Forum

Replies

• 

  Jenny Peterson March 6, 2010 at 2:58pm

  We lay down a plywood "boardwalk" for wheelbarrows to go over. This disperses the weight evenly over the grass surface and avoids trenches being made in the by the wheels. The grass might still get flattened, but it's never been ruined.
• 

  Tim Haywood March 6, 2010 at 3:26pm

  Plywood boards here too - 4x8' sheets cut in half for ease of handling. Even the 6mm ply is effective for protecting grass from foot traffic / wheelbarrows, although you will need to go thicker for a muck truck. I put a couple of the sheets down under skips to stop scratches on drives too.
  
  Not strictly landscaping but I'm a big fan of tarps too. Used when hedgecutting and especially when siting the shredder in a garden. Much easier to cleanup from a tarp and I think it looks more professional.
• 

  Kieran Ray March 6, 2010 at 4:08pm

  we put full 8x4 ply down usually OSB as we use it to pile all the earth etc on for the grab lorry and for the mixing area. I have 10 boards in the yard and just get in more if we need them. The OSB is great for running machinery over to as it disperses the weight over a much larger area.
• 

  Angela Palmerton March 6, 2010 at 4:55pm

  I use old scaffold boards - cheap as chips from scaffold companies who sell-off their old boards which are perfectly good for landscapers etc but not up to HSE for actual scaffolding. Never knackered a lawn yet (let's hope I'm not speaking too soon!)
• 

  Nicky @ GardenImprovements.com March 7, 2010 at 9:20am

  Seems like everybody so far has the same methods! We use a mixture of "scaffy planks" and ply boards and tarps - the site ends up looking like something out of Mad Max!
  
  We have also been looking for a protection mesh either to hire or buy for our future projects. I know that these perform very well even under the duress of diggers and dumpers. Does anyone already use these products?
  
  Nicky @ GardenImprovements.com
• PRO

  Phil Voice March 7, 2010 at 9:49am

  On the whole we would use scaffold boards but we also had some roll out lawn protectors which were in fact covers from a drainage channel around a swimming pool - very strong.
• 

  Charles Langford March 7, 2010 at 4:53pm

  We use plyboard, hardboard and osb, anything that is lieing around really. We were paving last week and had at least 20 tonnes of materials in and out of a garden using a jcb micro digger, muck truck, tracked dumper and my old power barrow and the grass is fine underneath (same can't be said of the 200m worth of grass paths that we didn't cover! I am looking at buying some recycled plastic boards (http://www.solwayrecycling.co.uk/products/stokbord.asp) for the future primamrily for this but also to create bases for dumping stuff to be collected by grab hires, underneath the mixer etc... The thinking behind this is that they wont absorb water like ply etc and become heavy, they wont break as easily as ply (especially prone to breaking when a grab grabs them). They can be power hosed. So all of these factors should mean that they last longer and therefore cost less in the long terms. Oh and they are recycled. Slightly concerend that they might get slippy though!
• 

  Kieran Ray March 7, 2010 at 6:27pm

  If you use OSB for the muck heap the grab is less likely to damage a whole sheet just take a corner or so, that's why we use it. Also its was a recommendation from our builders merchant and grab company!
  
  Charles Langford said:

  We use plyboard, hardboard and osb, anything that is lieing around really. We were paving last week and had at least 20 tonnes of materials in and out of a garden using a jcb micro digger, muck truck, tracked dumper and my old power barrow and the grass is fine underneath (same can't be said of the 200m worth of grass paths that we didn't cover! I am looking at buying some recycled plastic boards (http://www.solwayrecycling.co.uk/products/stokbord.asp) for the future primamrily for this but also to create bases for dumping stuff to be collected by grab hires, underneath the mixer etc... The thinking behind this is that they wont absorb water like ply etc and become heavy, they wont break as easily as ply (especially prone to breaking when a grab grabs them). They can be power hosed. So all of these factors should mean that they last longer and therefore cost less in the long terms. Oh and they are recycled. Slightly concerend that they might get slippy though!
• 

  Neil Petrie BSc Landscape Mgt March 7, 2010 at 6:35pm

  Despite using ply boards over a grass verge at the beginning of a large job we are still working on my dumper driver one day decided to forget to put them down one morning before running 32 tons of topsoil in. I hadn't been on site that day and they had been lifted the previous evening whilst tidying up.
  
  Just another bit of unnecessary snagging at the end of the job. Hey ho! The joys.
• 

  Charles Langford March 7, 2010 at 9:55pm

  Very true, but osb gets so heavy when wet and disintegrates pretty quickly
  
  Kieran Ray said:

  If you use OSB for the muck heap the grab is less likely to damage a whole sheet just take a corner or so, that's why we use it. Also its was a recommendation from our builders merchant and grab company!
  
  Charles Langford said:

  We use plyboard, hardboard and osb, anything that is lieing around really. We were paving last week and had at least 20 tonnes of materials in and out of a garden using a jcb micro digger, muck truck, tracked dumper and my old power barrow and the grass is fine underneath (same can't be said of the 200m worth of grass paths that we didn't cover! I am looking at buying some recycled plastic boards (http://www.solwayrecycling.co.uk/products/stokbord.asp) for the future primamrily for this but also to create bases for dumping stuff to be collected by grab hires, underneath the mixer etc... The thinking behind this is that they wont absorb water like ply etc and become heavy, they wont break as easily as ply (especially prone to breaking when a grab grabs them). They can be power hosed. So all of these factors should mean that they last longer and therefore cost less in the long terms. Oh and they are recycled. Slightly concerend that they might get slippy though!