The First Delivery!

We are very fortunate in Norwich to have a wide range of builder's merchants, all of whom would be delighted to fulfil my requirements for blocks, sand, cement and the vast range of associated bits and pieces I will need.

Not all of them have a good web-presence with online shop so I could compare prices, but those who did were remarkably varied in their prices.  For the pallet of aerated blocks, pallet of medium-density blocks, sand and cement the prices 
ranged from £502 to £740. 


Needless to say I chose the £502 that Wickes quoted - including delivery and vat.


My task was to remove the 200 or so blocks along with the sand and cement from the drive, to the back of the house and stack them all in an ordered and useable manner without them getting in the way.  

Space is somewhat limited around the extension and drive, and I don't want to have to move things twice if I can avoid it.

I can't fault Wickes at all. 

 They sent me a text to confirm the date of delivery and the time-slot.  They rang to give me 30 minutes' notice and sent a confirmation text afterwards.

The supplies came on 4 pallets: 

• 2 pallets of medium-density concrete blocks - 176 in total
• 1 pallet of 100 Celcon aerated blocks
• a mixed pallet of 200 bricks, 25 bags of building sand and 5 bags of cement.

It was a challenge unloading them using the hydraulic lift on the back of the truck because of the telephone wire overhead.  

The driver was very skilled and managed to weave around it - even removing the Celcon locks from the pallet for me so I had one spare to move the blocks onto.


Then I moved them: 176 x 20kg blocks, 100 x 5kg aerated blocks, 200 bricks, 25 x 25kg bags of sand and 5 x 25kg bags of cement. Total weight?  


5 tonnes of building supplies. 

All now neatly stacked waiting for me to have a free moment to start mixing mortar and laying blocks.