Could anyone with any experience of this let me know what your thoughts are please?

There’s an inspection pit under a car port in our new place. I’m getting rid of the car port and also want to fill in the pit so the area can be used as driveway. My plan was to fill it with some of the arisings from removing the car port (there’s a concrete beam and a brick pillar), but what’s the best way to do this to ensure a stable surface? The port also has a base of large rocks (I know, sounds mental) which I thought I could use in the bottom of the pit, then fill in layers of smashed bricks and concrete with more large rocks. Maybe I’d manually tamp everything down in layers, and when it comes to the last 100mm just infill with type 1, sand and cut some blocks to form the surface before the usual finishing touches.

How would this sound? The rest of this area is concrete but I don’t mind a block patch as it’s an out of sight area anyway. I could just as easily pour concrete in the last 100mm?

Do you reckon this would be stable enough?

Broken bricks and concrete = hardcore. Perfect material if well compacted in layers.

All depends if it will hold water? If it will hold water then you need to break through the base to allow drainage or it will fill up and you’ll end up with a big soft spot regardless of the Hardcore.

I refuse to supply a sensible answer given you didn’t return to your previous thread to show us the disastrous aftermath of taking down the car port. So here is a picture of a bunny with a pancake on its head. Its not my bunny, or my picture for that matter.

So here is a picture of a bunny with a pancake on its head. Its not my bunny, or my picture for that matter.

But is it your pancake ??

Unless you use lean mix concrete or fill with a well graded granular material compacted to an engineering specification you will always get settlement (even with the above a certain amount will occur).

Best bet for a home brew is to put some drainage holes in the base of the pit and try and crush the infill material as small as possible, potentially mixed with some Type 1 / 6F2 as it goes in and compact in 200-300mm layers with a wacker plate / compactor. A small trench rammer would probably be easiest to operate in a small space like that.

Personally I would consider how much getting shot of the rubble would cost in a skip and how many a couple of steel road plates laid over it would cost.

If you want to go for your quick and dirty method I would suggest upping the thickness of the poured concreted slab at surface and consider if you can throw a pice of 5-6mm steel mesh in as reinforcement which with help with the differential settlement.

STATO – Member
I refuse to supply a sensible answer given you didn’t return to your previous thread to show us the disastrous aftermath of taking down the car port. So here is a picture of a bunny with a pancake on its head. Its not my bunny, or my picture for that matter.

Not done it yet! We don’t get legal and full ownership until next Friday 🙂 So I thought it best and polite to wait until then at least.

wrightyson – Member
All depends if it will hold water? If it will hold water then you need to break through the base to allow drainage or it will fill up and you’ll end up with a big soft spot regardless of the Hardcore.

Hadn’t even thought of that… sledgehammer at the ready

It sounds like you want to keep the concrete base and just fill the pit up to that level, is that right?

Perforating the bottom of the pit is quick to do this with a long 20-30mm sds drill. Make sure you do a soakaway test first before you infill. Rather than infill you could just sit a steel plate on the top of the pit, the pit might come in handy one day.

Otherwise the easy way to fill in the pit IMHO is just to use concrete which can be considerably bulked up using blocks of rubble. Then you know it ia not going to settle and IMHO more fun and less hassle than mashing up and compacting rubble.

I’d estimate 20-30 wives/ex-wives should fill it, put an ad on Gumtree.

I’d estimate 20-30 wives/ex-wives should fill it, put an ad on Gumtree.

I’ve got a mother-in-law to offer…..PLEASE!

If you’re planning to finish with concrete, leave it with a rubble top for a winter or two, to give it time to settle. Especially if other building work is going on near: stuff stood on it or wheeled over it, that kind of thing.

Fill it with polystyrene?

http://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/cowgate-roundabout-more-half-filled-10071267

I’m with one_happy_hippy and slowoldgit, their advice is sound.

You’re not thinking straight – this is what you need…

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