Tunbury Primary School gets Artificial Grass – part 1
How it started
About 6 weeks ago we were approached by the deputy Headmistress of Tunbury Primary School in Kent, Miss King to do a site visit and provide a quote for artificial grass at the school. On the arrange day we drove the short distance from our office in Sidcup down the A2 to the school in Walderslade in Kent. Miss King showed us the area in the pouring rain (it always seems to rain when I do site visits). I measured up with my foot in plaster (due to ruptured Achilles tendon) whilst Louise (my significant other and chauffeur) took cover under the tree and talked about shopping!
The area is very tricky it is about 350 sqm in total and has already been dug out, shaped and cleared with a mini digger (the worst part). Not all the area was being covered in fake grass but it had a very difficult contour. I put together a quote there and then as I do not agree with these companies that site visit even small gardens and cannot come up with a costing for a few weeks (if you know your job , you should know to the penny what it will cost you to install).
Successful quote
After a few weeks (which is very good for a school as they usually takes months to decide), Miss King informed us that she would like to accept our quote. Great…that’s the easy part, now to start planning. You may think it is straight forward but trust me it takes military style planning for a job on this scale if you are a small company like myself.
The Itinerary
I placed several orders after a morning on the phone for the following to be delivered:-
- 20 Tonnes of type 1
- 15 Tonnes of granite dust
- 4 yard skip
- hired a mini digger
- hired a mini dumper
- 300 sqm of membrane
- 100 metres of timber (3×2 and 4×2)
- 8 Bags of cement
- 1 Tonne of ballast
These products had to be collected or delivered at the right time and place otherwise; we may aggravate the school, parents and worst of all, the children!
Job day 1
I was up at 6am as I did not want anything to get in the way of my plan. I loaded my power tools from my coach house and drove to our yard to meet my team for 8am. At 8.30 I was still waiting; getting more agitated every second, when they pulled into the yard and got a Monday morning welcome! Once loaded we were off to the job all in good spirits knowing exactly what we needed to do, what could possibly go wrong? (To be continued)…
