Day Seven of Filter Replacement - A lot of concreting and tidying up

On the Sunday morning Craig had a later 9am start mainly because this was concreting and tidy up the garden day.

Craig started by putting concrete blobs at each end and then every 3m along the new 4" return pipes to fix them into place so they could move when they were backfilled with pea shingle and soil. As soon as the cement mixer started I understood why he had started later today! At least the neighbours had had some chance to lay in until about 9:30.

Next was the concreting of the side path and within the garage. That really was a great job done and really good to have the side path back to normal.

After this was the concreting of the new base for the air source heat pump.

Next and as a change to the plan Craig popped of all the sandstone slabs around the edge of the pond. The reason for the change of plan was that the weather for Monday (the next day) was awful rain and therefore we didn't want all the ballast and cement getting wet and even heavier.

When the slabs were laid previously the layer of Type 1 hadn't been deep enough and allowed for natural compression so the majority of the stones had come loose and were wobbly / unsafe. Craig dug a trench about 12" deep and 18" wide around about 60% of the pond edge. This was tough going and very hard work. Once this was done it was time for more concrete mixing and for the trench around the pond to be immediately filled. This backfilling with concrete involved wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow for hours to fill it. Not a pleasant task.

Whilst this was happening I was soaking the grass trench that had been backfilled a few days ago to compress the soil and gets the level right. Simple task yes it may be but as a note to self, running on grass that has been soaked for over an hour, results in falling flat on my back. Saying that I couldn't expect much sympathy because Craig was still mixing concrete and filling the trench around the pond.

With all that done I had hoped we were finished for the day. Think again. We then moved the old sieves, roto showers and the crystal bio media out of sight behind a brick outhouse.

The finally and as a good tidying tasks to get the front of the drive clear we (Craig and I) wheelbarrowed a ton of ballast from the front of the drive to the back of the garden. I don't mind hard work after about the twenty five barrow loads humour was reaching and all time low.... Not long after that we were done but by now it was dark and 9:15pm.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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