How to Install a CHEAP Boulder Retaining wall with just a skid steer and scrap field stones

so this gets yanked that gets built I don't know if I got enough boulders to do it but we'll find out so let's get going today guys we're gonna be talking about the fundamentals on how to build a boulder wall we're also gonna be talking about two cheats that you may see happen out there in the field one of them is actually a good cheat that not a lot of people know about except for some of the more experienced contractors out there and then one of them of course is a bad cheat and this is something that contractors are doing when they're going out and putting in Boulder walls for customers by the time you're done with this job hopefully you'll have enough basic knowledge to be able to put together your own Boulder wall spec out your boulders because not all stones are designed or created equally and we're going to be limiting our equipment to a skid loader with a set of Forks because not everybody has an excavator with the grapple attachment so we're going to show you that it is possible to install a Boulder retaining wall when you don't have the absolute perfect piece of equipment to accomplish the job so let's get this thing going now if you're using a skid loader Forks are going to be much easier to build a boulder wall with than a bucket because you're going to want to be able to adjust the tines on those Forks in and out to be able to get underneath the stones and pick them up without carrying dirt the adjustability is also going to help you when you're setting your stones as well so a good set of forks goes a long way to accomplishing this job now you'll be surprised with just how much control you have and your ability to manipulate those boulders into place with a set of Forks but building the boulder wall is a lot easier if you have a second person there and that person all they have to do is stay out of the way and occasionally put in a shim yes you do have to shim Boulder walls and there's a reason why that I'm going to show you in just a minute I think this is a great place for us to jump in here and talk about pattern because you've got to have a pattern in mind before you start now there's three different patterns but two are very typical one is the basket weave the other is the random pattern the basket weave pattern is a very modular design it's very similar to laying bricks one of the keys to having a successful Boulder retaining wall is to never get this space from one brick to the other resting directly on the brick below it you always want to have these spaces overlapping that gives you better strength for instance you don't want this brick lining up directly with the brick below it so the basket weave pattern does require you to have very regularly sized boulders to accomplish it now the random pattern takes more skill to pull it off and to make it look good a lot of guys think they can do a random pattern and really what they do is they just throw everything against the wall and go that's random and hope it looks good when in reality it's not a good random Boulder wall will have a flat face and flat tops still so that you can see clear lines but all of the boulders themselves will fit snugly together you can see where this would take a lot more time to pull it off now a third pattern is by marrying the two together the simplest way to do that is to start with a basket weave pattern and then occasionally throw in a random stone and this random stone that you're throwing in throws the pattern off enough that you can pull it off to make it almost look like a random pattern when in reality it's not very random oh well see now we wouldn't want to do this because we've got two spaces lined up where in reality it's not random at all it's calculated you calculate you do the basket weave you throw in a random stone and then you start all over again with the basket weave again now one of two things will start to happen as you start to work with your shimmer as you're putting shimmer is that a real work I don't know as the person that's putting the shims in as your guys are working together you're either going to have to be able to communicate effectively that means they're gonna you're gonna have to be able to talk to them through the window of the machine you're operating or they're just gonna have to be on the same wavelength as you and that sounds a little bit odd but when you work with Sony that's on the same wavelength they can see what you're trying to do with the boulder and help you get there that much faster and easier otherwise you better be able to hear each other shimmer who uses that word all right so a couple things I want to talk to you about Boulder positioning and I'm kind of picky and I'm not kind of picky I'm very picky but here are some basic guidelines for you guys when you're doing it yourself you see this Boulder right here you see that concave mark right there I don't like that but sometimes a boulder isn't gonna give you many options there's good boulders and there's bad boulders this is a bad Boulder it's the biggest one I got I'm kind of stuck using it so we always use our biggest boulders at the bottom and then we shrink the size up now I don't have a lot of choices here guys like I'm not trying to make excuses but sometimes you got to do the best you can with what you have so with this bulk Boulder at this post spot gave me the closest I could get up to it but the next boulder one of the things that we want to talk about is you see this Ridge going backwards if I flip this Boulder around I'd have a Ridge going forward instead of backward that's a big no-no because then your boulders are going to want to slide off we want them to lean into the bank let's go over here and take a look you see how we've got this massive setback on these stones well we do that intentionally we want the stones to work their way into the bank and not look like they're falling out because the bank is pushing them away also you got want to get your joint spacing as tight as possible but if you can't get it tight there's a couple things you can do you can literally plant the joint spaces packed black dirt in between these spots that you can't get a stone and then plant a creeping vine and those creeping vines that you plant net the wall together the roots go in there they keep any water from eroding the soil out between the boulders they just hold everything together planting a boulder wall is actually going to be stronger long term than fabric because those plants will continue to grow 1020 years down the road and that fabric will eventually break apart fall apart and be useless in that same amount of time so planting a boulder wall overall will give you a better long-term result alright next let's talk about how a contractor can cheat when they're building a boulder wall now this is a fairly decent stone you see this flat surface right here this gives me the optimum ability to lay this thing down so that I can stack other stones on it you see the length of this Boulder and then it's skinnier this way than it is long this way and a contractor that we buy these things on a price by the ton so we buy them by weight but a lot of times we charge customers by the square foot so when we're looking at this Boulder we got a big face right here and then a small face right here well this Boulder should be literally just picked up and sandwiched in to the wall but a contractor a lot of times will flip that up and put the face exposing outward putting the biggest surface area facing out means that he's optimizing his square footage on that Boulder but he's compromising the long-term straw actual integrity potentially compromising the long-term structural part a integrity of the retaining wall because then we only have this little tiny squeezed part holding soil back and it should be flipped the other way so I'm gonna be sandwiching this one in the right way and if I wanted to do it the wrong way you would be seeing this part you won't this is the part you're gonna see so when you're attempting to position boulders with a skid loader you have zero ability to actually maneuver the boulders around after you have them set on your Forks so really what you've got to do is lift the boulder around on the ground until you can see the position on the ground that you want in the wall once you discover that then you can pick the boulder up and then put it into place now you also have to take into consideration what angle your machine is at the skid loader itself is not going to be able to spin around and get in and out as easily as an excavator with a grapple so you have to know ahead of time what side you're gonna grab that holder from and what positioning you want it before you set it into place we've got a long way to go on this one and this is an excellent spot to jump in and talk about a good chief sometimes you don't want to remove the existing retaining wall because you can compromise the structural integrity of the soil or structures behind it in fact there's times when you want to leave an existing retaining wall in place and then build another retaining wall in front of it I've done this on a lot of projects through municipalities municipalities cities giant projects where we've actually had signed off engineering designing the new retaining wall with the old wall left in place so it's just because it's there doesn't mean it necessarily has to be removed sometimes you can leave the old walls in place and be better off now here's one of the big rules that I want you guys to take away from this don't get married to a stone and what that means is you may have a vision for that Boulder but it just doesn't feel right it just doesn't go together so you may have to end up pulling it up a part of retaining wall pulling some stones off before you can find everything that kind of starts to fit together naturally now building a boulder wall is also time-consuming just placing these two stones you watching here took me over seven minutes to get these to the point where I was no longer criticizing myself or anything now we can go in just okay you want a bumper adjust by the angle why do you me what I'd like to do is have this backside come up just a little bit able to pull that up we could shove something behind it so they can get this up the perfect break that two-month walk up your land in a perfect world you'd be level this top wouldn't flat well yeah yeah take that burn you know it's heavier Talbot okay just wait before you show up this time made sure I just left I'll let you know when I got it okay up I'll get some tubes behind it I know you want that flap I'm talk so this is where your shimmer comes in place concrete blocks make excellent shims other stones make excellent shims if you're not using dirt behind the wall pack some dirt in all right so one of the things that we got to point out is you will need shims if you are going to be super picky about how your Boulder wall goes together because to get all these things like in perfect world this would be actually even a little bit flatter change just a little bit but I can't get around from me any of the sides to do that so and this is my wall so and I want to get it done today I don't um this thing's gonna be done in one day so next let's talk about how to order your stones now on this jobsite we're not ordering anything we're just going into the field next door and picking up whatever happens to be there and I want to show you that you can still build a boulder wall when you don't have the best stones but when you're able to order the stones you're going to want to tell the person that's picking them out or delivering them exactly what you want because this will make your job and your life a lot easier now if you don't get the most perfect stones you can still accomplish the project but it'll take you a lot longer so let's show you in just a moment what a good stone is and what a bad stone is and how you can tell the difference between the two and this right here is what I'm talking about when you need adjustable Forks because as your Boulder sizes change you won't be able to pick them up you've got to be able to adjust those Forks to get them to the right size and spacing so that you can grab those boulders and keep on moving shimmer I still can't believe I use the word shimmer and here's some general size guidelines when you're ordering depending on the height of your retaining wall if your retaining wall is 6 to 9 feet tall you're gonna want your base stones to be anywhere from 3 to 4 feet and then your subsequent levels will be smaller the next course will be 2 to 3 feet your top course will be around 18 inches you never want to actually build a boulder retaining wall with any stone that's smaller than 12 inches they just don't have the size and bulk necessary because there is really no connection method except for the sheer weight of the stones so making sure that you're using big enough stones is pretty critical to the overall long-term success of the wall now if your wall is anywhere from four to six feet tall well then you can use three and two-foot stones for your base stones but again don't go below 18 inches for your subsequent courses unless it's the very top roll then you don't have to be quite as picky so after I get the wall built the way I want it then I start disassembling the old retaining wall you can see that it stays in place right behind it and I'll just take this off and then grade down right over the top of it so all of the old wall is actually back there holding things up just help and keep everything strong so that you'll never know that it was there so that's the next step now once I get all of the wall gone I've got a regrade to make it blend together alright guys and this is where we're gonna jump in here and talk about good boulders and bad boulders because there's both a good boulder has a regular shape to it that allows you to use it on different axes and different positionings so that you can build the boulder wall a rectangle or a square makes a very good Boulder simply because this flat portion allows you to easily put these things together and place more stones on top of it without worrying a whole lot about structural stability or throwing your level off if you get round stones two of the worst are round stones to attempt to build with round stones is a lot like trying to build something with ping-pongs it's difficult unless you flatten one side to make it stick which with the boulder I've actually heard people sawing them off which i think is ridiculous there's times remember don't get married to a stone the second worst stone to build with is triangles and you see how this triangle lays nice and flat and you think oh that's great well the only way to fit tightly against another triangle is with the second triangle piece and what happens is this stone is now resting on one peak and it also is now depending on the weight of the stones around it to hold it in place also giving you these odd little gaps that makes it very difficult to fit them snugly together in an ideal world the boulder retaining wall fulfill tightly together well as tight as you possibly can get it fit together and when you do that requires regularly shaped blocks to work with so that you have some decent foundation to build off and one of the things to make sure you account for is the damage you're going to do while you're building your wall though some people would say well can we save the grass put plywood down or what build a road or whatever yes you can but you're gonna end up taking a lot longer to build your wall it's better just to allocate some time at the end of the job to regrade this and budget in that you're gonna have to reseed it or Reis on it that's gonna be your best bet long term so though wasting more time let's do that next now in today's job my new wall is not as tall as the old wall because it didn't have to be whoever built the wall before built it way higher than what was necessary so the grade was lower what I want to do on today's project is lower the grade behind the retaining wall I actually I lowered the retaining wall and then I'm going to also lower the grade behind the retaining wall to make sure that we get all of the water to kick away that's another thing that we need to talk about you never build a retaining wall and put in face water to it you always build a retaining wall so that the water runs away from the retaining wall sometimes that's going to be a challenge but it's also part of the requirement if your wall is too low and you can't get the water to run anywhere but to the face of the wall maybe you need to raise the wall up so that you can raise the grade behind it today's job was actually the opposite so we've got to account for where the water is going to go because again it's so critical that you don't dump water over the face of your retaining wall they're just not meant to be a dumping ground for excess water all right guys one last thing that I want to cover is two to three stone transitions and maintaining that same level or that same line of sight here we've got two stones stacked up and then we go to a three stone transition but we don't have this uneven top we still have a very fill as relatively flat top so you can see that it can be done and this is how you'll do a transition when you're working at changing your elevations inside of your wall all right you guys you got to tell me do you like videos like this I tried to cover all the basis of the basic things that make a boulder retaining wall successful boulders shape the size of the salt stones positioning transitions random pattern modular pattern or basket weave pattern and so if this helped just give me a thumbs up or comment down below and if you want more how-to videos well I'll do the best I can to bring those to you while you're here you guys do me a favor hit that 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