A bit excessive for a bean trench?

[Sylvan]

Seriously though, the soil we took out seems pretty good all the way down (ETA: It's the water main, which has burst at least six times in the last 3 or 4 years so the topsoil and subsoil will have been pretty well mixed) so I'd like to use it, mixed with old growbags etc, for raised beds. Would that be OK?

How much of it can I steal? I thought we could fill the bottom couple of feet of the trench with sand ('cos it's a lot cheaper than soil) and just have 6" or so under the turf. Will that be sufficient?

[arpoet]

Wow... Looks like Time Team, it will take some filling. I would dig in loads of H/M compost and shreaded paper and manure if you have some.
Roger

[Sylvan]

hehe. Where's Tony Robinson when you need him?

It's mostly under the lawn (plus a corner of a flower bed, a wall and a path). We have all the soil that came out of it but instead of putting it back in I wanted to use it to fill some raised beds. I was wondering if it would harm the lawn to only have 6" or so of topsoil under the turf (with 18"-2' of sand under that)?

...and whether subsoil would be OK in the veg beds if we mixed it with compost?

[Nicos]

My gut feeling is that it'd drain very differently- and you might end up with a dry, scorched line of turf during the summer months. Not very pretty


I'm sure you could nick some though!!!
Are you putting a time capsule in there with the new pipes????

[Sylvan]

Ooh, that's an idea. We could use the old tupperware box that smells of washing powder. What would you put in a time capsule though?

I suppose we could use the bath water to keep it hydrated (the lawn, not the time capsule). New builds tend to have just a shallow layer of topsoil chucked down under the turf don't they? How much do you think we'd need?

[Potstubsdustbins]

Sylvan,

Sorry I am not very good on lawns but not bad on water services. I am most surprised you have had that many bursts in such a short time.

A couple of things you might consider water bylaws require that a water service be at least 2ft deep to prevent frost damage.

Also so it is normal to lay the pipe on clean sand and then back fill with clean sand to several inchs deep. Plastic water pipes can easily be degraded if they are in contact with sharp stones, old bricks etc.

Hope you get your grass sorted Colin.

[Sylvan]

Thanks Colin.
I'll order a ton of sand in the morning.

It's a 90 year old lead pipe (now interspersed with several short lengths of plastic). Our latest incident was so close to last September's join that we actually thought the joint was leaking! The water board say that once it passes your boundary it becomes your responsibility, so they charge to fix it and only do the bare minimum.

[Potstubsdustbins]

Sylvan,

Ah I could only see the plastic. The water authority are correct in what they say.

What most people don't realise is that what they call the stop cock in the street/road is in actual facted call a `boundry box` and that this marks the boundry between their responsibility and the house owners.

MDPE `blue pipe` is really quite cheap 20mm £23-33p + vat for 50 mtrs would it be a possibility to replace more of it whilst the trench is open?

You might even have a quite word with the lads who are working there. (did I say that)?

Colin

[Sylvan]

That's what we're up to. We bought a roll of pipe and the fittings and decided to do it this week while the weather's good, but it's not too hot so the turf is less likely to dry out while we're working.

With any luck it will knit back together before the hot summer days arrive.

[Potstubsdustbins]

Sylvan,

Good luck thats some heavy work you have taken on. Don't forget to test it before you backfill. Wouldn't be the first time I have had to dig down to tighten a joint, makes you look a right `plonker` when your supposed to be a pro.

Colin

[Sylvan]

hehe. That's the advantage of being amateurs - being allowed to look like plonkers.