Retaining Walls - Master Series- steps 1-4

of all the jobs we do retaining walls are the hardest today's video is going to actually be an example of that a homeowner started this project and then pretty quickly learned that he was getting himself in over his head even with the right equipment the right tools and the right materials there's one thing about a retaining wall that all the tools materials and equipment can't prepare you for and that it's just plain hard work this customer summed it up well he said there's no reason why a 60 year old man should be brought to tears and we are starting on this project that he had already begun and step one is to clean up what he had started and so the boys are coming in today and they're gonna start to grade out and get the work area ready and then throughout this entire video we're gonna show you step by step with details exactly how we build a retaining wall so that if you guys are gonna try to tackle it on your own you'll at least have the knowledge so let's jump into it all right so here's the plan we need to get this dirt somewhere we need to get down to virgin soil so we're going to focus today on making ourselves a nice work space we're going to get these blocks all moved out of the way we're gonna get our elevations set along here and all that fun stuff so the homeowner here this guy real nice guy super chill uh gave us the heads up that this neighbor right over here is a real piece of work and you guys aren't going to be able to see it on this camera because i can't zoom it in tight enough but she's out here putting cameras up facing us she's got one right there next to the grill there's one she's got just put up right there on top of the meter facing us she just went inside and i'll bet you it was to grab more cameras what the hell goofy now as blaine is digging one of the things i want you guys to make note of is how careful he is not to oversize his excavation or go too deep in it and this is an important thing because if the bottom of his subgrade his wall is here and then he's going to put six inches of base material three quarter inch rock on top of that if he disturbs this soil below that rock it can have soft spots if he digs too deep or over digs he's got to be careful that he puts the material back but then he compacts that area that he over dug so digging to the right depth right out of the gate is a lot better than guessing putting it back and fixing it we want virgin soil as much as [Music] possible [Music] so we're trying to get our frontal wall marked here oh and these are great stakes for you know marking your string lines and stuff like that i think they're uh like concrete steaks or something like that for holding in the concrete molds for like sidewalks and whatnot i'm not sure about that i bought a whole bunch from really really cheap from a sketchy dude on or unless it's a screwdriver then it's a chisel unless you can weld then anything's whatever you want to be whenever you want it to be [Music] there we go [Music] [Applause] i think that's the only one we got to cut off nice [Applause] [Music] months [Music] now you're gonna notice two different packers that look very similar they're both plate packers one is a 150 pound plate packer and we consider that a finishing packer for very light general compaction needs not going very deep but when we're worried about the soils and especially on the base we use a thousand pound plate packer and either you've already seen that in action or you will see it in action in a moment and this is a beast of a whole another manner it's heavy it's bulky it's self-propelled but that doesn't mean it's easy to maneuver but it's also critical that we use the bigger packer that way we get deeper compaction all right so uh blaine's running up to get our first load of rock and in the meantime while he's doing that uh we're gonna work on something on the mini x so this pedal right here is what swings that left and right right and it's been sticking real bad so we're gonna pull the mat up and see what we can see about that and see if we can't get her freed up a little bit and when i mean fix it we're gonna do a field fix which is uh probably gonna mean send in like i don't know half a can of wd-40 down there and seeing if that does it all right y'all close your eyes [Music] oh i can get that right through there nice i know this probably looks like spray foam i promise you it's not i really like this uh wd-40 specialist is like the gel lubricant i think for doing you know like the springs and stuff like this on the machines because it's sticks and stuff like that all right we might need to take a better look at this because this is freaking sloppy and this one's got a nice resist a little bit of resistance to it so i guess well we'll just see if getting in there and clean it out and loosen it all up [Music] i've been uh well i'm you know constantly trying to think of video ideas and stuff like that and i was thinking do you guys want to see me strip this down and get it all repainted and looking all new and stuff like that i don't know i thought that might be kind of cool that's something you guys want to see comments [Music] now the material we use for the base is the exact same material we use for the drainage and up in these parts we call it three-quarter clear we call it sewer rock locally and it is angular if you look at it it's all very consistent in size three-quarter inch in diameter but look at that angular nature that means as it it goes lays in place you can see that it automatically starts to connect together and bond together and that does two things it provides better stability under the wall but it also helps to eliminate settling because it almost creates a bridge as all of this material locks together now if we were having a real issue with base material we were really skeptic about it we would actually layer geo grid into the base in lift now we put six inches in for a typical retaining wall but in extreme conditions we'll go one two we've gone even deeper than two feet of base but laying every six inches a layer of grit in and creating a pyramid up to the bottom of that block so if this is the block when we go six inches we just go a little pyramid out but if we're going to go with the soil correction we'll extend that out one to one so we continue it out we create that pyramid that looked more like a one to two sorry one to one is steeper but we create that pyramid going up to support that wall so as the weight comes down it has a snowshoe effect and gets distributed over that subsoil [Music] all right guys so as i'm sure a lot of you know being on the wall crew you're cutting blocks and all sorts of nasty stuff like that so as far as dust masks go i really like this style of them uh blaine had one like this for the longest time and i i just could not find one because uh it was when covet was first starting to really pop off um we finally got a couple of these sent to us this one in particular didn't last at all so the nose piece here you know that lasted i don't know maybe two weeks and the velcro was worn out after a month so that one no good but i just picked up a few for the wall crew which is me blaine and will and these ones look like they're going to be a whole lot nicer they're by a company called base camp um but right out of the bag you can see that this is a more mesh material this is supposed to be um not as hot and then instead of it just being you know bare metal is the coating on here and this is supposed to keep it from you know bending and breaking like that um this also has it has the ear loops on it so you put it over your you know ear to have it more stable and and just wait they got this little strap thing that's supposed to loop through here and then loop through here and then this will go over your head to keep the pressure um of the mask like off your ears and stuff like that help kind of keep it a little more stable if you're going to be wearing it majority of the day like generally are so pretty excited to try these out we'll uh we'll use them for a little bit and i will get back to you guys and let you know what me and the boys think [Music] all right you see these blocks these are the versalock standard unit and they're something that i've never covered with any of you guys and that is why we use these blocks they're an absolutely let's see if we get you can see us a little better they're a solid unit and in comparison to other units what a lot of times you'll find is this is the top on other units they'll be hollow on the bottom and a lot of landscape companies will migrate toward those blocks for two main reasons and if you're a homeowner these should be red alerts uh to you guys companies use these other blocks because they're a lot lighter they don't weigh the same as these things okay and they're also a lot cheaper they're cheaper because they use less material they're a smaller block and then having a big hollow core on the bottom lightens up their material what happens is water gets in between these blocks they're a mortarless system and they are designed to allow water to penetrate and flow through them but when you have a hollow block the water can get trapped below one block and above the other block which really isn't that big of a deal unless you live in a freeze-thaw cycle and then that water can freeze overnight and it'll shift the block and those hollow blocks typically don't have pins that drive through to connect them from one block to the next this block you have to physically drive a pin through it what they'll have is on the back a little lift when we go to base with those blocks you take what we call a chipping hammer little tiny hammer and you tap tap tap tap tap and that lip falls off that's the only connection method that those walls have so they're fast and easy so you set the blocks down on those you slide it forward the back lip connects and you're done but that back lift breaks and that back lift doesn't offer a solid connection with these blocks the reason we use them is you physically drive that pin through this block and right down into the block below it they're not gonna shift and move on you that's why we use these this is the first time i've ever disclosed that in a video [Music] all right you guys we covered a lot of ground in today's video we taught you how to do the excavation what to look out for what to be aware of and that's the overdig we also talked about the differences in the material that we use as far as base material and in the next video we're gonna go deeper into how we build these retaining walls with a lot more details and if you guys have questions hit me up in the comments down below and i'll try to answer them in a future video but coming right down the pipeline you're gonna see exactly how we stack these walls up and what we do that makes them last because the next steps are part of the the whole overall blueprint of the success of these walls you take any one of these steps out or you alter these steps or you change these steps you're no longer building the same kind of retaining wall that we've done at least a half a million square feet of these things all the same without having any problems that's why i'm going to break this down for you step by step exactly what we use and how we do it so that hopefully you can have good results and i hope this video has helped you out god bless you guys go get em and we'll see you on the next one