How best to fill this large hole (in the garden)…..DIY/builder experts please.

You could always do a proper job and dig it out. I bought a house with a similar but thicker concrete pond in the middle of the garden. It took 5 days to break it out, but I did it. Sod’s Law says that it will be in the way when you want to extend / build something, so get rid now.

Break out all that concrete that makes up the sides and floor, then break the bricks and concrete down into sub 63mm pieces, mix with sand and clay from elsewhere in the garden to form a fill material.

Compact in 300mm layers not too wet, not too dry until you are at finished level.

Jus to note all the trade-sounding posts on here advocating just burying it.

No wonder I’ve found so much buried crap over the years. Too many people happy to get 6 inches of topsoil over it and job jobbed.

Will this fit up your sideway?

😉

TooTall – Member
You could always do a proper job and dig it out. I bought a house with a similar but thicker concrete pond in the middle of the garden. It took 5 days to break it out, but I did it. Sod’s Law says that it will be in the way when you want to extend / build something, so get rid now.

I doubt it would take too long to break all the concrete blocks out (although I might go and get a few more suitable tools if I were to), but I’d just be chucking them all back in the whole.

Or would advocate digging it all out, filling with soil and then just the required depth of hardcore for laying patio slabs on (200mm?)?

I could do that and I know that situations change, but I can’t see us ever getting/needing an extension and I don’t like conservatories….but I see your point.

tarquin – Member
Break out all that concrete that makes up the sides and floor, then break the bricks and concrete down into sub 63mm pieces, mix with sand and clay from elsewhere in the garden to form a fill material.

Sub 63mm pieces! That’s a bit precise isn’t it? 😀 And why break down the sides and floor just to chuck it back in the hole?
And mixing with sand/clay from elsewhere in the garden……how will that work? I don’t have excess sand/clay just sitting around. I’ll end up with a bloody great hole where i’ve dug out the soil to mix in with the rubble to fill the hole….and then how will I fill that hole? Eek!

40mpg – unfortunately not. Looks like fun though. Goes and googles ‘mini stone crusher for hire’……

I think I will stick with the ‘break it up a bit, chuck it in, add some hardcore and be done’ school of thought…..

Fill it with foam and practice your backflips?