How NOT to build a retaining wall

Uh he had tried to get a wood chipper down there before or a spider and and just couldn't get anything between these houses and it uh he rolled >> sketchy mowing. >> So this wall this was falling down boulder wall that was pushing on the gas meter. >> Not a boulder wall. It was a pile. >> Show them how tough this ground is. Tim. >> Yep. So then they got this all black dirted. [Music] I meant battery power for the camera cuz the the battery packs on out. Sorry. Heat. [Music] All right, good morning everybody. Johnny just dumped a load of black dirt. He's off to go get another load. He's actually on time today. superchucker. But yeah, so then I'm going to take you guys in back and we're going to we're starting to spread the black dirt. We're getting towards the final stages of this project. Probably hopefully be wrapped up by the end of the end of the week. Might not. I'm not sure. Don't quote me. Good morning one and all. The biggest mistake that you can make when you're buying a house is to buy a house that's too low. Meaning that the house has settled down and the ground around it has built up. But that's not the most costly mistake that you can make when you're buying a house. The most costly mistake you can make when you're buying a house is buying a house that has no backyard, that has just a slope going straight down. Now, here's the fundamental difference between those two properties. A house that is set too low means that the ground around it has settled and created a water or drainage issue. There's three easy ways to solve that. I've covered that in other videos. Go back in the library and check it out. Those are not bank breakers, meaning it's not going to bust your budget to fix a house that's too low. It's annoying. It's going to mean you have to address it. You can't ignore it unless you like living in a mold habitat. And I the video just came out where I showed how to fix it three different ways. But the most costly mistake you can make is thinking you're going to build a backyard out of nothing because it involves retaining walls. It involves adding fill soil. It involves labor. It involves skill. And here's the problem. There's not a lot of contractors qualified to do it. There's not. because it involves the most important thing that's missing from something like this is engineering. You can't just use any old soil. You can't just build walls wherever. Every single wall has to be engineered. You see, there's a thing called a search charge. When one retaining wall sits close to another retaining wall, it adds a search charge onto the bottom retaining wall. And here's a lick and stick rule of thumb. There must be a 2:1 separation from one wall to another wall to not place a search charge onto the bottom wall. Also, when you look up, the house can add a search charge onto a retaining wall. The slope itself can add a search charge onto a retaining wall. This is why I say most landscape companies are not qualified to re to repair a yard that has a slope because they come in and the first thing they start to do with a hill like this is terrace terrace terrace and those terraces are too close together and those terraces one wall is going to push on another wall which is going to look good in the very beginning but it's ultimately going to be a failure. Now you've got a couple of options. You've got to hire somebody that's qualified to do this kind of work. And if you are a homeowner, you best get their qualifications. And that doesn't mean pretty pictures. Pretty pictures mean absolutely nothing. In fact, I had an ex employee of mine go through and use my pictures to represent his work. And he wasn't qualified to barely tie his own shoes. But he used my pictures on job site after job site until I asked them to stop using pictures of my work. So that means other landscape companies can easily do pictures. Or here's the other problem. Pictures don't show failure. Pictures don't show the issues. Pictures don't show the lack of grid, the lack of engineering, the lack of knowledge on the structural support of the type of soil that goes into sustaining a retaining wall long term. engineering does simple conversation. How are you going to lay these walls out? When they tell you, "How are you going to engineer them?" If they look at you like a deer in headlights, run. Don't give them a second chance. They don't know. From that point forward, that look means they're not qualified. They still want the job. They're still going to try to come up with an answer, but if you're the customer, don't hire them. Now, if you're a contractor, don't do that job. Don't try to buffalo your way into a project you're not fit to do because I'm telling you right now, it's not worth it. The stress you as a contractor are going to go through worrying, are you getting this right, isn't worth it. Worrying, is this wall going to fail? Remember, as a contractor, it has to at least in my neck of the woods survive for 8 years, whether you guarantee it or not. You don't have to warranty your retaining wall. You don't have to give them a warranty. In a court of law, if it has failed within 8 years, you're responsible. At least in my neck of the woods, you are. So, you've got to always understand what you're getting into. And today, this was a big project. And you know what? We're sick of big projects. Me and my team have done big projects our entire life. These engineered retaining walls on the sides of cliffs, holding up wall after wall, holding up buildings, holding up I can't. We've done so many of them and none of them are actually fun because even when you know what you're doing, there's always a certain level of trepidation. Is the materials going to hold up the way you want them to hold up? Is mother nature itself going to hold up the way you want it to hold up? And the reason I say that is because when you have a slope, you can have unforeseen things happen that are outside of the contractor's level of responsibility. You see how this slope just goes down on a gradual. This is my wife's sliding hill for the grandkids, right? So, this goes down at the perfect angle. But what you don't see happening is underground it could have what's called a slip zone. So underneath this top level underneath it might slip. Too much weight at the top might create the entire thing to slip and the entire slope to slide down 5t 10 ft. It's called the failure zone or the slip zone. That's what I call it. I don't know what the techn technical term is. But I still need to understand that when I'm building a wall on a slope, I've always got to get below that slip zone. I've got to dig deep enough on a retaining wall. That's why the footings on a retaining wall that are on a hill have to go much deeper than the footings that are on flat level ground. It does not matter whether you you have a sir charge or you have no search charge, but because you are on a slope itself, your footings have to go deeper to get past that slip zone. And this is the thing, most landscapers don't know this. That's why they're landscapers. They love making things pretty. And I'm not trying to pick on landscapers because it's an I've done it my entire life and it's a phenomenal career. It's legitimately one of the best things I feel you can do, but it doesn't mean you're qualified to do all landscaping. So, if you're a customer, qualify them contractors. And if you're a contractor, qualify yourself. Don't get yourself in trouble. And don't run from your mistakes. And this is what happens. A lot of contractors get into these big jobs and then they understand that they realize they're in trouble. They didn't bid something right. They didn't do something right. They didn't account for this right. And so then they start to short the job. They start to do things to try to compensate for their lack of failure in the original bid and design of that project. It hurts their work. It hurts their reputation and it hurts the customer. All right, we are uh wrapped up for the day. Hey, Timmy took off. Sam had to take off to go do some stuff. So, it was just me, just me and Bruce. Bruce, but we got some rain coming. So, this is all tarped off. We got the wall up to basically right in here where my finger's pointing. You can't really see the tarps, but we want this area to stay relatively dry. Hey, we don't really care about the front yard because we can always rescrape that up. Or she's pretty concreted, so maybe a little water might help break it apart. But yeah, so that's what we got it today and on to the next thing tomorrow. So next, now on this project, we actually created a switchback. And a switchback is a phenomenal way that most landscapers don't even think about to give your customer complete 100% access to the entirety of their yard. And a switchback may not give you as much flat space, but it gives you your entire yard, which is huge. Now, in this case, we did a switch back, then a ramp, then another retaining wall. We had the spacing right, so one wall wouldn't create a search charge on another wall. But this homeowner can now go from the top of his yard down to the bottom of his yard in a freaking skid loader if he wants to. But here's what most landscape contractors will start with. They'll start with a solid retaining wall across the entire backyard, which basically creates two spaces. one you'll use and one which becomes a liability. Your upper space, yeah, that's your yard, but it's also a slip and fall hazard if you have kids or pets or anything like that. So, you're going to have to put in a railing or a fence or a shrub row or something. But what it does is it creates that unusable space that now as a homeowner, you're scratching your head and you're going, "How am I going to get a mower down to that lower yard to take care of it? How how am I going to to maintain it? I can never really use that lower yard. It's there. I bought it. I get to pay taxes on it every single year, and it's wasted space. But with a switchback, you have 100% access to everything, allowing you to actually enjoy your yard. But a switch back is not always the easiest thing to build. All right, we are done with the back yard. And I meant battery power for the camera cuz the battery pack on out. Sorry. Uh but yeah, we got black dirt. This whole project back here is done. So we got black dirt to there is where we can where we need to be able to do all the rest there. But rest is all black dirt. No, it actually isn't all black dirt, Zach. And I need to point this out to you guys just to make sure we don't have any confusion. This top of the slope is all black dirt because what lies underneath won't grow grass or anything at all. And I'm going to say this slow because it's important to get every single one of these points right. It's clean, compactable, structural fill soil with a claybased binder. And that claybased binder is the key to make sure that this slope never goes anywhere. This slope that I have right here has no special reinforcement in it at all. But it uses the same kind of material, so it's resisting erosion. It's resisting weathering all on its own. But this slope won't grow anything. It's like slapping a giant chunk of concrete on my yard. So, to get it to grow vegetation, which is the ultimate thing to stitch this entire thing together, you put a good deep layer of black dirt over it. And then what happens is those roots grow down through the black layer and then they hit that structural layer and they kind of don't like to go into it, but they will go into it. And then that thing knits everything together. So the soil is another area where a lot of landscapers fail. >> They'll get anything dirt coming in. >> And if you get the wrong soil, >> you're getting the wrong soil. You're getting you're getting a failure. You're getting an ultimate failure. You want to make sure that it has those four elements. Clean, meaning it doesn't have any organic material in it. It's not going to rot away on you. You're not burying vegetation 3 4 feet down into the ground, and that's going to decay and create issues long term. So clean is important. Compactable. Well, sand is compactable. Sand, you can throw sand down. You can put a garden hose on sand and it will compact. You don't want sand on a slope. You don't want it unless you want all of your sand down at the bottom because there's no binding agent in it. So sand is compactable, but it's not something you want. Clean, compactable, structural. So that means we've al that's another way of saying this material is meant to use to build structures on. So that's kind of like a wash, rinse and repeat. But the last element is the most important and make sure you get that right. Right. Clean compactable structural clay base. The clay is what stitches everything together and resists movement, resists uh weathering, resists erosion. That's the key to make sure that you have good long-term results. And this is where a lot of landscapers fail. They just get the wrong type of material. Or they don't engineer the retaining wall for that kind of material. And when you don't engineer, you can engineer a retaining wall for sand. But if you don't engineer a retaining wall for sand, if you don't engineer it for clay, you're going to have issues because you do have to engineer the retaining wall specifically for the kind of material you use. Because if you're going to use clay with that claybased binder, you actually need more geog grid to build that retaining wall than if it was just on pure sand. There's a little contradiction in terms there, but once you understand the differences in how the actual soil interacts, it becomes fundamental to the success of the project. [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] Now in this case right here, this is the structural fill soil going down. The two don't get mixed or layered in together. The structural fill stays within the certain zone of the retaining wall and then the black dirt just gets used as a top dressing only. We don't incorporate it into the deeper layers of the retaining wall. Here's another test for your contractor. If you they want to put a retaining wall up against the side of your house, ask them how they're going to do it. Don't suggest anything. Just say, "How are you going to do it?" If for some reason you have a contractor that says, "I'm going to tow this into the foundation of your house and I'm going to physically connect it." Cuz I've had builders say this. I've had other people say that they're going to take these walls and tow them into the foundation of the house, run from that contractor cuz they don't know what they're doing. These retaining walls cannot be connected to the structure of a house. They have to float completely independent of it. This wall looks like it might be connected to this house. It's not. It's sitting against it, but at no point is this wall connected to this house. As soon as I physically connect this wall to this house, the walls failed because th this wall has failed because it's not designed to be connected to the house. It's designed to float independently of the house. So, if they tell you that they're going to connect it into the house or pin it into the house or mortar it onto the house or something like that where it's a permanent connection to the house, that fail. That contractor doesn't know what they're doing. The wall is a failure because the walls are simply just not designed to do that. [Applause] Work. All right. Good morning, everybody. back after the weekend and but yeah, Sam came in Saturday. Hey, and along with Alex and they got drain tile that was tied in over here run underneath here to there and then Sam did the caps. Oops. And then they got this all black dirted. And then the homeowner or we had gotten the supplies, but the homeowner wanted to do it. Did the straw matting all the way down the hill to prevent wash out and all that other stuff. So yeah, that's what he did and it's looking good. Oh yeah, and there's heat underneath here, too. So, but yeah, that's what got done. And then Friday, I left early cuz I had two teeth on this side ripped out of my head. And make sure you brush your teeth, people. But all right, on to work. All right. Now, here's an important point that I do want to point out is nobody makes me bleed my own blood. I always love it when I repeat the word in a sentence twice. But anyway, now I don't even know what I'm talking about. It could have been important. Probably wasn't. No, I remember what I'm talking about. There. The rules that I applied for you guys during this video are for landscape retaining wall blocks. There are certain kinds of blocks like poured retaining walls. There's also CMU concrete masonry unit walls. So, there's different ways to build a retaining wall using different materials, and some of those materials may require you to tow into the foundation or structure of a house, but the materials we use do not. Here's a rule of thumb. If you have a contractor that is going to use a kind of material that requires them to tow into the foundation of a house, then that wall has to play by the rules of that house. What I mean is, in this case, I'm in Minnesota and we have to have everything buried 4 feet below frost. There's just no getting around it. So any type of a house or structure like this has basement or it has a 4ft frost footing. And if I have a retaining wall that acts as part of the house, whether it's the a deck, retaining wall, any kind of a structure, I have to play by the same rules that I have to build that house by. So the wall you see here, that wall floats separately and independently from the house. That wall's that wall right there probably only has a 18in footing. The house has a minimum of a 4ft frost footing. Now, if I'm going to use a kind of material that requires me to tow into the house and tie into it, I now have to have the minimum requirement of 4 ft buried below that retaining or below that wall because I'm playing by the rules of the structure that I'm attaching it to. I know that's really complicated, but if you get it, you get it. And if you don't, well, I I understand. But hopefully you guys get that you want to be very careful about the kind of materials you use because that dictates the kind of rules you have to play to when you're building something. All right. So, this ground is so hard that Timmy's barely punching through it with the skid. Show them how tough this ground is, Tim. [Music] It's taken all the way to the skid just to try and punch through it and it's barely doing it. But yeah, that's how hard that is. We got to grade all that out up there. But then me and Brucey are working on this down here. So, I just thought I'd give you guys a quick update. Now, if this video has helped you guys out in any way, shape, or form, the best thing you can do is support our channel because YouTube doesn't. They put me in YouTube jail because they don't like a lot of my viewpoints because I don't know, sometimes when you call it the way you see it. People don't like that and you hurt some feelers and maybe you step on a toe or two. And I guess I've done that in the past. It is what it is. I don't compromise when I bring you the truth. Whether that hurts me or helps me. It doesn't make any difference because overall, I'm not leaving this world alive. And I'm not going to leave this world lying. Meaning, I'm not going to tell you something at my own benefit knowing that it could hurt somebody else, whether that hurts me or not. And it has. That's why you don't see my videos popping up on YouTube because I've said things point blank just like I'm telling you right now knowing very well that as soon as YouTube heard it, they were going to shut off my funnel. And so I didn't I'm still not going to get cave in and do anything…