Tag: groundworks

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Mud glorious mud

The torrential storms of the last few days have reduced the area around the caravan to a patch of deep mud.

It was supposed to have all been filled in with Type One, but at the last minute in August before the static arrived we realised that the area prepared for it was two metres shorter than was needed, and an emergency digger evacuation had to take place.

Which didn’t leave us time to backfill that extra area with aggregate. And which has now rendered access to the front door of the caravan almost impassable. It’s like the Somme around there. Wellies sink several inches in.

And of course although the spaniel could go the other way around the caravan to gain access, he always dives straight in to the mud pool. Nice.

So my task today whilst husband was working hard on the caravan was to wheelbarrow tonnes of type one around to the mud patch and shovel it manually into the vast, mud-sucking void in order to gain some traction and slightly drier access.

I couldn’t do it. I managed one barrow load and my knee was so stiff and painful that I had to stop. I’ve clearly over-estimated what I can do seven weeks after knee surgery and after several months of inactive lockdown. Another job for my poor husband.

We need this to be able to manoever the mattress into the static and have a better night’s sleep tonight! Slightly damp sofa cushions aren’t the best way to ensure a restful night, even though we were well wrapped up and cosy in our quilt in front of the fire.

Thankfully the weather gods have smiled on us at last and the next few days are forecast to be mild and mainly dry.

We will overcome. I just feel pretty pathetic right now.

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Taking Shape

It’s taking shape, and the builders have been working hard to move this on whilst the weather holds.

It looks as if the sewerage treatment plant is starting to go in, and the outlet pipe is being connected. This will discharge clean, treated water via an outfall into the burn at the back of the house.

Let’s hope that the water and electricity connections will be confirmed soon, as we won’t be able to progress beyond the summer without them.

It’s so good to see the house starting to emerge from the land. This is the first time that I’ve really been able to visualise it properly in it’s setting, and I think it’s going to sit well….

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More progress, and the static

The kindness of strangers never ceases to amaze us. We’ve been offered a free static caravan by locals on the island to live in whilst we complete the build.

It’s old but fully functioning. It will need a lick of paint, a new boiler and replacement carpet in the main living area, but with all of that and transport costs it will still save us many thousands of pounds.

I’d been researching static caravans and not only are they pricey but the haulage costs can be massive. Due to their ten or twelve feet of width they need a police traffic escort, and so even bargains elsewhere in the U.K. would cost many thousands to transport to the island.

(This image was taken before two years of mud from their house build site was trodden in..😊 it looks much worse now…)

The couple that have offered it to us have been living in it themselves until recently as they completed their own self build, and can make it available from September, which is perfect timing for us. We’re so grateful.

We will be siting it close to the house itself so that connection to power and water will be easier.

The foundations are progressing at pace now, helped by the recent good weather.

This does mean that it will be perched in a somewhat exposed position on the top of the hill of the croft, and a local friend suggested that tethering the static to concrete footings with lorry straps might be prudent due to the winter gales on Skye. We’ve asked the builders to create tether points for us in the hard standing at the back of the house site so that we can do just that.

We don’t fancy tumbling down the hill like a corrugated tin dustball in a storm…

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Foundations

The builders seem to be moving quickly now. The track is in and the preparation for the house foundations has begun.

We’ve been lucky that they haven’t hit hard rock when digging the foundations. Just shale. We know that there’s an outcrop of what we think is Lewissian Gneiss just a few metres away from where the house is being positioned, which would have required blasting at great effort and expense..

The conduits are in for water and electricity, although connection of both services may be quite a slow process as SSE and Scottish Water both have significant backlogs due to Covid-19 and are not prioritising new connections as essential.

Next week the substructure build begins.

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House site excavations

The access road has now been excavated, drained, and levelled as far as possible. It’s received it’s base of crushed stone and can support the heavy plant that will be trundling up and down the croft over the coming months.

I still think it looks massive and am hoping that it will weather to a darker colour and blend a bit more into the landscape over time.

At the moment it looks as if aliens visiting Skye could easily sight this from space and use it as a landing strip…and yes, maybe this thought was prompted by the re-runs of the X Files that we’ve been watching in lockdown..😬

The house site excavation at the top of the croft has also started, with poles being laid out for alignment.

So, it’s moving! There may be some delays sourcing concrete for the foundations, but the local hospital rightly takes precedence for these supplies and we are happy to wait our turn in these difficult times.

We are on our way.

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The track begins

And so it begins. The builder has been sending us photos and videos of the emerging access track whilst it’s being excavated. Very exciting. It looks wide enough to be a motorway in this picture! Sadly building regs dictate that it has to be wide enough for a fire truck to get up to the house, so it does seem wide, but it’s the minimum width we can get away with…

As we suspected, the gradient is very steep in places. The builder has excavated a borrow pit on the croft for extra soil and rock for infill and will try and smooth out the most extreme parts of the slope, although it’s always going to be a steep climb up to the house.

As we also suspected, the boggy bottom of the croft at the base of the hill is actually almost a lake once the soil has been removed. You can see the water level clearly in this photo, right where the entrance bellmouth will be connecting to the communal village road. The video from the digger shows this clearly too.

There will be drainage into both the culvert and back onto the land so that we can remove enough water to make the road viable, but also further along in the process we can perhaps dig a wildlife pond in this area. That plus willow and alder planting and we hope that it will dry out enough to be useable. If not, it’ll be a big natural wetland area, which I’m sure will do wonders for the croft’s natural diversity!

The builders seem to have managed to circumnavigate the two big granite outcrops at the top of the croft and run the road between them. Which is good. Rock blasting and removal is another expense that we are heartily glad not to incur on an already massively expensive road.

But it’s progress! We are so cheered to see this. At last, for the first time after all these months of planning, specification and permissions, it actually seems real.

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Digger on the croft

The builders have just emailed to say that they’ve moved a digger onto the croft in the expectation that they will be able to start groundworks (the access road and hard standing for the house) any day now.

This small positive piece of information has lifted my entire week.

It’s starting at last…😆