Teaching a Laborer TO THINK like a LEADER #1

Rocky all right guys welcome to today's video my name is Stan genetic they call me the dirt monkey on YouTube and Instagram and today is a teachable moment we're actually going to be training Zach on how to set a set of uh stairs but the skills that we're going to use to set these stairs are going to be the same skills that you'll use if you set a retaining wall if you set concrete modular units uh whatever what other if you set a paver patio so everything that I'm going to be teaching him in today's video is skills that apply toward other parts of landscaping so they're not just dependent on steps but we are going to be rebuilding a set of steps and talking about that in just a few moments so without wasting more time let's Dive Right into today's video I hear our materials that come in right now nothing fancy old railroad ties just solid old railroad ties and we're gonna be slapping those right over the top of the other ones showing you how we do it what do you got oh you got two of them or yeah yeah I they were all of them had Nails in them and whatnot but I got them all out other than this one I could not get out it was just more or less I was smashing it in more than it was coming out um okay step out of each one yeah one step so we got enough for four steps yeah we're gonna need more railroad ties but we'll get started on it so when I'm working with trying to take a guide is level and graduate them up from working out in the field to maybe leading a job eventually down the road I like to start with something small and private I don't like to put it turn a guy loose on somebody else's job that may be paying for it on a project like this it happens to be the own my own staircase at my own place which you guys probably know as Shangri-La Lodge the perfect training ground to see where Zach's skills lie and we're going to do that together this isn't an overly complicated job or very difficult to do and this is a job that requires some common sense good work ethic someone that's just paying attention to detail now if you're wondering what Zach is doing well so am I but I am guessing that he's shoveling the material from the Kubota into the cast loader simply because he needs it down by the shoreline and the Kubota can't get there without tearing everything apart and so this was the way to get that material down there safe without ripping anything up [Music] so one of the things I learned years ago is you have to be really careful how you explain things to different guys because they everybody takes things a little bit differently I learned this years ago I had a fellow working for me and he'd been working for me for years putting diesel fuel in our skid loader and one day I just off the cuff said hey go gas up the skid loader I said gas same skid loader that for years he'd been putting diesel in so he went and put gas in the skid loader I'm not joking and I even asked someone bye did you put because it started running back like did you put gas on this he's like yeah like why did you do that he said because you told me to put gas in the skid loader and so in this case I did say we're going to try to leave all of these stairs in place and build over the top of them and this may I'm really hoping that this doesn't come back to bite me in the butt because if he's going to try to leave that one stair I hope maybe you guys seen it just it's just shot you know if it's beyond repair you're going to be spending more time trying to reutilize it than just ripping it out and starting all over again so in this case that once there should just be gone replace with a new step below it and then a new Step put on top of it but I didn't tell him that okay [Music] so Zach does an amazing job of following the rules to the T and he did cover up that step and that was the one step that I would have preferred on the entire staircase to have removed but I didn't tell him that so the fact that he covered that stair up is not Zach's fault as a teacher and business owner that's my fault I should have been very clear about what I expected him to do and what I would prefer him to do and I was not so I'm going to take a hundred percent of the blame for that one stop being covered up the way it is so when it fails that's on me all right so what we're doing is we're using pure sand because that's what we have I mean if we had gravel class five I would recommend using it but we don't we've got sand and we're basing the step onto the the sand and then we're actually pounding it into we've got the other materials still down below correct you didn't remove anything no and nothing's is just going right over the same railroad ties but I got to put a base load of sand in because the height difference yep and so that's it that's the only difference that we're doing in sand is a basically it's a non-organic material so we're not we don't have to worry about settlement we do have to it's since it doesn't have fines we do got to worry about um the particulate matter washing out rinsing out so we'll probably have to build some material up with a clay binder on the sides and use something in here to strengthen the sides and hold everything in so that the sand doesn't wash out from either side of it but once we have the sand contained inside of it it shouldn't go anywhere because it's not going to settle out Sam just doesn't do that so you can see how we're just going about doing the process of adding them directly on top of the old staircase and going over right over the top [Applause] [Music] did you put a level on these stairs Zach all right let's see him a level of intolerance it's like you can go up a skosh but okay how about front to back yeah not just front to back as your whole thing's slow yeah well that's a level step right there but you want to have a slight downward angle to compensate for uh the rain coming off you never want steps perfectly level you want them to shed down and away but right here you gotta toe kicker here so this so this we need to to correct this step is level this step on its own is out of level you see how you don't have the two steps Level side to side so that makes this the only one that didn't get a sand base okay that one that started with nothing okay everything else got a fan base too and this one we still we got a pretty aggressive pitch but let's see how aggressive of a pitch we got that's level that's probably almost too aggressive but I don't care as far as being on my property but when we go back customers of course I'd be level that way okay but when we go over here we're over there Level side to side yeah Level side to side but you gotta start you gotta take care when you're doing two steps Side by now these are rough Timbers as well so I don't want you to worry about getting exactly perfect simply because but this is too far out of per perfect to count so the eyeballing did good to a point but we gotta actually do them right Zach we got to get him right so in this case what's happening is Zach is doing a fine job of leveling each Timber individually but he's forgetting to level when you have multiple Timbers butting up to each other to level one Timber with the next Timber to make sure they're Level side to side and front to back we don't want toe kickers which is one step higher than another or lower than another we want to make sure that we have a nice consistent bed so when you're stepping down onto a Timber you feel safe and comfortable by having these Timbers at different levels or different angles it can make the entire staircase feel awkward so this is an important step to get right to make sure that every Timber marries up to the timber next to it and is consistent with the timber above it and the timber below it all right go for it let's see how you do all right we're gonna base this one out you're standing right in front of the camera that's all right Zach that's all right I'll get the camera over here okay so tell me what you're gonna do and I'll walk you through the process basically so far dumped in more dirt sand this little sand dirt and sand are not the same dirt typically has organic material in it so I just want to be careful of how we use our terminology on something like this yeah okay and brought that in and then uh brought it back up to the level because it wasn't where I had it it was just butted up to wherever it was let's let's see how we're doing let's let's uh so you're leveling this base out greeted across it okay to get it level okay so I should be able to set the timber right and if you based it this way have you leveled it this way as well pretty good pretty close but the closer you get the base the less work you'll do with the step okay how about how are we doing down here technically we should have a four foot level and we can get by we're really close but yeah we can fluff a little bit more of this in and that's the beauty part about sand is she just she works so well she just kind of kind of just what you need her to do that's that the Timber and the boat right here you know we got a little bit of a ridge right in the middle Dead on there we go now we're level this way and we are level this way so now we've got we'll have to do the final touch-ups with after we put the timber in place but we know we're close enough let's lay that Timber down and let's see how well she lays out and how close that base actually is so just because we got the sub base ready doesn't mean steer itself is ready okay uh I'm stepping on the stair below me I'm not stepping on the base but you got a high point on that step on this side so let's put the let's put the level on it I have a feeling that this side is going to be a titch high Dead on nice it's nice I think it's just because it's warm Timber no it's because I noticed that there was a little bit of material right there that's what I was worried about right yep so the back side is high so we need to pound that back side down so we need to hit that back side down which will level that out so we are high on the back side all right I don't have as a hammer rubber mat and I need if we go with let's show them what we got for Hammer so we got a couple Hammer choices we got a rubber mallet and we got a steel Sledge We don't happen to have a dead blow this is going to bruise the wood if I really beat on it this one's not going to give me the results I need so if we end up going with this we need a 2x4 just a piece of scrap wood underneath it uh we'll grab one from underneath the deck but I'm gonna just see what I can do with the rubber mallet for the time being while I'm working on this you grab that all right let's get dialed in to go too crazy I only got to get this back knocked down a little bit yep just a little bit because we want the back higher than the front so right now we're at about a quarter bubble yeah on this side let's see how we're doing on the other side pretty damn close and how are we doing side to side so we're Level side to side we've got quarter bubble toward the back that means the stairs are leaning forward which we want for water to shed and we're leaning forward the same consistent on that side so now we put the next timber in place and it has to continue that run and as the state consistent with the results that we have there okay so good long anchor and this long anchor is going to be able to go all the way through the log and then into the log below it well the railroad tie so you can see we're not just going to be getting a little bit of a grip we're going to be getting a lot of a grip that's what we want to do now your level side to side front to back everything is level on these before you go on commitments but it's like I don't want that this one moving and then that's going to drop the sand out from underneath those so I want to make sure that still okay we good that way because you go a little higher on this end pretty well level front to back I think on that side a quarter bubble on that side so okay now you should have this stair resting partially on this stair by not having it rust can tight by not having it rest on this there every time we step on this we're going to be compacting the material below it which you can see is sand right and so by putting this scooching it forward so we're getting a quarter inch or a half inch or an inch of purchase or so on the Block below it then we're locking all of these together so as we step on this and we step on this we're Distributing the weight that much further right now what you got is got it right here and although this sand isn't going to be able to kick forward it still is going to have greater deflection in the base than if we had them all locked together so this one should be pulled forward and locked tight to the one below it yeah pull more that way nope forward this way well that's why I think this one got shifted and a bunch of sand got behind it that's why she's so far off okay so you should have all of these stairs locked together resting on top of each other so that we don't have stairs just on material and stairs on other stairs okay so are we gonna slide this one forward enough how is this how is this one well there we go this one I have no clue on so I'm just I want to get this one out of its way just where are we going with it just like that okay just so it's out of the way because I think no no don't take that out just make sure that that one is level make sure that that one if that's going to be your starting point make sure that you're good to go forward backwards side to side and then start to base off from that and put your blocks in front your railroad ties in front and behind all connected off from that one so once you've picked your starting point make sure that you got everything set this one you can use some material so I've got a nice safe area for him to work this is my own property and so I can be as picky or not as picky as I like but I'm the one that's got to live with these results and I'm the one that's trying to teach him so that he can Master these when we go on to a paid project somewhere else down the road he can be confident and what he's installing but more importantly I can be confident in what he's installing so that I don't have to look over his shoulder and teach him out on a customer's job site so I'm teaching him here in my own place just because it's easier for us to correct it here than to correct it when we're on the clock and have somebody looking out the window going oh my God what did we get into that's why we're gonna be picky with you today Zach so that you can Master these skills and these guys can Master the same skills along with you and do good work on their projects as well so some guys when they're teaching like to show other people step by step the right way to do things and I used to do that but what I found is that if you're not always there showing them step by step how to do something and you're gone sometimes that skill and knowledge that you put into their brain Slips Away I like to let guys make their mistakes and then learn to correct those mistakes because there's a certain level of pain when you're making a mistake and then you do something wrong and you have to pull it out and then redo it associated with that that makes you not want to make that same mistake again the second time and I know this gets a little bit deep but I firmly believe that when you make a mistake and then you learn from that mistake it deepens the knowledge it increases the synopsis firing and helps you to become better and more proficient the next time than if you had somebody spoon feeding you you the knowledge throughout the entire process so to me this mistake correction mistake correction is a better learning process than just spoon feeding the knowledge right out of the game and that's my thoughts but what do you guys think which way do you guys like to train or be taught thank you Frank there is a point there where I thought that Ford Tailgate was gonna break [Music] I can't believe how heavy these things are about it all right soda well I'll wait till he gets here then I'll get him started 10-4 uh this was the last one I was gonna help him with and let him take over okay so what are we doing Frankie we're grabbing a three inch overhang stepping onto three inches okay that way we're anchoring the front the front end of the step onto the good Good Wood underneath yep so then when we set our back one we're coming from the back side screwing into it so they can separate so when you set this one you're anchoring all the way through so you're not going to get separation this way right okay and then from basically as long as we got that one level I had to put a shim on the old one from a quarter inch to a one inch a inch and a half oh I see that okay what did what material did you use for the shim yeah your the boards that we build deck the deck so the reason we're using these is these are they're non-biodegradable you can actually submerge them in a lake and they'll never degrade no matter under any conditions and what are these called moisture Shield they're called moisture Shield so it's actually decking material so that's what we use the shims in this case sand gravel any non-organic material would work okay what else Frankie and as long as we got this first one level basically everything goes off from it from that point forward because then we're filling it in with sand and packing it as we go all right I mean we you know if these ones are here are settled we might have to go with something you might have to do rebar you know I don't know what you're gonna do once we get to that point you know yes we'll deal with that when the time comes when the time comes and then we're gonna put one more in down below as well we'll see what the kids are up to you guys hear that Drilling in the background what are we up to guys mushrooms mushroom farming what kind of mushrooms are we going to be growing these ones are delicious reishi okay and what do you got to do to grow those um drilling holes in logs and then um inoculated plugs just go in the hole again we're essentially planting mushroom babies really cool it is cool psyllium this is mycelium it's been around for like billions of years so much older and wiser than us funny awesome well good okay well there we're we got all sorts of projects going on up here and having fun attempting to do them all good bad name between you know the thing we share the stories we share with you what we succeed at and we share with you what we learned we never fail but we learn a better way of doing it we tear it off and hopefully that helps you guys out that's all we got for you on this one God bless go get them the next thing you're gonna see is the stairs all wrapped up [Music]