Once the gates were fitted I realised that there wasn’t enough space to drive a car in and then close the gates behind it. More space was created with the help of a grab lorry removing a big pile of unusable bricks from the garden wall.
3.5m seems like a good width for the gates. The lorry had no trouble getting through and had space to manoeuvrer to avoid the Renault 5 and the drain cover.
Spurred on by the extra space generated by removing the rubble I cut the pallets into firewood and ordered a skip for the big pile of rubbish that started building up last year.
I’m surprised it all fitted into the skip. I thought it was going to take 2 skips.
Sounds like a Swedish English translation but it is really true! The tower that has been there for the last year has been tidied away. I have a very welcome 3 month contract so progress is going to slow again. I’m having a tidy inside and outside and finding long lost tools.
Wiring isn’t done yet. I’ve given up trying to find an electrician. Job is awkward and they have plenty of non-awkward work they can do instead. Electrics will be down to me.
Christmas lights are still up. I’ll need a scaffold tower to take them down. 🙂
I put the posts in for a fence with gates on the driveway. I had hoped to put them a little further to the right but that area is full of services and there wasn’t a safe place to dig. I did try but found a gas pipe in an unexpected place. The posts holes are 3 feet deep and my arms are sore now.
The gates are quite wide with a 3.5m opening. I’m going to claim that’s so a skip lorry will be able to manoeuvrer so I get the skip where I want it. Actually I first marked out a smaller opening and it didn’t look wide enough so I made it a bit wider. Now the posts are up it looks huge!
A day later the fences are finished. Just the gates to make now. On the right the arris rails are mounted on brackets screwed to the existing post. On the left I’ve screwed a post onto the wall. Neither will take much load.
With the fence in place the opening is looking smaller again.
The gate frames were positioned in place using clamps and spacers and the feather edge boards added later. I had to remove the diagonals and adjust the gates to account for the sloping site.
The lock isn’t in place yet. I’ve found one that can be unlocked from both sides of the gate. Gate open stays aren’t in place either. I’m using a bucket of water to hold the gates open.
It’s ended up looking quite neat from the outside. The fence is not straight as it has to follow the shape of the driveway, and there is also a 20mm tip up in the middle of the gates to allow for settling as the wood dries out.
The diagonals are also removable for later adjustment in case I run into trouble. The wood was supplied soaked through so I’m expecting shrinkage issues.
