11. Outside the bus - getting it level

The Bus sits on a fairly damp part of the paddock so it was necessary to put a gravel road base down. After a year on the grass the bus had sunken into its wheel ruts and needed a bit of help from the tractor to move it. 

Hudson helped with the tractor work!

We will leave the eastern side as grass so that we can create a garden later on.

Here we have most of the top soil off ready for the gravel.

There were a few soft patches under the topsoil so the aim was to direct water off either side of where the bus will sit.

The first few loads on and getting spread out. Scalp gravel was put down under 40mm road base. 

1st April 2015 -  bus is sitting on  a solid base now. Next it will be chocked up onto concrete pads and levelled.

1st May - Putting the concrete pads under the bus ready to jack it up level.

Rob and I getting things in place ready to jack the back section up level.

I hired a 10 tonne jack to do the job. This was slow going as it only lifted 10cm at a time so there was a lot of chocking and lifting going on!!!! Here I am using a 3 tonne trolley jack that was much faster but slightly under powered! I used Macrocarpa sleepers stacked up like Jenga blocks to sit the bus on. This worked well and the bus is stable and level now.