2 days at work, 6 landscape Construction sites, 1 big problem plus an Abandoned House? vlog #0003

All right, guys. We're going bidding and estimating today and I literally have no clue what we're going to be looking at. There's something up here. What the hell? I don't know what that is. What is this? It's like a cardboard house. What the heck is this? This is kind of cool. Definitely got something kind of weird kind of a cage. What the heck do you think they keep in here? Tim is coming to pick me up. He's got a whole bunch of stuff lined up. And I don't know if he's pre-qualified anybody today or not, but we're going to be looking at least at four or five jobs. But before we get started, there's something I want to show you down here. Frankie, you love blowing leaves more than anybody I've ever met in my entire life. Yes or no? Yeah. Okay, so you admit it. You are like a leaf blowing fanatic. I do. But you use the same thing you got all that gas-powered equipment you could use it. I've told you you can use whatever you want, haven't I? Yep. And you always grab that. Why? I just just lighter. I like it. It performs pretty good for me anyways. And it ain't so heavy at the end of the day. So, it's just easier for you to grab after working all day long? Yep. Yep. That's why I grab it. I'll tell you straight up. I don't for me I don't know about for you, Frankie, but for me I don't want to try to dick with the gas. I don't want to try to find the gas. I don't want to try to figure out where they put it. Right. Fire it up then it's noisier for one and when I come home from work it's late and I watched you blow leaves to almost 10:00 at night sometimes. Yep. I get get a clear mind that way. Yeah. Whatever whatever it takes to relax, right? Yep. And that's the unit you use. Yep. Now, now the next time you see me as soon as Tim gets here, I'm hopping in his truck and we're going to work. All right, I'm going to break in here because what I thought was going to happen didn't necessarily happen the way I thought it was going to happen. Long story short, what we thought we were going to start to go out doing bidding and estimating turned out to be a pretty big delay because of a pretty big breakdown on one of our job sites. Day two. Do you know what we're going to You He knows what we're looking at. I have no clue. You want to hear something crazy? I was on an TV commercial NBC primetime during the New England Patriots game and I had no clue. This is the TV commercial. I've only seen it on my phone. [music] Somebody just said, "Hey, I saw you on a TV commercial." Like, "No way." And then there's a display at Costco. I didn't know this existed. Literally no clue that this existed. Check this out. I'm in Costco. I found them. I couldn't even buy these if I wanted to because I don't have a membership here. I couldn't I had literally no clue they did this. Look at I'm on the package. It is so cool. And I'm like You're in the commercial, too? Jake's in the commercial, too. commercial for? Worktunes. 3M Worktunes. I They're actually it's a good product. I use them. I use them to this day. I use them every single time I go to the gym. I use them when I'm out mowing. I use them when I'm running equipment. The only thing I don't like about them is cuz you can answer your phone with them. The only thing I don't like about them is they're too sensitive. So, like when the phone rings and I want to talk and still run equipment, I can hear the equipment in the background as much as I can hear the conversation. It would be nice if they would eliminate all the background noise. I guess for 50 bucks they can't do that, but that beats Colton's Dr. Dre's any day of the week. I've never tried them yet. I'd like to try a set out, you Well, maybe if you were as cool as me. Maybe. If I had my face on the package, I'd get that. God damn. [laughter] All right, where are we off to first, Tim? We're going to go and check out Apple Valley. I was down there earlier, but the final drive is leaking on the key 180, so I figured I'd go check that out before any major damage happens to that. Maybe [snorts] it's a seal right now or it's $3,500. That sucks. So, it's leaking more you run it, I guess. Well, that's what the mechanic said when I was talking to him. Brad? Yep. Might uh destroy the housing and then it's a big bigger project. Yeah. All right, well, good good call shutting that down. Mark it and see what it is first. He's coming out tomorrow. He's coming out tomorrow. Come on. 8:30 he's going to pull it apart and diagnose it. All right, we were having a conversation on these Ford F-250 dually truck the other day and we were talking about how rough they are and how much fuel they suck down. And I would never buy another one of these again in my life ever. I mean, I don't trust Ford anymore. But Tim, what what's your slogan for these trucks? So, this truck uh beats your ass and robs your gas. Beats your ass and steals your gas. Yep. All right, so we're on our first job site. These guys got a lot more problems than what he's calling us out here for. We're I'm looking at this retaining wall. He wants to sell this house. This retaining wall it needs to come out. It just needs to be removed. Doesn't mean we need to rebuild it. It just needs It needs to be removed. If we're just going to dress this house up so that he could sell it, then I would start to look at all of the little things that the customers don't see, but you guys should be able to see. As I look at this house, I see this scraggly bush overgrown. If I try to trim it back, all you're going to see is all the innards to it. It's not going to ever look nice. Same thing with this tree, it needs to be yanked and pulled. See this big old Charlie Brown Christmas tree? That needs to be pulled. You see this oak tree that's leaning right over the top of this house? That needs to be pulled. All of these bushes and shrubs along here need to go. Let's take a look at the front yard. I'm only saying this because I'm trying to help a customer make sure that when they got enough curb appeal when they're trying to sell it, they can actually do it. Take a look at these Charlie Brown Christmas trees. This one doesn't even have the top to it anymore. So, these trees, if he really wanted to dress this up and get the complete value out of this house, this is a very nice neighborhood, they need to go. They just need to go. You've got enough mature trees. We've got some mature oaks here to stay to draw attention to those. These mature oaks are valuable. We also have a very nice soft pine up in the front that needs to stay because when we remove all the ugly stuff, we bring more attention to the good stuff. Customer's house and here's the grand experiment. We did this job a while ago. We planted this grass seed back in the beginning of November and had the worst cold streak you could imagine. And we want to see if this grows. How's it look? Uh a little bit patchy. Kind of patchy, isn't it? Mhm. But there's still a lot of seed there. I think some of it probably just went dormant. Well, yeah, cuz as soon as we got done seeding it, we had a cold streak. It was a high of 10° in November. Yeah, cuz there's more growing in the So, let's see how the turf cuz we got quick grass turf establishment blanket laid down. Let's see how that compares. So, without it Now, you used a different product here. Mhm. So, look at that. I think that turf establishment blanket actually does a better job than this granular stuff that you put down. What do you think? I would say look at the look at the difference. Yeah. All right, we're at the next job site meeting with the customer. It's got an interesting situation. So, we got a retaining wall that is underneath a four season porch. And it's in the state of failure. I guess a couple of landscapers have already been scared off from this thing, but I think what they're trying to do there's a retaining wall underneath there. I think what they're trying to do is replace it underneath there. Mhm. We did another job with Dave We did another job with you, David, for one of your clients where we removed the retaining wall. He's got the same situation and we're going to grade this down cuz we don't need the retaining wall here. Somebody built the retaining wall, but didn't need one, but somebody built okay with taking part of this retaining the retaining wall under here. Where do you need it? And we do need one under there. Cuz that soil will push on This is a four season porch, so it's on footings. And you can see right there that we can't let that push on it. That's what we got to eliminate. So, we're going to remove that retaining wall and just push it back to gain space. The benefit is it's going to allow this foundation to breathe better. A lot of guys come into these situations and they see the existing conditions and they think that's what's got to be done. I never do that. Every time I go out to a job site, guys, I always try to look at what's already there, give the customer that option of redoing that, but then give them two additional options. And that's the challenge, man, when you try to come up with two additional options, holy crap, that can be difficult, but it's surprising how often that works. I don't know. We don't use class five under our our base. Not anymore. Some customers Some Some contractors do use class five. We don't use it. We use 3/4 limestone. It's angular. It's like a granite stone, but its ability it's 3/4 in in size. It has no minus in it. It allows water to pass through it. It locks in place as soon as you put it down. We've never had a wall settlement issue using that ever where with, you know, class five because it's got fines and, you know, smaller particulate matter that can get washed out. Sure. It can also create voids and settlement. So, we don't use it. It's a more expensive process using that stone, but it also you never call me back saying my wall failed. want? You've torn enough of them down to see what happens to that class five base. Tim's going to pop quiz me. So, this is our access, he says. Super awesome access, but we get skinny with trucks down here. Yeah, this isn't that bad except for this gate right here. Oh, we're coming around, okay. What do we Wall's failing. You want to quote We already decided against doing a double tier wall. It's not necessary here. She wants to be able to sell the property Okay. someday and not have this be an eyesore or go against trying to sell the house. Got it. What I recommended doing is taking away this wall. We're not going to reuse this stuff. Yeah. I'm not going to put my name on something that's going to fail again. No. It's the anchor interlock crap crap crap block. She wants to move. If we do build a wall, it's going to be right here and then go out. One wall can be 4 ft high and taper up when you start the slope at the fence. So, it doesn't need to be two walls. So, getting rid of this block Okay. and doing one wall either side of these stairs. Yep. And then I said, "Well, why do we even need a wall?" Cuz we could take We're going to take this dirt away. Look how they got the slope right along the stairs. Why don't we just match that, get rid of all of this? This slope he's talking about, right there. And put See this? You can just slope just have a slope. You could landscape it and it could look beautiful. It could look really nice. And here's the thing. You see why this is terraced? I'm going to quiz Tim now. I know why this is terraced. Why do you think this wall is terraced, Tim? Keeping it under 4 ft, don't have to pull a permit. That's it. And they wanted a level spot up top. That was it. That's what landscapers do. Instead of doing it right, making one wall, engineering it and pulling a permit, somebody came in and said, "Well, we'll make a double terraced wall." And you can see why they failed. They fail over and over again. Can't tell you how many of these we've done. They build these terraced walls and then they eventually fail because if they're going to cheat on the design, they're going to cheat on the construction. All right. Fourth or fifth site, I don't know which. We're doing an addition and multiple additions onto this home. We're going to be coming 14 ft out. This is a garage. We're going to bring it side. We're going to create a third or fourth stall, whatever. Whatever that is. And back here, we're going to come out. We've got orange stakes set up. So, Ben, this is where the basement addition's going to go to is these orange stakes, right? So, we're going to come out here so the soil that we have in here gets excavated, removed. There's no spot on site, so we've got to export it. No no place to keep it on site. So, basically, we've got three trips out here just so you know, Ben. Okay. One is the excavation. Then we're going to have a big pile of backfill, so we're going to be hauling that away at the same time that we're digging. Then we're going to come back and backfill, so we're going to stockpile our backfill material. And then then we're going to be probably maybe in the spring or after your building is complete, us or somebody else will come back and have to do the finish grading. When do you want to start? Uh it probably wouldn't be just thinking of kind of what's going to happen, probably be January or February. And that's kind of why I spread spread all of the That's not going to help. That's not going to help that. All right, so when we bid this, just to let you know, Ben, we'll bid it as if there's no frost in the ground. And then what's going to happen is depends on what Mother Nature does. We don't know. Yep. So, we'd have frost charges, frost ripping charges, and that would just be bid based on an hourly rate. Okay. And then once we break through the frost, and I mean we can show you, you can see it. You can just look out your window and go, "Oh, they're done with the frost." I mean cuz you'll see that the equipment won't be vibrating the whole foundation of your house. Either that or we wait till the spring to do your job. Doesn't make a difference to us. Six to one, half dozen to the other. What's the frost charge? 150 an hour. Okay. So, if we get snow early, it's going to help everybody's costs. if we get snow snow blown onto your property. [laughter] Take the snow blower, dump it out here. The more snow you have up there, the better. Snow keeps frost away. That's true. It's an insulator. Another interesting point. This is a full basement right here, Tim. I'm glad you brought this up. This entire wall has to be underpinned from right here all the way through all through here. And so, that means that the soil has got to be left in place to a one to one slope. And then as they're doing the underpinning, which means they're putting a block underneath the existing block, the soil's got to be dug out and then got to be put back in place. And that soil's going to be froze. That's a good point you just Tim just made. You know, that last little underpinning thing is a little bit like the nail in the coffin, right? In the summertime, that's a lot of extra work, but in the wintertime, it's a it's a game changer. But you made a very good point, too, Tim, when you said to the customer, you said, "Now, doing a job in the summer never goes right." I mean they always change, right? I mean some There's always a detail that changes in what would take an hour in the summer, multiply that by eight in the winter. I mean it's just that much more difficult here in Minnesota when, you know, you got a high of 2 degrees and nothing wants to run and everything is much more difficult to do. So, we ended up leaving that job site and recommending to the customer to seriously reconsider doing this in the spring. I mean we can do it in the winter, but for his benefit, whether he really needs it done now or if he can wait 4 months to when the weather could start cooperating and just make his life that much easier. We'd have to grow out We could end up tenting this entire site. Not just for our sake, but for the concrete guy's sake. Using ground thawing blankets. There's just so much that has to to go on to do a winter excavation under those conditions that sometimes, if it wasn't a commercial site, residential site, [snorts] does it does they do they really need to have that addition done or can they wait 4 or 5 more months? Something to consider. Talking thousands of dollars to wait a little longer. Yep. Okay, guys. We are on our last job, I think, of the day cuz we literally can't see. We are going to be building a thousand foot long road up to a building site up into those woods. And we've done this before where we've built roads like this. Couple things, if you guys ever tackle something like this, you're going to have as highs and lows in the terrain. You got to be real careful cuz the lows are going to hold all your black soil, your black dirt, your organic material, and you're going to have to remove 100% of that when you go to build a road. So, you're going to have to push that all off. You're going to have to have the space to push that. So, as we're looking around, as we look one way and we look another way, that's the headlights of the truck behind us. So, as you look around, you got to have the space to be able to do that. But we're going to walk all the way up here. We're going to be going all the way up into there, aren't we, Tim? Yeah. That the building pad is up up top on that. Up top on that. So, that's what we got. This little some from where we walked. It's going up. And then here's the elevation really changes up to the house. Right. Where's the house at? Up there, up the hill. I know, but where on this? Well, we'll see up there, I guess. Looks like it's So, we're coming in here. And then it goes up and kind of curves up that way. It curves up. All right, that's what I thought. All right. Hopefully nobody steals the truck. Somebody takes the truck, yeah. On the headlights. They don't do us any good up here. [laughter] Had they, probably they'd be able to get pretty far down the road. Yeah, you ain't catching them. No, my phone's in there, so I won't be calling anybody. So, we've got a 60 ft elevation change. The truck is all the way down there. What do you think that's worth? Take a guess. What do you guys think that it's worth to build this road from this point down to there? There's like a little creepy love shack up here. What the heck is this? What is this? Let's go find out. There's something up here. What the hell? I don't know what that is. What is this? It's like a cardboard house. Look at this. It's like a little house hut like in What the What is going on here? This is weird and kind of cool at the same time. It's kind of like definitely the cousins marry their sisters type of a house. What is it? Yeah. Go in the pumpkin shack. I don't want to go in here. Go in the pumpkin shack. Come on, I'll go in the pumpkin shack. Give me the flashlight. Here. Okay. What the heck is this? This is kind of cool. It's Definitely got something kind of weird kind of a cage set up. What the heck do you think they keep in here? Chickens? Yeah, [ __ ] [ __ ] [laughter] I hate you. You're such a [ __ ] It's creepy, though. It is pretty creepy. It's slightly creepy there. Sugar booger. Sugar, who's a good who's a good dog? Hey, Frankie got some stairs done today. Look at that. I can get up into my house finally. Why do you have these ears on you? Can I walk on them? You can walk on them. So, yeah, let's go into a house where you can actually see something. Home sweet home. Hi. Hi, kiddo. Are you going to give me your autograph or what? Sure. Yeah, I got my first autograph request. I'm sure that's not your first. [laughter] All right, so the last job we looked at boy Can I see the commercial? Yeah, for sure. Did I make it? Uh I don't know. I got I'll have to show you. I got I got them all. I got them there. I can show to see. Yeah, Cassidy was on the job site for…