Stone Sizing and Ordering Guidelines

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…