Hovis builds a garden office*

Couple of hours with a spade and I've more or less reached that conclusion too. Will look into hiring a micro digger. Anyone got a recommendation in SE london?

Also, this network of roots, it won't be a problem for the digger I presume?

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Depends how big a digger you get and how big the roots are. A micro digger will get those out, just may be a bit of a pain of digging round them and trying to either cut them or get the teeth underneath and pull. Get the biggest digger you can fit, the bigger it is the more stable it is, I have driven everything from 0.7 tonne up to 20 tonne, and the 0.7s are the easiest to go wrong in!

Show us your digger.

It’s old and a bit rough round the edges but it digs and digs...

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Livin' the dream.

Epic day with all the power tools today. This 70 year old Ash tree stump is an absolute beast.

Big shout out to @TTM and his kango skills for making short work of the concrete wall.

Tomorow this stump comes out

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My entire upper body aches. Fun though

This is the only way I know how to remove a stump
https://youtu.be/mQpMqM4fOeI

Ha, I gave up and went down a not dissimilar route.

Cut a vertical hole with the chainsaw down the centre, and a few with a drill, a couple of sideways entries at the base for ventilation, filled it with white spirit and lit it. Shoved some coals on there for good measure and then surrounded with wood for maximum fire.

Didn't have a chance to look at it this morning but I hope its hollowed out at least. This thing has broken me.

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Had a little helper with the digging too.

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You have just dug a giant cat toilet though

Better there than the plant pots in the house.

Did it die?

Got to do this myself soon. Albeit on smaller younger (fast growth) trees.

If you have to do it again I hear some kind of barrier (to concentrate the burn) and maybe an air source to really get it going.

It lives. Fire took out a fair bit with a bit of hollowing, but no where near enough. Will be trying again tonight and sit next to it with the leaf blower.

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Hiring a stump grinder would a lot quicker, Shirley?

Indeed. £130 for a day or £150 for a weekend from most hire places.

Would take about 20 minutes to reduce that, and everything 20cm below ground, to nothing.

We're paying ~£200 for someone to come around and take out about 12 stumps (spread between the gardens of the three flats in this house).

Let's just say that if I ever have to remove a tree stump again, I shall be doing it properly with a grinder.

I elected to do it this way because I wanted to get rid of it a lot deeper than 20cm, (this is nearly a meter below the original ground level), so I had to dig anyway, and after I dug I thought I'll just cut it with my chainsaw then.

But yeah, dirty wood and chainsaws don't mix. Lesson learnt.

However, I am happy to report my latest method is working nicely. Thanks @tallsam for the inspiration.

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How's the build coming along? I've got the floor down on mine and am about to start framing the walls.

Not much interesting progress to report. I got the stumps out and done the bulk of the digging but I've hurt hand which has slowed me down.

I want to move to a concrete base now but am having reservations about my ability to do a good job of it myself, so I've started asking around for quotes to have it done professionally.

First one came in at £5900 for a 6 x 4 x 0.1m slab with rebar. I'm hoping that is an outlier bullshit price but we'll see what the others come back with.

Could post a pic of the burnt out tree stump result if you like. The suspense was killing me until I forgot all about it.

That does seem high. I paid £1k for a similar sized slab, not in London, but can’t believe it is 6x more expensive.

Laying a slab is pretty straight forward, especially as your width is less than 4.8m, means you can easily make a frame and then run a bit of wood over the top to level it off.

My friends' made a shed/studio for themselves and I helped them do the base. We did it ourselves and just asked about in the pub how to do it etc. The final result isn't a super smooth result but it was good enough to stick some laminate flooring on top once the structure was on top. They set up the hardcore base, did the mould and what not and ordered the concrete. While the concrete van was pumping it in, we were smoothing/levelling. It would have been nice to have had time to do a proper final screed to get a smooth finish on top but it was getting pretty dark and had no work lights (or st lights as they are in the sticks!) Good luck!

@russmeyer
I forgot to take one! The burning was successful though, the coals sunk down low enough that I could then split it into 5 pieces with my big axe, 1 for each of the roots and then yank them out. Each root was 30cm in diameter, was a real pain to do but it had to be done.

@Sam_w
Yeah I wont be using them. I've had another chap who will do the last 10cm of excavation and leveling for me and the slab with rebar for 1.8k. DIY would cost approx £500 less, not including any misc tools that I'm sure I'd need to get and stress so think I'll go for the pro option

Apologies, I know this is a DIY thread and I cheating already, but that will hopefully be the first and last.

Will be ordering all the studwork timber for the weekend and get started with that side of things while I wait for the slab to be done the week after.

Does anyone have any thoughts on the dpm being above or below the slab? It's going to be 15cm thick above ground, with 10cm of hardcore below. If I put the dpm below the slab it I'm wondering if I risk the sides that come up and under the stud walls being exposed and potential for damage?

Your Groundworker should have included for a layer of 1000 gauge Visqueen, (or similar),
between the compacted hard core and the reinforced concrete.
This will prevent your concrete base becoming saturated over time.
You then need layers of dpm between the slab and any timber.

Yeah he said he would put the dpm beneath the slab but I'm just wondering how the detail works. Do you cut the edges at the slab, or are you supposed to fold them up and under the bottom plate of your stud walls?