Soil Cement (soil stabilisation)

[Polecat]

Has anyone on here used this method for a patio base, i was thinking of using this method as a base to lay or bed Indian sandstone slabs on, it would save digging a 3 tonne of sandy soil out & importing 3 tonnes type one in.
It would only have foot traffic on slabs, no vehicles

 

[Brendan]

Dig it out and stone it up or use proper concrete.

 

[doobin]

Has anyone on here used this method for a patio base, i was thinking of using this method as a base to lay or bed Indian sandstone slabs on, it would save digging a 3 tonne of sandy soil out & importing 3 tonnes type one in.
It would only have foot traffic on slabs, no vehicles

I think they pulverise it all up and mix in quicklime.

I don't see how you will sucessfully mix it all up and incorporate the lime properly with less cost than just chucking in four bulk bags of stone. If you try a rotavator be sure to wear full PPE with the lime! I'd be interested in results.

 

[Polecat]

Dig it out and stone it up or use proper concrete.

i'm not tight honest, i'm just thinking economically, if i need to spend time & money digging it out and stoning it, I will

 

[Canal Navvy]

I think they pulverise it all up and mix in quicklime.

I don't see how you will sucessfully mix it all up and incorporate the lime properly with less cost than just chucking in four bulk bags of stone. If you try a rotavator be sure to wear full PPE with the lime! I'd be interested in results.

Isn't the use of lime in soil stabilisation generally used on clay soils to reduce the shrink/swell to acceptable limits ?

 

[Brendan]

i'm not tight honest, i'm just thinking economically, if i need to spend time & money digging it out and stoning it, I will

It's not about being tight, it's not done for a reason.
Don't think it's quite as simple as just banging some cement in to the soils and mixing, it would depend on what material it's is, it's aggregate size and moisture.
Your still going to have to dig the vegetation off, so depending on what your final levels are you might have to bring stone in anyway.
No idea on what depth you would need to do as would need to be calculated properly.
Then for the cement if it's something like 10% per volume, that's 15 bags of cement or around £100, no idea if that's a correct amount if it's more like 15% it's 23 bags or £150 ish, then there is all the time to dig it, mix it and then compact it
As your saying 3t out and in I'm guessing the area is around 8.5m2 if you dig out 180mm, it's just not worth the effort or the trial and error, you could try the soil stabilization and it works but if it doesn't it will cost you more to have to redo it

 

[JD450A]

It's more complicated than you realise. You can use cement, lime and a myriad of other binders but it gets very sciency to do it right.

 

[Canal Navvy]

If the ground is that sandy I would think about giving it a good whack and then lay on grit sand. A lot of street pavements where traditionally bedding on grit

 

[doobin]

Isn't the use of lime in soil stabilisation generally used on clay soils to reduce the shrink/swell to acceptable limits ?

A hydraulic lime would work on sandy soils. Mind you cement would work better I should think.

See what KM Goulding use!