This makes MORE walls FAIL than anything. #retainingwall

This is the only gutter and downspout for here, here, and whatever's running off up there. There's a ton of maple trees all over the place over here, like there generally is in these neighborhoods. I'll bet you those gutters are pretty full and not doing too much to catch the water. But like I said, only downspout coming right here. So, it's just water had nowhere to go but down. And yeah, took took those walls right took that wall right out. So, what you're looking at here is what I consider to be the absolute worst block that money can possibly buy, but it's also one of the absolute most popular blocks. And it seems to be used all of the time. And let me just explain both of those things for you here real quick. The reason I feel that this is the worst block that money can buy is because it's got a solid top and it's hollow from the underside. And the only thing that connects this block to the blocks below it is a little tiny lip on the back side of that block. And we call that lip a chipin lip. And the reason I call it that is because when we're using those blocks to base, you take a chipping hammer. If you're a welder, you may know it as a slag hammer. Just a little teeny tiny hammer. and you tap the back of that block and guess what disappears? The lip. That's the only thing connecting it to the other blocks. And so what happens is mother nature does that really well. The block degrades and then that chip and lip just disappears and now you only have the weight of the block holding it to the block below it. But now let's go back to where we started with this story. The blocks are hollow from the underside. And the reason they make them hollow is so that they're lighter. Less materials also means they're less expensive and it's also easier to handle. This is where the popularity comes into it. Landscapers love cheap, easy blocks when they're going out and installing them on their job site, especially if they last just long enough that they can disappear and they don't have to worry about the warranty. And I know that sounds a little bit bad, like I'm bashing some guys, but there's guys out there that are using these over and over and over again. And if you are a consumer, just know what you're getting. And if you are a professional installer, you're probably not using these, so you got nothing to worry about. All right. Ready? Ready? Yep. Got it in there. Yep. Ready? All right. Be free, mister. Looking for a spot to bury, dude. Good spot. Hell yeah. [music] Hey, Now, this may not seem that important, but at the end of every single day, we take time to clean up our job sites and do a pretty thorough job. And the reason I say that may not s seem that important is because why would you even bring this up? Well, I was in a meeting once and we were it was down to me and one other company on a really massive project. I think it was like a quarter million dollar retaining wall. And what I found out is that one of the board members that was a deciding factor of whether it came down [music] and we got the wall or the next guy got the wall happened to live in another development where we were busy building their retaining walls. and he said to the entire board member, I want to go with genetic because at the end of every single day, their job site was spotless. And I'm thinking that just landed me a4 million job. But on the flip side of that coin, we were working on a job in Egan and we didn't clean up well enough every single night and I got a ticket. So Tim got us a new laser. It's at Topcon. Look at that. All nice and new. Oh, hey, man. That shows you how far you got to go. Look at that. It shows you how far you got to go until you're up there. That's kind of neat. We're at 11 in over there. I was more excited about that than Blaine was. What Sam forgot to mention is that was actually Blaine's excited face. He has two states, happy and asleep. I've never seen the man get ruffled by anything. Oh my god, I can't believe Blaine forgot to put in drainage aggregate. Psyche. Why do you think in a [music] retaining wall we would not put in drainage aggregate? Put it in the comments down below and in a moment I'll explain the exact science behind what we're doing and why. right. So, here's the deal. You did not see drainage aggregate because that was it at the towin level of the retaining wall. So if we have the if this is your grade and we have the wall, we have parts of the wall below grade and we don't want the water to be trapped below that retaining wall grade and just sitting there. So we use natural soils to get the the soil behind the retaining wall to be equal to the soil in front of the retaining wall. And then from that point, we start to fill it up massively with drainage aggregate. And then what happens is the water cuts behind the retaining wall. It hits that natural soil and boom, flushes out through the face where it's supposed to without mortar. You're not supposed to put mortar in these walls. Mortar is bad. Okay. So, I'm going to show you guys how I like to get these drains in. Right. So, you got your blocks cut. I'll show you what we got to do for that or like or how I like to do them. Um, and again, this is this is just how I do them. There's more than one way to gut a dog. It's all right. Um, so you got your tea on there. There's a lip right here. All right. And that's what your tile's going to sit up against. Um, and so when you're cutting it, I like to try to cut it like as flat as I can. So you get a nice solid so it seats up against that lip nice and solid. So you do that. All right. So we got our tea hooked up on the one side. We got that pretty good and centered. And then um I will measure there's a lip on this end, too. So, I'll measure from the lip to the end of there so that I I have like the exact size piece of drain tile in there. Cuz what that'll do then is it'll keep it'll keep the tile up along the back of the inside of your wall, which is where you want it. Um, and if you know you had like a little bit of a long winter, it can start doing something kind of like this and the drain tile can kind of get away from from the back of your blocks, which which you don't really want. So, I think I'd remember how much of a measurement this is by now. 10 in. So, we'll cut 10 in off of this boy. All right, there we go. Nice and flat both sides. All right, so let's see the fit on that. right. See? And then so that's exact length. And I'll keep it right nice and tight up against the back of your blocks. So then on either side of the tea, I will put little little bit of tape on there just for cheap insurance. Get your sock. And what I like to do to secure those. Let's just get a zip tie on there. We don't have to run it to the end of the wall. Essentially, this this is where we're going to end it. And I don't have any 90s with me. We do have a TE. So, we're going to stick that little bit off the end of here and cap it. [music] All [music] right. And there you go. And then uh we got to get a little bit more dirt under there. We'll get that on there. And then the rock and all the back fill and stuff like that will hold that right where it needs to be. Um, and then obviously, you know, you can tie them and all that kind of stuff. I mean, tie the sock and all that kind of stuff, but I just I like doing it with the zip ties on. Hey, you want to know a fun fact about drain tile that almost nobody knows? You don't need it in a retaining wall. Let me explain. The reason why we even install it in the first place is only to make our customers happy and the building inspectors happy. The two people that really know the least about retaining walls that there is out there. Oh my god, Dirt Mike, are you picking on building inspectors? Well, I'm not picking on them, but the reality of it is is if your drain tile is ever operating in a retaining wall, that's a sure sign that your retaining wall is in a state of failure. Wait, what? If my drain tile is actually working in a modular retaining wall, why would that mean it's in a state of failure? That means that's because all of the water is now being funneled into one specific location. A retaining wall is designed to allow water to weep evenly through the face. The entire retaining wall should have water coming through it and the water should never get down to a point where drain tile is needed. So if you see the drain tile working, it means everything else in the wall is not working. Therefore, you don't technically need drain tile if if you build the rest of the retaining wall the right way. We throw it in just to make other people happy. It's cheap insurance. Doesn't take much to do it. and what the heck keeps everybody off our backs. But that's all we got for you on this one. Hope your retaining walls don't fail or get washed out by water. I hope you guys have amazing experiences with whoever you're working with. And I hope you guys hit that subscribe button and come back tomorrow because we're going to be working more on this project. God bless. Go get them, you guys.