The Invisible Work: Prepping a Massive Patio Foundation - GLASS HOUSE EP 4

3 2 1 >> Here we go. [music] Here. You just uh stay over there for a second. All right. Go um over that way more. We need to have like this that radius meet up with our bigger radius here. So, [music] I just want to make sure everything's kind of working out. Before we get more into this, let me break down exactly what we're trying to achieve here and what our goal is with this layout. The whole design is based around this pond that's right in the center. And we have a lot of our hardscaping based around that as our center point. So, we have a 54 ft diameter circular walkway that connects everything. We have three different [music] patio spaces. We have one over by the deck that's going to be a circle. We have another one on the other side of the pond where there's going to be a fire pit. And then we have one smaller one at the entrance to the backyard. So, we have to be really precise with how we lay this out because [music] it's going to make or break the whole design. If these circles are right on point, it's going to look amazing. If they're not, it's going to look like a jumbled mess. So, we need to get that center point first and foremost in the center of the pond to start pulling our layout. Once we have that, hopefully this is all going to come together because we want it to look very precise and planned out and not like a jumbled mess of nonsense. So, let's get into it. And I've got some new gear, meta glasses. You're going to be inside my head for this vlog. So, let's go. It says on here it's uh [music] 50 feet, but it's really going to be more like over here, we can go somewhere between 52 and 54. So, if we go with this 54 number, looks like that's going to work. We will have to take out some of these plants here. Uh not the biggest deal. Um, and it'll keep us a little bit further away from this bamboo, which is great because, uh, you know, we don't want our pavers to be too close to this because, as you know, bamboo is super aggressive [music] and, uh, that's going to be something that they'll have to, uh, you know, be battling, uh, for a long time. So, uh, further away we can keep that, the more buffer area we can keep between the bamboo and the pavers, that's going to be good. So, we'll, uh, we'll go with that. Pull out, uh, 8T from there. Wrap this around here. Get our [music] outer dimension. Looks pretty good. Oh, great. What the freak? >> I think your finger's over it. >> Is it? All right, that makes sense. Gloves are too big. This is a dangerous dangerous game. Center of our circle for the overall walkway that ties everything together. Total diameter of that circle is 54 ft. So, we need to find the center point and it's somewhere right in the middle. So, what we're going to do is uh we need to find 27 ft from two spots. We know we want the outside of it to be uh pretty much right here. We get to 27 ft. Uh make a mark on that since we don't have two 27 ft tape measures. >> All right. There you go. [snorts] Pull it. Pull the string. >> Yeah, there you go. That looks good. That's that's that's good enough for our purposes right now. That [snorts] gets us uh So now we have two things there. 27 ft. So, if we got a knife, let's uh let's cut this so we don't got to carry this this part around. Nick always carries a knife, don't you? >> Usually. >> I don't think that's going to work. Oh, almost. There you go. All right. Hey, look at that. [snorts] Jose, you walking the plank. >> You're the boss. >> Me? I'm the boss. I got to get up there. All right. >> Got to walk the plank. [snorts] It's a mutiny. >> It's chilly out here, man. All right. [snorts] All right. So, we got a pretty good uh pretty good line of what we want here. There we go. See the delivery lady had a dog in her truck? >> No. >> Yeah, [snorts] there was a little she had like a little Australian Australian shepherd. >> The dog say good mate. >> He said when uh it's all we were doing like criy criy that's a big job there. >> He actually go for a tussle. >> No, I never even heard that as a Australian term. They asked me to go out for a fosters. >> Whoa. Hey, I just met you. >> Fosters and a tussle. >> Oh, they like to fight. >> They love to fight. >> They're around them damn kangaroos and whatnot. It's one tough dog. >> That video where the guy punches the >> Oh, yeah. The kangaroo. Yeah, that's nuts. >> He's actual zoologologist, they say. >> Really? That's what a zoologologist does in uh in Australia. It just it just fights kangaroos. All right. That's kind of crazy. Those things are pretty sick, right? This is going to be this this vlog is going to be very POV. >> Oh, yeah. >> Very inside my head. You know what? Story time. So, a little behind the scenes on how this project kind of came [music] about. A client reached out to us uh I think on Instagram initially and then filled out the form on our website. [music] First time I met her, she was like, "I love your work. Like, I know I probably shouldn't say this, but I'm I'm going to hire you guys. I I'm going to hire you guys. So, like I know that's not a good good negotiating tactic, but I'm going to hire you." And I said, "Well, I like absolutely love this house and this property, so I don't care what what I charge for it. I'm doing this job. So, this was like kind of the perfect situation. And it's really funny because before I bought the house that I currently live in, um me and my wife looked at a house almost identical to this. It was built by the same builder. [music] It was somewhere like really close by to this. So, as soon as I saw this, I was like, "Okay, this guy must have built a couple of these houses cuz it was exactly the same on the backside. Full wall windows, had the decks inside. It [music] was like I had to see that house before we decided on our current house. We didn't end up buying it, but soon as I saw it, I was like, "This is this is meant to be." So, um, that's how this came about. She's letting us kind of do our thing back here, get creative, and that's when that's when I just start going nuts, losing my mind, and throwing extra stuff in cuz I just it's just got to be a certain way. And this project especially, it's just going to this is going to be like such a statement piece. This is going to be one for the portfolio that's like I know I'm going to be super proud of. So that's how this project came about and that's why it's going to be extra special. Time to [music] start moving some stone. All right, got our stone here. [music] I'll show you what's going on back there. [music] >> All right. So, we want some pitch running this way. So, we're uh we're probably actually pretty close. I think Jose's going to come in with the machine and uh yeah, move this around. We got to go a tiny bit higher over here. And then uh and then we're probably pretty close on this side here. So, we'll want to pitch like 3 in here. What I think we should do is set up the screed poles and we'll um we'll set those up for our base as well. And it'll just make it a whole lot easier to um you know, get this right where we want it. We'll have this all be uh flat this way and pitch that way like 3 in. And then based on where we're at, I think this is going to be mostly flat behind us. And then this is going to um we're going to work our way up cuz I think we're like 8 in higher [music] right over there. >> [music] >> Yeah, it's going to from here up it's going to slope up there, but here it's going to be flat across here. And then um I think it's [music] going to be relatively flat this way. Good. All right. We check the middle, too. Okay. How much How off is it? Is that level? That's like a whole inch or so. Yeah. Let's hit that. Let's hit that. That good. >> All right. Yeah. There you go. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. All right. Now, we can just uh bring in uh bring in a couple buckets and scrape, you know, screed this kind out. >> Make it nice. >> Make it very nice. >> [music] >> Well, got a little bit of an issue over here. Let's see if we can Can you see that? How much this is moving? Call that pumping. Ground's pumping right there. We don't like that. That's not good. We don't want that to happen to our pavers on top. So, uh that's an issue. We'll uh get back to this in a little bit. Uh we got some more work to do in the back. We've got some concrete coming tomorrow for uh our pad for the stairs to land on. So, I'll show you how we're going to take care of that. We'll try to deal with that tomorrow. I was hoping to get that done today, but uh not going to be the case. So, we'll have to address that. But for now, I want to get the back prepped so we're ready to go for that concrete truck tomorrow. 10:00 a.m. You hear about the walabe that's on the loose? I actually saw something on like ABC News and I'm like this is candy. >> That's what I thought. >> It was in I saw it was like in a park. >> It was in they somebody got a video of it in the uh Walmart parking lot. >> Yeah. Ex Escape Wallaby South Jersey. I've been keeping my eyes out. If it pops up over here, I'm taking it. >> W Yeah. I found a walabe escape from uh a petting zoo or something around here. So, I got my eyes peeled for it. [music] Concrete's here. >> [music] >> concrete's here. Let me show you what uh what we're pouring here plus something a little bit kind of unexpected that we're uh we're trying to correct [music] stabilize a little bit. So, uh primarily what we're doing is uh we're pouring our pads for our stairs to land on. But what else we are going to be doing here? Um, you can see we dug out good bit around these [music] footings. See right there? Now, I knew the major uh concern here with this structure uh and the thing that we were going to have to contend with was reducing the sway of this structure because it's not attached to the house. It's pretty high up. We're going to [music] have minimal uh angular bracing on it. We're still going to add quite a [music] few things. And it's really stable right now. Um, and the [music] one thing that we did to combat that early on was have each of our posts go down to an individual helical pile so it could be uh connected down low and stabilized there and then stabilized at the deck and then up top. Um, with that, we're still getting a tiny bit of sway on this and it's actually moving the top of the pile a tiny bit if uh, you know, we're up on the roof and and trying to move it. So, with that, the bottom of the pile at the helix is locked in, but at the top, [music] we're getting that little bit of sway. So, what we're going to do is pour concrete around uh, those two footings just to stabilize the top of it. It's going to reduce our sway um, and it's going to lock everything in. Like I said, there's still a lot more um that's going to go up here to help stabilize it. But, um I think that's going to be really all we need. Uh it's just going to be that little bit of extra stability that I'm looking for here. And then we're obviously going to have walls. We're going to have a lot of other stuff that that connects everything. So, uh we'll be good to go. But right now, it's time for concrete. You ready, Jose? >> All right. Concrete, guys. >> Hungry guys. [music] Heat. >> Got to clean up that concrete on your tools. John the electrician's here >> fixing a repair. >> Yeah. [snorts] No, this is uh totally up to code here. Correct. >> Totally up the code. >> Yeah, we've got uh we found a Oh, it's UF wire. So, that's >> in in plumbing conduit. >> In plumbing conduit uh about 6 in under the ground, maybe less. >> Maybe less. >> So, uh great find there. [laughter] So, for right now, that is uh running power to that outlet, which is running like a bubbler and a heater, I think, um for the water so that >> the fish don't die. So, uh we're just temporarily getting it put back together, repaired, and uh we're going to need to address this later cuz uh it's wacky. >> Yeah. >> Do you recommend doing electric this way? >> No, not in this country. [laughter] always find always find wacky stuff that people do and uh they think, "Oh, I'll always remember where that uh wire is and not hit it." But then they sell the house, they move, and now the wire's there, and then somebody else hits it, and you know what? It's not their problem anymore, so they don't care. It's just our problem. Now we got to deal with it. But >> we got to save the fish today. >> We got to save the fish. Save the fish, people. Save the fish. We're back over here. Yeah. Give a jump on that. See if See if we can. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Look at that. You can really see it moving all around. That's not good. We don't want that. [snorts] So, what are we going to do here? What we're going to do is we're going to amend the soil here with some type S mortar. And [snorts] uh couple different ways you can go about uh remedying this situation. You can continue to just dig and dig and dig until uh it's not as soft. That's one way to do it, but you really don't know how deep you're going to have to go uh before you're going to hit some really solid ground. So, you could go really, really deep. This is just going to be a walkway. If this was a driveway, uh that would be a different scenario. So you would really want to make sure that you have um super solid subbase. So you would probably want to keep digging. Another thing that you can do here is uh use larger like ballast stone um one to two, you know, even bigger. You call rip wrap, you know, whatever. You can use that as your base layer and use a jumping jack compactor to pound that into the subgrade and that's going to help stabilize it as well. I think here just some type S uh mortar mix will uh kind of rake it into the soil a bit. Give it some [snorts] time. It's going to dry it out and it's going to uh chemically change the composition of the soil. So, uh it drains better and it's going to it's going to stiffen up. So, let's see if it works. >> It went like this, right? Makes it >> uh Yeah. Watches just >> Yeah, just kind of like that. We'll see. We'll see what it does. [snorts] >> We're going to do a little bit of clean stone. We'll compact that and we'll see how we're looking. Yeah. Yeah. Still a little It's crazy. You jumped there. I could feel it here. Right. [laughter] >> I'm not that heavy, dude. >> [music] >> See [music] if I can get a scare in. It's been a while. Oh no, there he is. So after the weekend, let that uh that type mortar set up and we also drove some of this larger rock into the subgrade and uh it actually worked really well. Ground's not frozen and uh it's really it's really stable. So, really worked good. A multi- uh multi-layered attack on this with uh the type S mortar to chemically amend the soil and then that larger aggregate driven down into uh some of that softer soil helping to stabilize it. Then we'll have our 3/4 clean and we'll also have a geog grid in there as well. So, I'm very confident moving forward that this thing is ready to go. uh if it wasn't solid today after letting that type S set up, we were going to be digging out everything and uh starting fresh. So, I'm glad that it did stabilize over the weekend and uh we're pretty much good to go here. So, crisis averted. Uh did take some extra time here, but uh really worked out well. So, we got to finish up some of this uh some of this uh base to our elevation and then then we'll start spraying everything out for all of our perimeters. And you'll see the shape of this patio coming together. And we'll just make sure that uh we have everything dug out to the proper area. And you know, none of our our radiuses are getting cut off or anything. So, should be good to go. We'll see. We'll keep you updated. But, uh I think we're pretty good now. >> What are you doing? >> I'm just getting my estimated spot here. Great. >> That was scientific. All right. So, uh, we've got a 20 27 ft radius circle, 54 ft total. So, uh, went a little bit beyond that just to make sure that we've got [music] plenty of space. And now just going to spray this out. All right. Looks like we might need a little bit more sewing there. >> Heat. Heat. [music] >> We got ourh perimeter sprayed out. Everything looks really good. We've got uh just a couple areas we need to bring up the edges a tiny bit more. Other than that, the layout worked. Our center point worked. It's still going to be really tricky to lay pavers here, but it's coming together and uh I'm really happy about that. So, that's going to be it for this video. Next one, we're going to jump on the deck. We're doing decking. We're doing uh a lot of really cool stuff with that. Changed up the design once again. Just add some more detail. So, uh, make sure you hit subscribe, stay tuned, and until next time, this has been Premiere Outdoor Living. Oh, I'm out of breath. Too much running around, hunched over. Ah, I'm getting old. [laughter] There you go.