What i was up to today

[ianoz]

.Today's mission , Build up behind a house ,so i can dig a swimming pool hole there later next week . Took the JCB 8080 out to the site , as the bobcat was in use on another job ,and the Cat 939 drott is out on another site . We have a fill stockpile at home , so on to the Hitachi UH083 ,to load the truck . Did 5 loads ,then leveled and track rolled . Then another 5 loads , leveled and track rolled .

[Muz]

.Today's mission , Build up behind a house ,so i can dig a swimming pool hole there later next week . Took the JCB 8080 out to the site , as the bobcat was in use on another job ,and the Cat 939 drott is out on another site . We have a fill stockpile at home , so on to the Hitachi UH083 ,to load the truck . Did 5 loads ,then leveled and track rolled . Then another 5 loads , leveled and track rolled .

Hmm .. now that would have me worried, how can you get the infill to be tight enough just by the weight of your own kit, so that when you dig it out for the pool the walls will be strong enough and support the water in the pool ? How thick will the pool walls be? and is it a single pour of concrete or panels or something?

[ianoz]

Most Swimming pools here are Fibreglass shells . Dig a hole , put 100 mm of crusher dust down for a base ,. Put the shell in ,Backfill with stabilized sand .Concrete bond beam around the top ,Then pave or concrete a surround .When i go to dig the hole , If the base is still on the fill , i keep going down until natural ground is found , It is then brought back up to level with crusher dust. If it gets Too deep then stabilized sand is used . Very ,very few house sites are compacted .But footings then have pier holes dug down to natural ground . I atleast track roll in layers .Others don't bother .

[245dlc]

Sounds like around here nobody knows what proper compaction is at least you put effort into it. What is stabilized sand exactly? Is it sand mixed with cement powder?

[ianoz]

Hi Bert , Yes that is what stabilizes sand is. As long as the pool is on a solid base , they don't worry about the sides too much
The builder that i am doing the site cuts for does not want to pay the extra it costs to compact properly. As long as i am not libal if house breaks in half. I do what i am asked to do .

[ianoz]

Well today was a swimming pool dig .Owner decided to keep all the fill on site ,so by 10.30 had the hole dug , Could not get crusher dust delivered before tomorrow morning , so went out and picked a load up myself . Put the dust in the base ,and thet wanted me to lift the shell in ,So waited while they organized slings etc .With a bit of buggerizing round got the shell to the hole and dropped it in .Loaded up and headed off home .

[Wazza]

Did you get to have a swim in it ?? .where is all the water going to come from to fill these damned things ..We are the driest Incontinent don't you know .
Bloody Global warming and all that Jazz ..........

[ianoz]

Did not get any water put in it mate . They basicly packed their bat and ball up and left ,soon as i had lifted it in .

[Wazza]

Wouldn't it be in danger of floating away if you had a sudden downpour of rain ,not your problem though I guess ...

[ianoz]

Today , I went out to finish leveling fill on a block with the Cat 939 trackloader .Then over to another job with the 8 tonner and tipper to load and cart fill over to another block .

[ianoz]

Today Friday , Had a block of land to dig out a heap of trees , then scrape all the grass off . Then off to another block and clear the grass off it ,so the builder can work out where to put the house and what we need to do with the block to make it work .

[B4D2USA]

You know Ian, most of us back up our claims of work with actual pictures, even if they are stolen from some other hard working fellow with our face pasted in the operators station. I am a little skeptical about your "work."

[ianoz]

Bruce Mate , Do you think i would lie to you.It's all true .
If you want photos ,would mean i would have to remember to take the camera , The lens on my phone camera is so scratched , its like looking though pea soup fog . Then i would have to learn how to download the photos .

[ianoz]

Interesting day today .. Dig a footing for a caretakers resedence at a Big industrial shed . Footing was 750 mm away from the front of the shed , With the sewer pipe running in that 750 mm . Looking from the street on the left hand side it was about a metre wider than the shed ,which is where i started digging .Footing was to be 500 deep , but at 400 deep found the 300 mm stormwater pipe and a water pipe ..No worries says the guy ,we will move out 3oomm and make it 300 mm bigger . Accross the front of the block is a donga that he is living in with a fence a metre off it .And the footing was hard up against the fence . Add one trench though the centre and another 3 accross , It was a chalenge , but got it done .

[Local diggers]

You can always mail me any pics ian. I can host and link if you like