Retaining Walls Versa-Lok

all right I'm here with Jim fry take from versalock and what we're going to be talking about today is different retaining wall blocks how they go together where you would use them and when you'd want to choose between the different styles of blocks so what we have right here is come on in a little closer let's say hi to Jim first Jim's a Jim what do you do with versalock e Donuts yeah I'm there Midwest sales manager for versalock working here for 12 years now um verilock is not only a you know Midwest company but we're also National and international so we should have block kind of all around the country wherever you guys are looking but uh I know Stan's been a good customer of ours for years and like he said we just wanted to show you folks what uh choices you have with block and and some ins and outs of the block that we're going to be doing so so we're going to focus on Versa loock today why because it's personally my favorite block it will be my go-to block on almost every project I have used ankor I have used Keystone I have used all of the other block Brands but when a customer ask me which one that I recommend these are the ones that I usually go to so let's let's uh let's let's come in a little bit and I want to show you what why I personally prefer verse block and Jim you probably know the functionality of each one of these blocks actually better than I do because my specialty isn't high-end complic licated retaining wall projects what I like to do is I like to get in and bust out 1,000 5,000 10,000 square ft Long Tall engineered where a lot of guys like to do columns and seat walls and yes I've done those because that my special team know but I can do them so let's talk about what the difference is between blocks so you guys can do it come on in a little bit more it might be a little difficult to hear so what we have here is a versalock standard unit one of the things I want to show you about this block it's a solid unit you do this with a hollow block and that sucker is going to bust apart on you solid here solid here you'll notice perfectly flat perfectly flat okay why is that important you don't see any Nubs you don't see any limps so the question you probably should have is how do these things go together that's an important feature with these blocks and one of the reasons why I like them okay all right so the way that these blocks connect this is what I love about them is pins and so what we do we got four pin holes we have slots in the bottom all you literally do is drop these pins in and now you've got a connection you've got a block that isn't relying on a little concrete lip to hold it together you've got actually a spike going through one block and hitting into the next block below it which means that when you get Frost movement or ground movement what happens is that Spike sticks you can see this block is not going to move forward or backward I'm not a salesperson for First Lock but my reputation my company rides on it you can see these spikes in here that's how solid of a connection that they make this block can have this much movement it's never going to but it can have that much movement and still be Rock Solid and you know one thing too Stan that that I just want to interject here is a big part of reason why guys like us like you said is is because of the pins you did good about showing there that you definitely want to you know bump it up a little bit but the other good thing that you can do when you're under a construction here is before you pin you always want to try to set your block off oh maybe about a foot or so and then slide it into place so you got where your block is and you're just going to slide it into place and then pin them and the reason for that is if there is any minor we like to use a real technical term called concrete boogers on the top we slide those off and then you got a really nice solid level unit that you're working with so this block can be used both in residential and Commercial applications I it's a little bit more expensive than the competitor block which will be a hollow core block but I prefer cor it hands down because I feel that it's faster and it allows me to stack the blocks higher because I'm not core filling if let's look at the square foot unit that they have over here this will be similar to what you'll find used in a lot of commercial applications okay when you're bidding Toe to Toe and you've got a giant retaining wall your competitors are going to be using the least expensive block possible and often times it's going to be a hollow cord block the reason the blocks themselves are less expensive is because there's less material there's no Concrete in these in these voids right here but that what you're forgetting and you're missing as a contractor is your then responsible to fill these voids okay that's a big thing it's a averag is about 200 lb per square foot to fill voids and to put drainage aggregate in on walls like this but when you're going dollar for Dollar Head to Head Toe to Toe against your competitors you may have to go with a block like this now these are still good blocks they're still equivalent to whatever else is on the market but you can't stack I want to show you this now Jim you can tell me if I'm wrong here but when you got these cores let's zoom in on this core you got to stack one block and then you have to core fill it okay um where on a first lock standard unit you can stack up to three blocks high before you got to back fill that giving you the ability to go high faster with less lifts which means you're installing it quicker okay but still head to-head Tot To Toe this may be the block you have to go to this is also a pinned unit do we have a couple extra pins so on this unit you line up the pin hole which you can see here with the slot and the unit below it you just make sure you're lined up and they slip right in do you have another pin Jim yeah we got it right here but that's important too stand like you said you know you want to make sure when you're selling a job if if you're going up against a competitor or if you're selling the hollow core block you know they're designed to have the gravel in each course you don't want to cut Corners here because that's how it was designed you know how that's how it's engineered the weight of the block is really important so if you're cutting Corners you're not filling block you're not doing it right you know a lot of it too is with the with the gravel in there that helps connect the block below it where where you said stand you don't need the gravel with with standards if you don't if you don't core fill this block you're missing an important point in the connection method because the gravel the corfi itself the 3/4 clear let's get it straight let's not call it gravel let's not call it class 5 you've got to have 3/4 clear it's got to be drainage aggregate we're not using p Rock we're not using River Rock we're using an angular Stone which lines up so a good example is we got River Rock behind us you see these circular Stones if you're using these shame on you what you want is you want a granite or an angular Stone because it automatically locks in place you can see just by placing it this stone is not going to move you core fill that and that binds everything together so that's the benefit of using these blocks a little less expensive it helps you be on the same page as your competitors but if you're going to go to residential and you got a customer that's willing to pay a little bit extra hands down for me personally vers loock probably doesn't mind what block you buy as long as you're buying Versa block but for me personally you're going to find me using these but let's talk a little bit more about these blocks here this is the standard non-weathered this is a Rose Creek weathered what they do is this kind of gives the block a little more character and I want you to see they intentionally beat the hell out of these blocks so what they do Jim they take them through a tumbler is that right yep we actually have an inline tumbler on these doesn't matter you can you can basically it's same concept we're taking the block this nice clean block and we're taking we're roughing up the face to make it look more like Natural Stone so if you have a house that has some character it's not modern design maybe I I have a log home I use versalock weathered units because I didn't want anything that looked brand new I wanted something you can see the the weathered Mosaic pattern it kind of gives it uh a little character to it across the way over there you can see the standard unit and non-weathered the lines are sharper uh they're crisper they're cleaner there's a time in place for each different look but we're talking about the exact same block which is a big thing there is no learning curve you're not switching it up you're not trying to grab a different unit you're not going well how do these go together versus how do these go together you want the weathered you want the non-weathered you got to learn a different pattern no it's fast it's efficient and it's the same day after day time after time job after job which puts more profits to your back pocket because you got guys out there that may have a completely different look from one wall to the other but what happens is they're you doing the exact same thing behind the scenes show you how easy we can split these blocks and handle these blocks they're very versatile I guess that's why they're called versatile that's right Stan so what we're going to do is we're going to to create freestanding walls and columns we can split it in half and we can split off the back and you can do this with a splitter or you can do this with a hand chisel now he's going to show us how fast that you can split a block with this versus Stan best part about it creates a rough face so that this can go on an outside corner and it looks just like the rest of the block so now we're going to look at the versalock Mosaic unit what I like about this unit is actually it used the same same system as the standards they are all solid blocks and they're pinned together but they create a random pattern you can actually see it behind us although it's a panel it is a system the look of it once it's installed makes it look like you put a jakea puzzle together it's a really cool thing what you just saw Jim and I do is we pulled off the cap units the cap units are an A and A B unit and you can either pull them a little bit over the face of it and that creates a shadow pretty cool look I think or you can pull them back slide them back just a little bit like that Jim and then it gives you that offset look sometime you can mix and match colors we've got a Rose Creek blend and what colors as charcoal blend Jim charcoal blend yep so you don't necessarily have to always have your walls match fact I put stripes in my wall sometimes I use different blends of colors to create a unique a unique color for the customer that otherwise you can't do with uh with just a one solid color so well you've even mixed the colors in between where you know Stan he he he'll mix 80% of these block with 20% of a different color block to get a really random pattern that's another option you know and and just going back to the cap a little bit the reason why a lot of contractors they like snugging it forward a little bit is you get a little eyebrow effect and say it say you're wall you do everything you can to make it absolutely straight but there's a little wiggle in it you can take that out by just putting the cap forward a little bit you know putting a string line on that making sure your caps absolutely straighten that takes away any little Wiggles that you may have in the wall and actually Mark if you if you get a a side shot of the um caps going down that wall there you can see that eyebrow effect you know the the wall there might have been a little wiggling it but you'll never tell with that eyebrow in fact you can see where they did it right here they've got more of an offset than right here and when you shoot the whole the whole cap line straight down it's perfectly straight kind of a neat way of uh fixing or correcting anything that might have happened during the construction phase [Applause] [Music]