FINISHING the Raised Paver deck & curved staircase- "the Scooby Project" pt2

somebody lost a couple of windows all right playing we just have one more course to get down and then grid on top of that and then we will uh be starting on the paver pad on top of the steps it's gonna be a busy day so that's all i got let's just get on into it yeah busy day's a little bit of an understatement before we're done today we're gonna have this back patio built up we're going to show you how we build a raised paver patio there's some details to that that i want to make sure to point out and we're also going to build a semi-circular staircase that you see here using straight retaining wall blocks and there's a couple details in there that i think are pretty important that i'd like to point out in case you guys are attempting to do this on your own i'm just going to share our experiences what we found that works um because you know it's not just in the brickwork and doing a really nice job there but it's structurally you've got to be careful because a lot of time these raised paper patios or these raised things they tend to explode or fall apart or settle or have problems down the road and you see this geo grid that's laying in here that really is the easiest way to avoid any settlement issues down the road so you're going to see that we use plenty of that all right we got a little bit of a gap here up against the house i'm just gonna hit get some spray foam in there uh just to prevent you know the sand and all that stuff washing out in there we just need a little bit of a barrier to keep the sand and what not on this side where it's supposed to be now that's not a minor detail that's a pretty big detail also this that little bit of a gap is a home for rodents bugs those things will burrow their way in and then they'll keep going underneath the rest of your patio and create problems all right let that sit up and then obviously whatever comes up that way we'll just cut off with the old razor blade now one of the things i've got to point out is that we're actually building the majority of this raised patio using recycled class five and not sand you will see us use sand but only as a leveling agent and only under one inch in depth this recycled class 5 is what we're using for the majority of the structural fill do you see the two rows of blocks right there this is one of those details that's easy to pass by remember those two rows of blocks the second row of blocks will actually have another row of blocks on top of it and that will help distribute the weight of the actual stairs themselves everything's glued down this is going to be our next step here so next class five packet grid another course so that second layer of blocks actually from this side you can see we put the top layer on it and that just distributes the weight and keeps you from getting any because you will get settlement just from the foot traffic people tend to be ha creatures of habit right and they go the same feet same spots every time and after a while you'll actually see where one block is down the other block is down and when you do it this way it helps to keep that from happening class five is packed i think we're a little low over here still yeah that's gotta come up about a half inch so what we're doing for the sand so we need two and a half inches down from the top of the block and then we're gonna put our uh put our pipes down there like i said we're about a half inch too low here so we'll have to sprinkle some in there um get the pipes you gotta cut one cut one to fit through here so that then you know we can screed it on either side get that sand nice and level so you don't want too much sand it's easy to go overboard on the sand but really less sand is better because there's no binding agent to it so although it's non-organic and it will stay in place since it doesn't have a binding agent to it mother nature can move it around easy on you okay next bit class five's all leveled got the pipe all level where it needs to be um so yeah it's just sand and we'll get that all leveled out so we only want three quarters to one inch of sand so he will go right to the top of that pipe so as he lays this sand out you'll see that he uses that as his indicator um if he needs to go up higher then the sand has to come out more class five has to go in you can't cheat and add fill that whole thing up with sand because it just tends to move it tends to without the binding agent it can shift so if you look closely as he's doing this look between the bricks themselves do you see right there what i was saying earlier when he was putting the styrofoam in in the corner is all those nooks and crannies have to be filled because if those nooks and crannies aren't carefully filled up right here that is a wide open invitation for all of the rocks to slide and shift in and that can create a settlement issue down the road that rt50 can lift a pallet with no problem with how the bulldozer going on or caps whatever you want to call them on that radius which is you know the outside of the step every single one of those is going to need to be cut so instead of doing that inhale saw we got one of these bad boys i think we got to invest in one of those that is going to save us a freaking ton of time then it's looking like they're all going to be the same cut so far so with that we can just set a jig and bang them out so yeah we don't own this it looks like from the sticker on the side of it the boys just picked it up from home depot i think it says on it but i've heard iq makes a nice one i don't know who else makes good ones [Applause] all right here's what's going on so we got these all spaced and we gotta cut every single one of those so what we're going to do to speed it up lane's gonna cut and i'm gonna just feed them beetle blocks it's not a lot of cutting that they have to do but it's every brick that has to be done and what i'm actually mean is they're only cutting the back side of each brick off so that they can get the spaces to fit flush and tight [Music] we got our stairs all cut or the bulldogs for the stairs all cut and those are good to go so i'm going to glue this middle course in now while blaine is working on these goofy goofy corners and then we'll start gluing this concrete adhesive is incredibly strong and will actually pull the bricks apart before the glue pulls apart but you will see sometimes concrete adhesive fails and that is when guys have dust on the blocks or if the blocks are wet or even slightly moist if the blocks are clean and dry you will pry the the concrete apart before you wreck the adhesive do [Music] i was trying to encourage my customers to envision themselves walking up to the front door with their arms full of groceries and they need a place to set it down is your landing pad big enough to handle that or if you have three or four people at one time knocking on your door is there enough room for them all to stand i mean it's not really science it's a matter of what works for the you guys or those guys when i'm actually laying a project like this out originally i never use paint either i always use garden hoses because if you paint it and then you want to switch something around you're stuck with the paint lines on your in your ground but a guard knows you can move it and then i actually encourage my customers to not just lay their hard scaping out with a garden hose but then to mock up their furniture you're gonna have a table are you going to have chairs you may not own them but do you have cardboard boxes do you have something that can duplicate a table and chairs and kind of start to put things in place into the space that you you envision and does it actually work because it's easier to do with the garden hose and cardboard boxes than it is when it's to this point you're like hey i want to add another two feet that so this packer happens to have a rubber pad that will attach to the bottom of the plate to keep that steel plate from marring the top of the pavers but if you have a packer and you don't happen to have a rubber flap like that well you can use a piece of carpet you could use a mud flap you can use anything just to keep that steel plate from scuffing the top of your papers blaine likes to leave his papers up watch you can actually see him sink he likes to leave his papers up just a smidgen to count for the settlement that's packers not broken [Applause] the steps and patio are all done here's what we get and these those ones aren't glued in yet so there's a little bit of gaps it's not going to be like that when it's done but this course and that course they're all done well if you remember me saying earlier we weren't going to glue these yet because we have to run the patio that's going to be out here right up against there and that's just going to make us make it easier for us if these aren't in the way there you go that looks good they did a good job it's hard to see when they're spinning the camera like that that's our video for today guys i hope you pulled something out of it we're calling this one the scooby project we've got a long way to go this is a pretty massive project um frankie and i just got done harvesting firewood i'm wiped out two two days i think we got seven cord pulled out of the wood i mean like trees pulled out blocked up cut into firewood delivered and ready to go because frankie heats his entire home with firewood and so does my uncle and we had to get that all ready for those guys and uh tim wrapped up the boulder retaining wall schweitzer chicken plucker buildings coming down the pipeline and we've got more stuff coming actually we got some really cool stuff um and that's what we've got for you on this one god bless you guys go get em and hopefully we'll see you on another