote76]

Hi,

I'm planning to replace my front lawn with gravel. A friend suggested that hiring a grab is the way to go. This make sense to me as skips would be a pain in the backside.

My question is: would a grab lorry be able to do any of the actual excavation for me? I was thinking of hand digging out the awkward bits, near walls and drains etc. and just leaving the rest for the grab to lift out.

I'm planning on going down about 300mm (200 hardcore, 100 chippings) and it's all accessible from the road. The soil is fairly soft, as I discovered when the car got stuck when it was really wet; "Daddy, why aren't we moving ?"

Does this sound feasible or am I going to have to hire a mini digger as well?

 

[cotswoldbuilders]

You will need a mini digger to excavate and heap it up close to the road for the grab lorry.

 

[ivixor]

Grab man will probably not want to take the risk of digging up cables or whatever, even if it would work. Why don't you ask the grab company??

 

[Skimmers]

evening buddy PM me I know a really cheap grab lorry firm and thay supply digger hire along with supplying sub base and graves

 

[loply]

I'm no expert, but why the need to go down 300mm for a gravel lawn?

Personally I would consider going down about 50mm, DPM and then gravel. Lot easier and cheaper.

I'd poke holes in the DPM for drainage, it's just there to stop plants/grass growing.

 

[Skimmers]

NO your wrong mate.
the ground mat lets the water go through it and stops weeds ect.
you need to be 150mm below you DPC on the house.
you need a good sub base as the op has said the ground is sorft the base will need compacting and a good layer of stone on top

 

[noseall]

All the weed barrier in the world will not stop weeds from growing INTO gravel, rather it will just churn up and be a pain.

However a decent base is essential for any vehicular load bearing surface.

 

[Scrote76]

Thanks for all the advice guys, really very helpful.

It sounds like my original plan is reasonably sound although I may have to hire a mini digger or dig by hand (eurgh!). I'll check with the grab hire peeps though.

Assuming a mini digger is the way forward, how easy is it to get to grips with these things? As a novice am I better off just paying the extra for someone who knows how to handle it?

I'm sticking with 300mm as I don't want to be doing this again if I can help it. So it will be dig 300mm, chuck in sub base, run a wacker plate over it, lay down weed control facbric, chuck in chippings then finally wack it again. Sound about right?

Oh and I have one more question. I'd like to build a concrete ramp to improve the angle of access to the aforementioned gravel, what's the standard gradient for something like this? It's going to have to run diagonally across the slope of the drive but at the highest point it would have to go up roughly 250mm. I've been guessing at 20% gradient which would give me 1.25m at the longest end. If this isn't making sense I can take some pics if that would help.

 

[noseall]

Do not put weed barrier beneath the gravel where vehicles will pass as they will churn it up.

Besides it will not stop weeds growing into the gravel. A complete waste of time.

Grading with a digger is not a simple task. You also run the risk of doing damage particularly if you are practicing. It takes a while but you do get used to it then it becomes second nature, but you do need a bit of space to practice.