Ground Grid, Dynogrid etc etc - anyone used this?

valve90210

valve90210

valve90210

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17 Jan 2006
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Hi All

At some point, one of the projects on my new house will be sorting the front garden. At present there is a concrete driveway and an area of grass, which has been parked on and has a couple of slabs which ahve sunk into the ground...it's essentially a mess.

My plan, in an ideal world would be to leave the driveway as it's fine really and as it'll be me doing the job I don't want to be smashing it all up and starting again!

Now, for the grass I'd like to use one of the products in the thread title, ground grid or dynogrid or something similar

examples:
http://www.rockwell-meriden.co.uk/shop/category.asp?c=130
http://www.wickes.co.uk/ground-base-grid/invt/222130/

If you don't know what it is, well, essentially it's squares of plastic griding about 30cm square and about 4cm deep which is laid down then filled with either gravel or earth.

One filled it can be used for parking, or pathways etc. Grass can grow through it so it looks good, and if using gravel it holds it in place so you don't end up with messy gravel or ruts etc.

Now, my question, has anyone used this stuff before?

I've been reading up and seen that it requires laying it on a prepared base which is essentially a hardcore layer topped with a layer of sandy for getting it level.

The grass area at the front of the house is your typical patch of post building site ground, which not much top soil and crappy earth with rubble etc in it. Do you think this would suffice considering I only really want to have the grid
in place so it's ok for parking on, on rare occasions when we have visitors etc?
 
Nightglow said:
Numerous brands available, I've use 'Bodpave' in the past, laid properly it will take a Load Bearing Capacity: up to 150 tonnes per sqm (crush resistance).
You can fill grids with gravel,shingle, or soil mixed with grass seed.
And use a Geotextile Fabric before laying sub base a type 3 or similar material.

http://www.boddingtons-ltd.com/prod...hp?gclid=CN_n0t7FmLcCFdDJtAodRHAAjg#anchor111
Click to expand...

What do you reckon on my situation regarding the nature of the front grass area I currently have? Will it be ok even if I'm not able to dig out and fill a 200m hardcore bed as it's only going to be for occassional use?
 
Sorry, my brain isn't working well this evening, can you explain that in terms a 2 year old might understand...lol

Do you mean box in the area, then dig out the top a bit, put down the geotextile stuff then fill with 50mm of sub base (would broken up bricks and concrete etc be ok for this?) compacted down (could I do this without need of a..erm one of those pneumatic squashing down type things?) then put the grid down?

Not sure what make of grid I'll end up using as I might be able to get it free from work...they have loads knocking about and the estate bursar said they could probably spare some for me...so fingers crossed...
 
Cheers, that's really helpful info, will be hard work but worth it I think. I will need to fill the area with hardcore which might prove tricky though I might ask a friend of mine who is in construction if he might be able to get me any for free...

Keeping my fingers firmly crossed that I might be able to get the grid from work for nothing or at least very cheap...
 
True, to be fair digging 100mm deep over the front will probably be less work than digging the trench I did in the back garden!

What did you do with the remaining 25tons? lol
 
Well, having spoken to the facilities department about the grid they have laying around unused I was told I can help myself, so yesterday I loaded the car up and got most of what I need. Today I have emptied everything possible out of the car and will load up again to get the rest and hopefully enough to do an area at my parents house too.

This will have saved me at least £300!!! :)

I'm excited to get on with this now, though I know it will be a lot of work and will still cost a fair bit with having to get aggregate etc.

I'm struggling to decide on whether to backfill with soil and grass the area or whether to go with gravel.

Grass would look nicer as it will give a nice patch of green which I do feel makes a frontage look nice. However it will need a fair bit of maintenance, mowing etc.

Gravel on the other hand with require no maintenance beside the occasion sweep here and there.

I intend to have beds round three of the sides of the grided area which could be stuffed full of lovely plants giving a nice bit of colour and life even if the grid is gravel filled.

The grass would also conceal the grid rather more than the gravel would and seeing as the grid is rather haevier duty than a lot of the grids I have seen online that would be a good thing...

AHHHHH can't decide!!!


Whatever I decide to do I have the plan for the installation taking shape in my head already though I'm sure it needs some work. I'm thinking dig down 100mm or so, a layer of geotextile fabric, then a 50mm layer of 10 - 20mm aggregate, (which I believe would need to be compacted?), another layer of geotextile then if grass seeding a layer of topsoil/sand mix or if gravelling just sand which the grid will be laid onto to give my flush level?

Does that sound about right?
 
I figured as much re the subbase, been investigating hiring a compactor, not hugely expensive so shouldn't be a problem! I did wonder how much it compacts down when using aggregate so tis good to know!

The grid is black and has wall which are thicker than most of the stuff I've seen online, probably 8-10mm (it's clearly very heavy duty stuff!!) So thinking gravel might look a mess. Despite the extra maintenance, the grass will probably be the option I go for.

One thing I've literally no idea about, is how much aggregate I'm going to need? The area I'm covering is approximately 4.5m x 3.9m and I need a 50mm layer once compacted...so how much would I need...and what do I ask for when trying to find a supplier?
 
Cool, cheers.

Yep will be using wooden surround to contain it...as per your suggestion earlier in the thread! :)

Have just loaded my car up with more grid, I now have plenty (I need 65(ish) for the area I'm doing) and I now have 114 pieces, so should be enough to do my parents area too! :)
 
Just called a place for the aggregate 2 tonnes would work out at about £106 delivered, does that sound about right? I'm in kent if that makes any difference...
 
I'll have a shop around I'm sure there are plenty of places in the area so I might be able to save a few quid, though having got the grid for nothing I'm still pretty much quids in compared with how much I thought it would cost!!! :)
 
Just looking into buying the geotextile fabrid and maybe some of the geotextile grid...though that seems to be only available in huge amounts and is very pricey!!!

Any chance you could link me to the right kind of geotextile fabric as there are various different ones (with lots of different names) and I'm not really sure exactly which one I need...
 
Cheers, I'll get some ordered over the weekend!

Looking to make a start on this tomorrow, little man is going to my parents for the day and the gf and I will be marking out and beginning the digging...

Once that's done i'll need to order up the aggregate and book a compactor for hire and keep fingers crossed that the weather holds and we can crack on with it.

Gonna be a lot of work but ultimately will be worth it.
 
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With several large stacks of grid down the side of the house, the nature of my weekend was rather dictated to me this weekend...crack on with sorting out the front garden!!!

11-2_zps7dcf6bde.jpg


I forgot to take a proper before photo but you can see from the estate agents pic when we purcahsed the house that the front garden was a bit of a mess. Next to the driveway there were several paving slabs thrown down to allow a second car to park on the garden, these had obviously been used a for quite some time and had sunk into the dirt a fair bit, the whole thing was uneven and the grass patchy.

Also, the front corner by next doors fence was a strange lump in the ground, (you can just about see it in the photo). It turned out to be a rubble sack about a 1/4 full of sand which had been left over when the neighbours had block paved their front garden and driveway, the previous occupant of our house asked if he could have it and then left the bag in the garden and didn't do anything with it...for about 12 years!!!

I had a go at digging it out but it was so well embedded and grown over there was no way I'd have managed to move it. As luck would have it my neighbours had a mini digger in a few weeks ago to do some work in their back garden and they very kindly used it to pull the bag out and we got rid of it!

So, Saturday my little boy went off to my parents for a few hours so my girlfriend and I could geto to work. We started by lifting and moving the slabs, the measuring and pegging out edges so we knew the area we needed to dig out.

20130608_124629_zps9a955e66.jpg


Then we began lifting the turf. This was a real pain of a job as the ground was so compacted from cars parking on it that the turf was really well bedded down and hard to lift. It doesn't help that the soil is very clayey and in the dry weather has gone very hard. Methodical cutting with a lawn edger and then lifting with a spade got the job done but it took a very long time.

It also didn't help that we had very little space to put the lifted turf anywhere, so we loaded the car and took what we could to the local tip and carried on.

Thankfully, being a nice hot day, an icecream van came past so after a couple of lemonade lollies each we had enough energy to get all the turf lifted and we could begin on breaking the ground up ready to dig down to our depth of 100mm...

2013-06-08173612_zps0a0757d8.jpg


This also proved to be hard work due to the hardness of the ground and the presence of a lot of lumps of broken brick etc that stopped the fork going into the ground at all but we made a decent start before out little man was delivered back to us and the work for the day stopped.

I had hope to really get on again on Sunday but unfortunately my girlfriend spent most of Saturday night being sick and Sunday was laid up in bed, leaving me to entertain our little monster!!!

Eventually the monster grew tired and fell asleep so I got back out into the garden with my trusty garden fork and continued breaking up the soil. As luck would have it my neighbour loaned me a pick axe which sped the job up rather though was much much harder work than the fork!!! So now the ground is pretty much all broken up ready to be dug out and taken to the tip!

2013-06-09162608_zps77571ac2.jpg


My Dad has gotten hold of loads of heavy duty sacks for me from his work so tonight I intend to bag up as much of the soil as possible ready for the tip, then at the weekend I'll hopefully be able to get rid of it all and we'll be able to get the edge boarding in place ready for the geotextile material (which I need to order today) and the aggregate in place!
 
Terram arrived yesterday - glad I didn't pay any extra for next day delivery!

Tuesday evening the girlfriend and I bagged up about 20 sacks ready to go to the tip at the weekend, sadly it only got rid of the pile of removed turf you can see in the photo above and a bit of the soil. It's going to be a real pig of a job to get rid of it all and get the ground level ready for the fabric and then the aggregate!!! :(
 
Yeah, it probably would have been though the tip is not far away. The problem I have is that with out little 17month monster about we can't be sure when exactly we can get anything much done so could end up not making the most of having the skip.
 
Well, I've been doing more digging and now the garden is really starting to look dug out rather than just broken up.

I have decided that as it is only going to be grass growing in the grid I might as well keep the soil I've been digging out to use for laying the grid onto rather than buying nice proper top soil as I was going to do.

So I've been shovelling it into a couple of big bulk sacks I had lying around and now have one almost completely full and one about a third full.
 
Only dawned on me the other day that there was really no need for lovely soil as it's only going to be grass growing in the grid, so made sense to reuse and means I'll save a bit of money from what I had planned too.
 
Well, having had a few weeks of very little digging, a holiday and very little money etc, I'm finally getting on with this project again.

Some digging on Saturday (which nearly killed me due to the heat and I'm very nearly at the point of being dug out far enough to crack on with the terram and the aggregate.

I'm taking a day off on Friday and my plan is get the edges boarded to contain the grid but I have a couple of questions first...

1) Timber for framing

I'm thinking of using 6 x 2inch timber (145mm x 45mm) as the depth of the grid needs to be 100mm and I want a raised lip around it to help maintain separation and edges of the beds which will be on three sides of the grid.

Now, what type of timber should I be looking at? Wickes (my easiest supplier) has kiln dried and treated timber but it says not for use in direct ground contact??? For structural work I can see that it makes sense but would it be ok for framing the grid?

http://www.wickes.co.uk/kiln-dried-treated-regular-45x145mmx36m/invt/190169/

2) Checking digging depth

I'm thinking for, checking the depth I've dug out I can use a long straight piece of wood and a couple of lengths of the correct depth wood. That way I can lay the long length across the area resting it on the frames which will be set at the correct depth then see if depth bits fit in nicely...if too shallow I will need a bit more digging, if much too deep, bung a bit of soil back in.

Are there any better/easier methods than this?

3) Checking aggregate depth

When it comes to the depth of the compacted aggregate again I'm not sure how to gauge the depth. I have read about marking the framing with the correct depths and working to those, which round the edge seems simple enough...however when it comes to middle I'm a little unsure.

My guess would be to be work in sort of rows and set up a string line at the side of the row at the level going from the framing and work to that then when it's correct move the string line and do another row? Does that sound about right?

Any help or advice very, very welcome indeed (particularly with the timber question - as that's what I'm hoping to achieve on friday) as this is the first time I've tackled such a project and I'm not really sure on what I'm doing!! - I think I've taken too long and given myself too much time to think and introduce worries!!! lol
 
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