Roselea

Category: Groundworks

  • Heat Pump Pipes Day 5

    Finished covering the pipes with fill and tidied up the pipes at the garage end.

    nothing to see but sand...

  • Heat Pump Pipes Day 4

    Day 3 – Tuesday 31st August

    Finished laying the pipes in the trench.

    shows all the pipes in place

    Now we have to cover them in fill (sand/soil) to the level of the bottom of the rainwater tank & soak-away. The boards down the length allows us to drive the Kanga Kid around collecting and dumping fill. We dumped fill over the edge in the corner of the trench and moved as necessary. By the end of the day we have placed half of the fill.

    pipes covered in fill.

  • Heat Pump Pipes Day 3

    Day 2 – Monday 30th August

    Lots of rain yesterday and overnight (25mm), this caused another wall collapse near the exit of the earth tubes.

    more sand fallen in

    Luckily its time to start filling in the trench at this point. I dug out the sheet of wood and spread the pile out a bit. We then added sand from the spoil heaps and compacted it in layers. we ended up with steep hill and the earth tubes filled to near their correct level.

    hill of sand at the exit tubes

    We then continued to lay the heat pump pipes across the bottom of the trench. There are 6 pipes and each will snake back and forth 6 times, resulting in a pipe every 360mm along the trench. By 7PM we had spaced and fixed 2 of the snakes.

    snaking pipes

  • Earth Tubes Day 18 & Heat Pump Pipes Day 1

    Day 18 – Saturday 28th August

    Continued to cover the earth tubes with more sand by moving the excess from the right of the L. But while compacting the fill a LARGE section of the back wall collapsed (It had not collapsed at all before even while digging out). It took hours to remove by hand.

    all the stuff behind the pipesstuff cleared out

    We finished the day with all the sand distributed around ready for the heat pump pipes.

    sand in the Lsand in the main area

    Day 1 – Sunday 29th August

    Installing pipes for Heat pump.

    Started the installation of the heat-pump pipes by labeling them 1-6 for future connections. Then bundled them up for the first 4.5m (to connect to the house) and attached them to the righthand earth tube. Started to lay them out in the trench and the rain came again!! Oh well we can watch the Grand Prix guilt free…

    end of day 20

  • Earth Tubes Days 16 & 17

    Day 16 – Thursday 26th August

    Rained all day! But we did buy a submersible pump for the rainwater tank.

    Day 17 – Friday 27th August

    The rain yesterday caused a few small wall collapses and eroded some casms in the walls.

    shows small wall collapses

    water erosionerosion channels in wall

    So after a little clean up we continued to place the last tubes. All tubes were inserted by luchtime.

    shows the last 3 tubes in place

    We have decided to cover the joints in the corner with a piece of plastic as the rain water soak-away will be directly above these pipes and we don’t want water getting in. By the end of day we had covered all the pipes and compacted.

    picture of main section of the trench showing flat sand.

    shows the L section with flat sand

  • Earth Tubes Day 15

    Day 15 – Wednesday 25th August

    Another day in the pit. We thought we would be able to finish installing the tubes today. But soon after we started digging out the remaining sand a LARGE section of the pit wall collapsed.

    big heap of sand n soil

    This set us back a bit… Using the Kanga Kid (KK) we moved the collapsed material to the right of the trench and compacted it into a mound.

    new mound of sand

    We could now continue to put tubes in… We actually managed only 2 tubes today before the rain came again.

    image of the pit at end of day 15

  • Shaun buried by wall collapse

    Shaun was digging near the wall of the pit and a large section collpased on him. He was buried up his waist!

    shaun buried to his waist in sand

    But that was on 300mm deep as he was kneeling!

  • Earth Tubes Days 13 & 14

    Day 13 – Monday 23rd August

    Short days work today, started late after Shaun had an appointment and finished early because it rained!

    But we got the first section completed by leveling the sand over the area and compacting. The mini loader does manage to drive over the compacted sand but cuts it up a bit when turning
    leveled sand over the earth tubes

    Day 14 – Tuesday 24th August

    Full days work today. Completed 7 tubes! We had to clear more sand than expected as a large part of the wall fell in.
    .before and after pics of the wall

    Where the tubes bend we mitered the joint and covered it with geo-textile.

    joint in the tube showing wraping

    Continued this for the next 6 tubes, so finished 7 tubes completely.

    end of day 14

  • Earth Tubes Days 11 & 12

    Progress in installing the actual earth tubes in the bottom of the pit.

    Day 11 – Saturday 21st August

    Installed 5 earth tubes today, this involved moving large amount of sand as the hole is not quite deep enough and has a few ‘hills’.

    The first 6 tubes inplace

    Day 12 – Sunday 22nd August

    Buried the last 6 tubes in the first section of the pit. Once again the walls slumped in a bit when compacting near them, this time they tried to bury me! Luckily it was only knee deep, I pulled myself out and caught up with the compactor which was merrily carrying on…

    All the first set of tubes in place

  • Earth Tubes – Day 7, 8 and 9

    With the hole finally dug out, we have been sorting out the bits and pieces that will be placed down, down into the pit! Not much visible work is happening especially our video camera cannot see right into the hole! So you will have to imagine us hard at work 2.5m (8feet) down!

    Day 7 – Tuesday 17th August

    The delivery of the extra 10 tubes we needed and the wooden battens for constructing the framework to hold up the earth tubes and keep them steady while we fill in the hole around them. We also ordered another 10 bags of cement just in case we need to bed or lock in anything down. Today’s work was shortened as we had to go shopping (we have to eat something)!!!
    We did some investigations in the bottom of the hole to see how much work is needed in moving the sand around to lay the earth tubes down. We checked the depth and laid two concrete blocks to get a feel for a particular method to achieve a satisfactory results!

    Day 8 – Wednesday 18th August

    We had visitors around so it was another late start. We cut 4 tubes into 12 pieces and clamped them together. These are the vertical tubes for transferring the air up out of the ground and into the house. We also mounted a wooden framework at the garage end ready for the vertical 3m (10feet) tubes.
    The 120 crates arrived from Jewsons today – these crates called AquaCell are designed to allow large amount of water (usually rain) to be collected and leached out of the sides.
    stacks of blue crates

    Day 9 – Thursday 19th August

    The hired tiny little earth mover machine arrived today and used our mini digger to lift it into the hole! It got stuck in the soft sand!
    The mini earth mover
    So we got on with cutting 6 earth tubes in half and mounting them vertically on the support framework – these tubes transfer the incoming air from the Garage down into the cool earth!
    the entry tubes standing up near mass wall
    Then did the other end where the 12 tubes done yesterday were situated near the point of the house. At both ends we placed the concrete blocks underneath to support them.

    12 tubes clamped togther for the exit