How NOT to build a BERM.

spoiler alert if you are one of those guys that loves to see how a project is done at the end of a video well you best skip the next few minutes because i'm going to show you the finished project right now but then i'm going to actually show you how we got it to this point so one of the things that i want to talk about is the grade here we didn't actually put this stuff in this is the customers uh it's still a work in progress for them but the grade on this retaining wall goes this way away from the retaining wall and that's a key element when you're grading to calculate the surcharge and to control the drainage away from the retaining wall the customer we we got the subgrade set now the customer is just enjoying the process of decorating it themselves and here is the rest of the berms and the grating so we flat grated the yard and again we created berms that aren't volcanoes and later on in this video i'm going to talk to you about why it's really critical that you understand the proper way to construct a berm to have the absolute best results there are some do's and don'ts but here she is finished now next let's just show you how we got it to this point let's dive right in [Music] so well we still got a long way to go on this project before we're done but of course we have the same problem different day with the cat skid loader i'll just let sam show you what that is we seem to have a perpetual problem of one of these pins locking up on this cat so i'll lift that up i know that i'm pretty sure this one has always kind of like to bind up i can figure something out oh wait there it did something we hit it again it was doing something i hope that i hope that pins not like snapped maybe we got like um i'll get my little pick and maybe we got like a rock stuck in there or something that's probably not going to do nothing but maybe we'll get lucky yeah i can try to beat it in a little bit did that do anything nothing damn what the hell okay what's that catching up on that's not doing over here i get that bar in there i guess and see because it's like if you watch if you watch this side the pins almost like the pin is almost where it needs to be by the time this hits the part where it stops up here and this this one over here is hitting is stopping before the before that spring even moves so yeah watch that side and then watch that side thinking so that pin it's looking like it's sitting at a little bit of an angle so he's thinking it's bound up on something so all right hold on let me see if i can get anything out of there i've seen a rock shoot out something shot out of there hold on i'll grease it yeah i'll get i'll grease those pins but all right good morning everyone so we should have a pretty easy day out on our little hodgepodge wall berm site the wall's all finished up the grating over here everything's done with that um we got the berms where they need to be we got this whole area re-graded pretty close to where the final grade is going to be obviously we're going to get the mulch down and then work our way out with the grade we have to get a little bit of edging in around there and then haul equipment so here we go here it comes there it comes look at that steaming pile of mulch yeah you're getting pretty smooth in this you've come a long way with your uh your operating skills since you first started that's for sure man now before you begin construction of a landscaping privacy berm there's a few things you need to understand what is the intention of the customer's planting plan so is the customer going to have very specific plants in just certain locations or is the customer going to plant the whole thing and let it go wild and the reason it's important to understand that is because that determines the kind of fill that you're going to put in for the privacy berm if the customer plans on having a controlled planting which means he's going to put a plant here and another plant there and another plant over here and they're not going to intermix then you're going to want to choose structural fill for your privacy bourbon the reason you want to do that is because the structural fill is going to resist settlement it's also going to control uncontrolled growth meaning your plants aren't going to grow rampant because the soil where they're trying to grow into won't be very good but now you all of a sudden heard a couple of you guys go wait a minute well that's going to kill the plants that they want to put in well technically no because what they'll do then is wherever those plants aren't going to be put in the customer wants that's where you put your organic material but now if the customer wants the entire privacy berm to just go wild you don't use structural feel you use organic material for your privacy berm the drawback to that is that you're going to have more differential settlement meaning organic soil is going to start to automatically break down as it's put in place and you can't compact it so that the berm is not going to look perfect to the eye but it's not meant to it's meant to allow for plants to grow in to spread to propagate to take the berm over so there is a strategy to understanding what you're doing when you're building a privacy burn before you get started on it wait a minute what you didn't say that was a secret well it's a secret to some people not everybody understands that my customer didn't and i had to explain that to them and i thought maybe one or two of you wanted to hear it too well we're all wrapped up so here's what we got going on for our little wall then we re-graded all of that we re-grated all of this and our first berm second berm i know a lot of you guys are probably gonna say this in the comments too but i'm not sure why there's this gap here because the water's not really pitching this way the whole yard is kind of heading we got it heading that way because there's three storm drains right there and here's our little last one right here and now with these berms obviously they're going to be planted up and all that so you don't really want to pack the berm if you get that all that soil all real packed up real good and tight my plants can have a hard time pushing roots through it they'll just grow kind of in a circle in the hole that they were planted in and not really spread out and what can happen is they they essentially end up choking themselves that's why we weren't packing them or nothing like that because they're going to get all planted up so you have to take into consideration whether you want to compact your berm or leave it loose it depends on how you plan on planting it but another thing to make sure you're aware of is that berms are a lot drier than flat level ground or a divot in the ground what i mean is the water is going to run down and away from all of the plants on your berms faster than anywhere else and that means that your berms are going to require more water more often to keep those same plants alive and thriving that if they were put on flat ground or if they were put at the bottom of a divot would require so make sure that the and you need to understand that the higher your berm the more water you're going to require but they can also get wind burnt so i've seen berms put along the edge of a property line as a wind blockade well those plants and trees that are up there are taking the brunt of the abuse before that wind hits your structure and rightfully so that's why you you did it so you've got to take all of these things into consideration when you're designing your berm the height of the berm the type of materials the type of plants and the amount of water so that when you put your berm in place and you put all your plants in place they have the highest rate of success here's what we came up with um if you'll remember we we had to come up with something where we missed the posts and the footings before we found out that they were like that uh so we got a chunk of two by ten treated in there um i got a couple of brackets down the back holding it up onto the foundation and got a whole bunch of the silicone sealant in there to keep stuff from falling out of there and all that fun stuff and then i think the homeowner's gonna get some of that uh gray spray paint that looks like rock or something to match this here or match it better than that at least well that's that he's on to the next one well we got some pretty exciting adventures coming down uh i don't know if i would call them pretty exciting no i wouldn't call them exciting at all one of our guys had a heart attack on the job site and thank god timmy was there because uh tim basically saved his life um timmy's super technical so anytime anything happens timmy's just by the books and uh one of our newer guys came in was working and started to feel faint and uh was complaining about some pains and things like that and if it would have been just alex or i on the job site we would have been like all right go take 10 minutes sit under the tree drink some water then when you come back work twice as hard because you just took 10 minutes off but not timmy he heard about it and he was out there he legitimately brought the guy to the hospital forced him to go into the hospital and made sure that the guy went in and got checked out and thank god because the guy was then submitted to the hospital for a heart attack where he stayed for two days yeah tim basically saved his life because i'm sure glad it wasn't up to alex right because i don't know if it would have went quite as good but that's coming down the pipeline for you and a whole lot of others i mean every day is something new i mean some days are better than others but i hope you guys enjoy the videos and i thank you for letting me know in the comments down below but that's it for this one god bless go get em you guys stay safe we'll catch you on another one