Harold’s hire

[doobin]

What have you used to support the sleepers?

 

[Hg2702]

It’s a 300 wide trench Concreted 450 into the ground and dry concrete packed in behind plus a 100mm slab up against it . Tallest sleeper out the ground was 900

 

[doobin]

Would be better practice to use oak sleepers. You are (unless I'm mistaken) relying upon the screws through to do all the retaining? So not only will softwood rot in aroudn 5 years, it will not have to rot that much to allow the screws to pull out and the wall to collapse. A large part of my business is fixing walls such as that. That and the ridiculous softwood crib walls with thirty tons of shingle behind that thick as s**t builders insist upon constructing.


Still, could be worse. This was a job I filled in behind last week, and I could tell it was dodgy. Only 3" posts trying to hold it up! Told the bloke. He said it'll be fine. Got sent this photo this morning...

So I've welded him up some steels to do it properly....


This is how you do a billy bollocks job. You can attach ground anchors to them too for proper retaining and it's pretty fast to errect.

 

[JD450A]

I tend to put em down on compacted crushed and then build them up drilling and Pinning. With a few Dead legs back into the bank to serve as retaining.

 

[Hg2702]

It comes down to price at the end of the day regarding sleepers. Theses are treated and the ones further down the garden have been in 15 years and are still there. I personally prefer to use steels but they didn’t want to

Not sure where the screws come into it ? The top sleeper is screwed down to the upright ones and with 100mm of concrete around both sides I can’t see it moving personally also with a 7ft square 100mm thick base against it. The slabs are on made up ground the most it’s retaining is the other side which is 3ft of garden

 

[Hg2702]

I tend to put em down on compacted crushed and then build them up drilling and Pinning. With a few Dead legs back into the bank to serve as retaining.

It’s in heavitree stone here thank Christ it was raining the day I dug it out

 

[doobin]

It comes down to price at the end of the day regarding sleepers. Theses are treated and the ones further down the garden have been in 15 years and are still there. I personally prefer to use steels but they didn’t want to

Not sure where the screws come into it ? The top sleeper is screwed down to the upright ones and with 100mm of concrete around both sides I can’t see it moving personally also with a 7ft square 100mm thick base against it. The slabs are on made up ground the most it’s retaining is the other side which is 3ft of garden

That makes perfect sense. I couldn't see the upright sleepers and assumed it was a stack of sleepers with uprights sleepers behind them screwed to them.

15 years or so ago was when they banned CCAs from the tanalising mix, and it's just been s**t since then. There are posts on the hill above me that seem as solid as the day they went in in 2003- but stuff put in five years ago has failed already.

 

[Hg2702]

You can see when you cut through it how much treatment isn’t in them Had me worried for a minute then thought I’d have to give her your number to come and sort it had the been horizontal steels would of been in place that said the ground around here is like concrete in places it had the micro on its toes !

 

[GazCro]

I tend to try and avoid sleeper walls if I can. Nigh on impossible to get decent quality old railway sleepers now and the modern water treated timber is a waste of time buried imo.

 

[Hg2702]

The reclaimed ones vary so much these days we went through 16 on a job recently trying to make up a wall of 4

At the end of the day it’s what the customer wanted and it matches the rest of the garden

 

[JD450A]

I refuse to use the modern s**t.

Regarding quality of old sleepers, IMHO you want rustic use sleepers, you want modern build a f****ng wall.

 

[Danny]

Any job when you can squeeze a micro in is a winner!

Ive just been asked to price a sleeper wall never done one before dont really want to do it but as its part of another larger package got to do one to get the other .

Bloody things 50m L with x 2 15m returns at either end what should you use as back fill no fines concrete? Or just 50/100mm drainage stone with a land drain at the bottom?

 

[JD450A]

Any job when you can squeeze a micro in is a winner!

Ive just been asked to price a sleeper wall never done one before dont really want to do it but as its part of another larger package got to do one to get the other .

Bloody things 50m L with x 2 15m returns at either end what should you use as back fill no fines concrete? Or just 50/100mm drainage stone with a land drain at the bottom?

How high is it.

Personally 40mm Clean.

 

[doobin]

I tend to try and avoid sleeper walls if I can. Nigh on impossible to get decent quality old railway sleepers now and the modern water treated timber is a waste of time buried imo.

Virgin oak is pretty good. If you use steels like I do it’s modular too so much less hassle to change them over down the line.

 

[V8Druid]

Any job when you can squeeze a micro in is a winner!

Ive just been asked to price a sleeper wall never done one before dont really want to do it but as its part of another larger package got to do one to get the other .

Bloody things 50m L with x 2 15m returns at either end what should you use as back fill no fines concrete? Or just 50/100mm drainage stone with a land drain at the bottom?

How high is it.

Personally 40mm Clean.

drainage is the key with any retainer ... soil etc. tends to sit where it's put ... introduce water and all it wants to do is escape downhill

 

[fred]

Would be better practice to use oak sleepers. You are (unless I'm mistaken) relying upon the screws through to do all the retaining? So not only will softwood rot in aroudn 5 years, it will not have to rot that much to allow the screws to pull out and the wall to collapse. A large part of my business is fixing walls such as that. That and the ridiculous softwood crib walls with thirty tons of shingle behind that thick as s**t builders insist upon constructing.


Still, could be worse. This was a job I filled in behind last week, and I could tell it was dodgy. Only 3" posts trying to hold it up! Told the bloke. He said it'll be fine. Got sent this photo this morning...

View attachment 18677

So I've welded him up some steels to do it properly....


This is how you do a billy bollocks job. You can attach ground anchors to them too for proper retaining and it's pretty fast to errect.

View attachment 18678View attachment 18679View attachment 18680

problem with steel posts they look gash when finished.

Conc posts behind (canted back a bit) and hidden bolts. More work but looks a lot cleaner where the project warrants it.

 

[doobin]

problem with steel posts they look gash when finished.

Conc posts behind (canted back a bit) and hidden bolts. More work but looks a lot cleaner where the project warrants it.

If they want a fully wood look. Plenty seem to like the steel posts and they give a very clean look when finished right.

If using bolts then you could use an eye nut on the top bolt of each concrete post and use that to attach a ground anchor to.

 

[JD450A]

I would personally refuse to build using that method, the beauty of RSJ's is that there is a large surface area on the outside of the beam for support. Bolts through would require either flat bar bands or large washers to spread the load if it's properly retaining. Too much aggro and too much likelihood of sudden failure in the future IMHO.

 

[Hg2702]

New bucket arrived curtsey of @CPS very happy with it

 

[Furniss]

New bucket arrived curtsey of @CPS very happy with it

Those pipes/fitting to the tilt ram look very likely to get snecked off