Landscaping, Construction Nightmare - How to Hire a Contractor BLOCKED VERSION

well I got my tit in a ringer for a video I made last week about a construction nightmare a law firm contacted me and told me that I had to take that video down all right I'm here with these guys are technically my competition but I'm going to help you guys out and so I did but now I'm going to put that video back up I'm going to take out all the legal mumbo jumbo in the video and I'm going to blur the faces of anybody and everybody because the message is very strong in this video it's a message to Consumers on how to hire a contractor and it's a message to contractors how to represent yourself to Consumers so let's get started 2 1 there's a difference between a qualified contractor and a cheap contractor there's a market for both but the problem is a lot of cheap contractors Market themselves as qualified contract contractors when they're not it's okay to be inexpensive but it's not okay to mislead consumers into believing they're paying for more skills than you maybe possibly have today's project is a great example of exactly that I'm going to describe this job for you it was rebuilding a retaining wall but this retaining wall could not possibly be rebuilt on the exact same spot under any circumstances this retaining wall was here here there was a building here and this retaing wall held up the building and held up the driveway the reason it wasn't possible to rebuild this failed retaining wall in the exact same spot is because you couldn't get drainage aggregate behind it you couldn't get geogrid reinforcement beneath the existing structures these structures were putting pressure onto this retaining wall that's called a surch charge it's a technical term but it's a way of evaluating how to design this retainer wall without removing a garage and without removing a driveway the only possible way to build this retaining wall is very simply move it out so I'm here on a site that I visited about a year ago these Timber retaining walls have utterly failed move it away from the structures and you eliminate the surcharge it's a simple design change but it's something that only comes from years of experience what you're going to see in today's video is I meet with my competition while they're actually building this retaining wall technically these guys are my competition but I'm going to help them out we were talking about what what they got to do to correct this thing and I help them through the process of understanding how to better design and build this retaining wall there they don't have any base material in at this point so they're going to have to unfortunately remove what they've already done and start back over again so they can get uh 6 in of Base material in plus they don't have enough room for their drainage aggregate behind the retaining wall they're going to be uh bumping the wall out so they can get the right amount of drainage material in a number of very basic mistakes are occurring in this video and on this job site number one absolutely no base aggregate number two no drainage aggregate they planned on back filling with existing on-site soils number three not compensating for the weight of the structures number four or not compensating for the excess water that was going to be directed at that retaining wall it's 200 lb per square foot guys so the formula is 200 lb per square foot divide by 2,000 cuz then you got to know how many tons to bring in so that's how you Cal the wall and that includes enough for the base material so you have 264 Square ft * 200 IDE by 2,000 that's how you figure out how many tons of material you need for a retaining W guys you need 26.4 tons of 3/4 in rock to do this job right the right way they were going to core fill with this on-site soils if they did that this wall would have failed probably within one or two seasons so a couple couple little keys to keep you guys on the right track this was a for sure failure for two parties the parties that were involved in paying for the retaining wall to be replaced and the contractor himself if this contractor proceeded with this plan he would have been in big trouble if you're a contractor and you're just getting started and you don't have all the answers I don't want that to stop you but I do want you to understand that you need to represent that to the consumer there's going to be plenty of projects where you get to practice on you the consumer gets a break in price and you get to sharpen your skills it's an important way of starting out but there's job sites that you should plain and simply not be practicing on this was one of those cases there's a market for inexpensive contractors there's people that just plain and simply can't afford for the skills and qualifications of having somebody that knows what they're doing come out and do a project for them consumers the best thing you can possibly do is to ask questions if you do not know you're getting an inexperienced contractor apples to apples and oranges to oranges is the way to go get multiple bids and ask questions write down a list of questions that you think may be relevant and then ask each of the contractors and look for the answers and more importantly look for the answers that they offer you without you asking questions what does that mean if they're willing to share more knowledge give you more examples of ways to do things right that's a sure sign that you're getting someone that's qualified now if you're looking for the bottom dollar on a project you're going to get what you pay for and that's okay as long as you're willing to accept a contractor that may be learning on your job site site and when you hire a contractor to come out on your job site and if the price seems too good to be true there's probably a reason final wrap up contractors you may not have all the answers and that's okay just make sure you represent that to the consumer there's still a market for your services because there's people that just don't have the funds to hire a qualified skilled contractor and consumers when you were looking at hiring a contractor and you were worried about the person that you're thinking about hiring ask questions get multiple bids write down a list of things that you want to know and look for the answers in between the lines that's going to help you choose from a good skilled qualified contractor and someone that may not have all the qualifications can talk the talk but they don't walk the walk look for those answers in between the lines God bless go get [Music] them okay before we get into oh I hope it's not going to be one of those days again the neighbors are right over there they can see me awkward she's in her bathroom in her kitchen that's a behind the scenes you just don't want I can't I can't make a story like today's uh I can't make a story like today's up I really can't because I don't know what to say next it is the ultimate Tale of bad neighbors court cases and not winning every oh that's actually pretty good I don't know how to end this video Kitty maybe I'll end it with you sticking your nose right in the camera who's a good kitty I'm a good kitty he found me from a wood pile they the family loves me I come and go as I please I get to go out into the woods all night long and then they come in the house and they give me treats yes they give me lots of love and that's why I like to escape because I he has four kids yeah sometimes he forgets how many kids he has I don't even know where to go with this I you know I don't know if I've got even 3 minutes of good footage so far