I was offered 600 tons of granite cobblestones ('sets' actually) recently. Just imagine what 600 tons looks like. What you see in the photo is just the tip of the iceberg.
I wondered how I would sell them on - one by one as door-stops?
I politely declined the offer. I have a feeling that I will not regret it.
Thank goodness the offer was not made to my husband. We'd have 600 tons of cobblestone dumped that he'd be drawing on for years. We'd die with 599 tons of it left. Our children would curse us.
ReplyDeleteMy biggest fear is that sometime soon, someone will call me asking if I know where they can find 600 tons of granite sets, and they could have been my retirement fund.
DeleteOh dear. I respect your non accept but a landscaping yard must jump at something like that. A friend recently scored a heap of black basalt that had been used as ballast in a ship that came from England. I was soooo jealous.
ReplyDeleteI offered them to various reclamation yards, but nobody had the space. Also, the logistics of moving them meant lots of 18 ton lorries and about £25,000 associated costs, not to mention rent on a yard big enough to keep them.
DeleteWell I suppose if you had accepted them, you could have built a cobbled road somewhere.
ReplyDeleteA cobbled road was taken up to make them available.
DeleteThey might have come in handy for storming the House of Commons.
ReplyDeleteThere was about a month's worth of storming.
DeleteAh NIMBYs.
ReplyDeleteWell, they might come in handy for our handkerchief garden. Would fill it up completely. No more gardening to do for us uuuh me). And a hill as a view, what more do we want in this flat country.
Could you ship them to the Low Lands?
And maybe some bacon sandwiches? I feel sorry for those lorrydrivers. Those evil Dutch custom officers.
I have come across many evil Dutch lorry drivers. How can you wear clogs and drive a lorry safely?
DeleteMy bilingual grandchildren would say Easy Peasy or Makkie Gebakkie. As all things are in their life at the moment.
DeleteI have a feelimg that years ago theyused to cover graves with them and then put a marble surround. Am I right Tom?
ReplyDeleteI have heard - and indeed - laid marble kerbs to graves, but never a road surface.
DeleteJust to give me an idea, how many tons would it take to cobble a driveway about 25 feet square?
ReplyDeleteI will leave that research to you, now that Willie no longer is available.
DeleteThanks a ton Tom! Well, moneysaving expert forum says 1800 cobbles weighs 6.8 tons, therefore 600 tons = about 160,000 cobbles. The person who posted this also says 1800 cobbles covers 17 square metres, so about 3800 would cover the 36 square metres I mentioned. So I think we're talking enough for about 45 driveways. E&O excepted!
DeleteApproximately 0.60 tonnes will be required..
DeleteForget the metres..That's EU...It's Feet and
Inches now..!
Ah, Willie! There you are!
DeleteAlso, forget tonnes. It's tons now too.
DeleteBoth are a unit of weight, a Ton is an
DeleteImperial measurement (still widely used in the USA),
and a tonne is a Metric measurement...
Sorry but Willie's estimate is too low.
DeleteFar too low. A cubic foot of granite weighs about 1.5 cwt and there are 20 cwt to the ton.
DeleteI prefer feet and inches Willie, but I was given the 1800 cobbles in square metres. Does 100 cobbles per square yourd sound about right?
DeleteThough mostly in Metres...Found this on the
Deleteinternet...
For estimation purposes, 3½ to 4 Medium cobblestones will usually cover a square foot. Depending on which surface you choose to use (the worn surface or the rough surface), approximately 1 to 2½ Jumbo cobblestones will cover a square foot...
So you can work it out from there...
I do like cobbles but my chariot doesn't.
ReplyDeleteWith cobbles, you need a sedan chair.
DeleteI’ll buy one
ReplyDeleteRight. That's one ordered.
DeleteSeems a pity....
ReplyDeleteI know, but unless they decide to make cobbled motorways, the market is limited.
DeleteI actually have a doorstop made of a stone, covered by a sewn on embroidered cover. It has held open the same door since I moved here. I had to move it recently, and could only tumble it end over end.
ReplyDeleteCovering a stone with embroidery sounds like a strange thing to do. Art maybe.
Delete1970's. Mom made one for a lot of people.
DeletePerhaps that's how Christo started.
DeleteWhatever will become of all those cobble stones? Many patios, pool surrounds, fire pits, and garden walls?
ReplyDeleteI think Rachel has the most probable idea.
DeleteMy friend Christine often advises me not to make a mountain out of a molehill - here you faced (how good to be able to use the past tense) the opposite
ReplyDeleteproblem.
We're back to piles versus heaps again.
DeleteA bit of a logistical nightmare ..... I can think of things that I’d rather have ! XXXX
ReplyDeleteIt is a problem of Ministry of Transport proportions.
DeleteHard core.
ReplyDeleteVery likely. It would be a shocking waste, but you can always sell hardcore for a lot of money, whereas if you had those cobbles made the pile would cost fifty times as much.
DeleteWe have loads of these in our garden - borders, etc. I guess there's a market for them there.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure there is, but in this case it is a logistics/storage problem. Even I have room for about 20 tons, but 600???
Delete