Mulholland plant hire (northern Ireland)

[JimboCX]

Good for stopping any collapses too. You must have good contacts and suppliers there. I couldn't see it logistically working here unless you were super well in with the concrete company. Ive had them turn up with big delays between lorries on a single slab before.

Northern Ireland isn’t abig place. With creagh concrete,FP McCann,Loughdoo aggregates, Northstone, and a few other suppliers all having numerous depots dotted around it. We’re very lucky with service. If I’m doing a set of founds i’l ring ahead a day or two in advance with a rough idea of how much I need and pre book first load for approximately 11pm. That will give us time to get a good start made on the digging of it and let building control take a look. We normally work with one lorry on a return. So when u get the lorry in and emptied. You could have Any thing from an hour upwards for him to get back to the plant get another load on and get back to you. So by the time he arrives back to site you have enough pulled out to hold another load. It normally always falls into place. I wouldn’t say I’m well in with the suppliers. But most of the lorry men are owner drivers. So if you work with them they will work with you in return. If you make a decent road in to site that the drivers arnt scraping paint on bushes and pulling wing mirrors off there lorrys. They will be happy And with the concrete pouring bucket once the concrete lorry arrives on site and you start to unload you have him empty in a very quick turn around. Which always helps if your an owner driver.

 

[groundworker]

Northern Ireland isn’t abig place. With creagh concrete,FP McCann,Loughdoo aggregates, Northstone, and a few other suppliers all having numerous depots dotted around it. We’re very lucky with service. If I’m doing a set of founds i’l ring ahead a day or two in advance with a rough idea of how much I need and pre book first load for approximately 11pm. That will give us time to get a good start made on the digging of it and let building control take a look. We normally work with one lorry on a return. So when u get the lorry in and emptied. You could have Any thing from an hour upwards for him to get back to the plant get another load on and get back to you. So by the time he arrives back to site you have enough pulled out to hold another load. It normally always falls into place. I wouldn’t say I’m well in with the suppliers. But most of the lorry men are owner drivers. So if you work with them they will work with you in return. If you make a decent road in to site that the drivers arnt scraping paint on bushes and pulling wing mirrors off there lorrys. They will be happy And with the concrete pouring bucket once the concrete lorry arrives on site and you start to unload you have him empty in a very quick turn around. Which always helps if your an owner driver.

Really nice way of doing it, I'm amazed you can get building control to turn up at the right time though!

 

[craig]

If you make a decent road in to site that the drivers arnt scraping paint on bushes and pulling wing mirrors off there lorrys.

I wish some of the developers this side of the water would take heed of this,

 

[JimboCX]

Really nice way of doing it, I'm amazed you can get building control to turn up at the right time though!

To be honest as I said Northern Ireland isn’t that big a place. And most of the building control inspectors in this area have got to know us now. And I suppose they have got to trust us. If the ground was abit iffy I would hold the concrete off. But if the grounds ok the building inspectors are happy enough for us to pour the concrete before they have saw it. So I just take plenty of pictures on my phone for them. I’v been working at a site for this past year and the building control officer lives just a few mile away. So if ur cute and phone into the office early on in the day before to book an inspection. They will stop in with you on there way to the office the next morning. I’m very lucky most of my work is only with in at the most 30minute drive from my house. So I only really have to deal with two different building control councils.

 

[JimboCX]

 

[JimboCX]

Here’s another found I poured recently for two houses. A on the map is my house B is the concrete batching plant and C is the site. Same as before concrete booked for 11am but with in the first 10 minutes of starting on site we seen the ground wasn’t the greatest. So quick phone call to dispatch push 11am load back untill 1pm and send down the next available lorry with a 8m of trench fill. Tipper lorry arrived on site within the hour and tipped off the trench fill. So we just dug out and back filled with the trench fill that was tipped up. Building control arrived saw it was being done right and were happy. Finished off with 300mm of wet stuff on top

 

[Monkeybusiness]

Here’s another found I poured recently for two houses. A on the map is my house B is the concrete batching plant and C is the site. Same as before concrete booked for 11am but with in the first 10 minutes of starting on site we seen the ground wasn’t the greatest. So quick phone call to dispatch push 11am load back untill 1pm and send down the next available lorry with a 8m of trench fill. Tipper lorry arrived on site within the hour and tipped off the trench fill. So we just dug out and back filled with the trench fill that was tipped up. Building control arrived saw it was being done right and were happy. Finished off with 300mm of wet stuff on top

What is trench fill? (I cut trees down, please forgive my ignorance).

 

[JimboCX]

What is trench fill? (I cut trees down, please forgive my ignorance).

Over here we call semi dry concrete that goes into foundations trench fill.

 

[Monkeybusiness]

Over here we call semi dry concrete that goes into foundations trench fill.

Is it the same mix as the wet pour, or doesn’t it matter?

 

[Jimoz]

Here’s another found I poured recently for two houses. A on the map is my house B is the concrete batching plant and C is the site. Same as before concrete booked for 11am but with in the first 10 minutes of starting on site we seen the ground wasn’t the greatest. So quick phone call to dispatch push 11am load back untill 1pm and send down the next available lorry with a 8m of trench fill. Tipper lorry arrived on site within the hour and tipped off the trench fill. So we just dug out and back filled with the trench fill that was tipped up. Building control arrived saw it was being done right and were happy. Finished off with 300mm of wet stuff on top

I feel like they way its going over here now BCO want an engineer to sign everything off. 5 and 10 years ago you'd just follow a tree table from nhbc or labc. Now from talking to people they don't want to put their cock on the block so expect you to have designed foundation. Perhaps it's just scaremongering? Other people here would know a lot more.

 

[DaveDCB]

Our bco have to see the whole foundation, they jump in and have a dig with spade etc! Even had colour charts comparing soil etc!

 

[hiluxman]

I feel like they way its going over here now BCO want an engineer to sign everything off. 5 and 10 years ago you'd just follow a tree table from nhbc or labc. Now from talking to people they don't want to put their cock on the block so expect you to have designed foundation. Perhaps it's just scaremongering? Other people here would know a lot more.

Yep, all a building control officer does is check what youve done is to what the design says. They won't make suggestions or tell you to do x y or z, it's literally yes that passes to what the drawing says.

Gone are the days when they'd say 'do this' and it'll be right.

 

[DaveDCB]

Yep, all a building control officer does is check what youve done is to what the design says. They won't make suggestions or tell you to do x y or z, it's literally yes that passes to what the drawing says.

Gone are the days when they'd say 'do this' and it'll be right.

Deffo more of this!
They don’t inspect drains anymore, so long as the plan is correct for back office staff to check bco don’t actually look at them, fob it off as workmanship!

 

[Jimoz]

Deffo more of this!
They don’t inspect drains anymore, so long as the plan is correct for back office staff to check bco don’t actually look at them, fob it off as workmanship!

Crazy. I hardly ever follow drawing on drains because the architects I use draw some basic plan and I cba with the back and forth to get it on paper how I'm actually planning to do it.

Do you or @hiluxman ever just pull a footing to a standard depth now like 1m in normal ground or do you have a design done on every job?

 

[hiluxman]

Crazy. I hardly ever follow drawing on drains because the architects I use draw some basic plan and I cba with the back and forth to get it on paper how I'm actually planning to do it.

Do you or @hiluxman ever just pull a footing to a standard depth now like 1m in normal ground or do you have a design done on every job?

Standard depth locally is 900mm in good ground, although this last year its been stipulated numerous times to put 2 lays of mesh in on the drawings.

Sometimes when it's dodgy ground the inspector will come out and want a designed footing, even though your through to decent stuff, again all arse covering.

Mind we did a footing a few weeks ago, solid rock got down around 700mm and we got the green light that they were happy mainly because it said 650mm minimum on the drawing.

 

[Smiffy]

How do you get insurance on a building without a footings design? I have never seen drawings without atleast one cross section of the footings from an engineer

 

[DaveDCB]

To be fair I’ve never ever had BCO walk a site with a plan infront of him, we chop and change that much as we go it’s never the same - and yet it’s never been picked up on

My Father in law once had BCO demand he pile an extension , they couldn’t even get a full tube in the ground !! Utter waste of everyone’s time and money!

 

[Jimoz]

How do you get insurance on a building without a footings design? I have never seen drawings without atleast one cross section of the footings from an engineer

Normally the architect has drawn the foundation in section and some notes on the drawing like 1m depth subject to inspection by bco. Last time I did some deep ones they were done off tree table and the depth increased where needed and stepped. Literally never had an engineer "design" a foundation but think that will change for the next place. Even gonna get a plasticity test beforehand. World's gone mad.

 

[DaveDCB]

My architect puts on standard 1m x600mm found, engineer then takes the plans and will change accordingly if there is any oversize steels/load bearing etc. we are on sand/clay so doesn’t really ever change. We had some big 9m wide openings on one and engineer still specced standard footings as ground was solid sand.

 

[Smiffy]

Normally the architect has drawn the foundation in section and some notes on the drawing like 1m depth subject to inspection by bco. Last time I did some deep ones they were done off tree table and the depth increased where needed and stepped. Literally never had an engineer "design" a foundation but think that will change for the next place. Even gonna get a plasticity test beforehand. World's gone mad.

I don't think I have ever seen drawings that haven't had steps and thickenings and widenings. Fairly standard to have window sampling or plate bearing tests or even just trial holes dug before a foundation design. Plus plate bearing tests and engineers design for the crane pad to lift the timber frame in.