Wall FAILURE about to hit house-Plus we pull a mean one! START to FINISH 4 k Wall build

all right can you guys find Sam hey Sam breeze you down there can you wait there he is there's there's his work zone guys so today's project is somewhat of a doozy we've got to build a retaining wall underneath an existing porch there is a rotting timber wall that's there right now and it's falling down and it's about to take the porch with it so we've got to undercut beneath this foundation remove that timber retaining wall and then build a new one and there's just no room to work there's only about four foot of clearance beneath this deck and this three-season porch or four season porch so if you look real close you can see one of my guys crouch down underneath the porch right there that's where the retaining wall is that we have to get out [Music] [Applause] [Music] so this all has to come out and move back so we can build the wall so I'm gonna guess that there'll probably be a few people commenting just how slow he's operating and here's the challenge I want to put to you if you're in a situation like this I would love to see you guys make a video where you dig underneath the footing but do it superfast just bump up on them just hammer it up love to see you guys pull that one off without nicking the house without damaging the siding breaking a window or knocking into anything because yeah just do it don't tell me how slow we operate just go out and show me how much faster you can do it yourself [Music] you see I don't like my guys rushing on stuff like this because I know the extra few hours it's going to take for them to dig this out without damaging anything would cost me less than if I have to try to replace the siding see the problem is when you replace siding on a house if you Nick a little bit of it and you can't color match it perfectly you've got to replace all of the siding around the entire house and that gets to be pretty expensive Bend there did it done it rather have the guys go slow then dude go too fast and damage something so at this point of the project what we've got to do is actually make sure that the top of the wall fits directly just snugly underneath that house foundation if we put that bottom base block in at the wrong elevation and don't do the reverse calculation that top block won't fit so we've got to make sure that we get the base elevation exactly right [Music] now most of you guys that have built retaining walls and all that this part of the project is the most time-consuming takes yeah it takes the longest to do that's what most time-consuming basically means but you've got to get this part right or the rest of your wall will fail now before we get too far along on the project we're gonna tow this wall in right away because if any of those blots get kicked or shifted it's gonna throw everything else off so before we actually start the building process we just make sure that we get everything told in and tightened up [Music] better use my legs and run before it is too late a flea [Music] so this drain tile is not for the retaining wall it's actually for the downspout of the house this will get connected into that downspout so this is a four inch solid piece of pipe as it gets ran separately outside of our drainage zone of the retaining wall we never want to put anything that we don't have to in that drainage zone if it's not directly helping there's a painting wall out [Music] so now we're getting to a tricky part of the job and we're gonna actually show you what that is and that's stepping down a base stepping up your base easy-cheesy stepping down your base not at all [Music] alright step down so I'd like to take this opportunity to introduce you a little bit more to a couple of my guys the guy in the gray shirt his name is Blaine and he's over 50 years old and has actual master's degree in mathematics he literally works for me just for fun and to stay in shape Blaine's worked with us for years now and he's just freaking awesome at his job so that's bling the guy in the orange dirt monkey hat that's Sam he's new to us a couple years ago but fiery go Gator and what a great guy he is as well you know I just I really appreciate my crew loved these guys without them none of this stuff would be possible so you'll get to see these to get this bass block in I'll shut up now just came out with the personal air-conditioner leg on a belt right you wear like this long sleeve things you tape the sleeves around your hands in up and then it's like you're sure she Clips on the back here and it recirculates it's the whenever we're working on a project we try to avoid step downs if at all possible that's why you'll always see us when we start building a retaining wall from the lowest point and build upward because if you start from a higher point and have to build downward this is what you got to do and this one block will take longer than four or five regular blocks to base but you still got to get it right so on this project the reason we're ending up doing this step down is because it was very critical for us to make sure that we got the top of the retaining wall to fit snugly underneath that house that meant we had to start at the house and work outward if it we could have done it any other way we would up but we couldn't screw up that one measurement by the house and so we ended up doing a few step downs to compensate eight inches is sitting on the block it keeps your joints staggered yep this one is half-inch this one up with this one I'm gonna be the first one to admit our jobs take us longer but the attention to detail that Blaine's teaching Sam right now is why we won't get callbacks there's never a compromise in quality so I don't care if they take this longer so this isn't done yet they've got to fill in the space between the block they baste and the block that's on top of it with rock and get that level so they can slide the block over on top of that rock so that we can complete the step go [Music] [Applause] [Music] once the wall is built and all the drainage aggregate is in that's when we start grading and this site has a super challenging slope and thank goodness at least this is because I had no other piece of equipment that you handle it and you're gonna see that in just a minute and we are using small buckets on purpose because this is a detail work we don't want a giant bucket mounted dirt come sliding out and come crashing into the back of this retaining lock we only want to get a certain amount of dirt back there get it place graded and then come back again and add a little bit this is not one of those mass moving operations this is more finesse just trying to get it exactly right without wrecking anything [Music] to save some money we're trying to eliminate the need of wrapping a retaining wall around the slope but to do that we've got to create a grade going down and so right at the end of this wall where we have it step down we're gonna end up adding just a little bit more wall than we planned [Applause] with a piece in my hand good shot as I walk to the water for a last goodbye he begs my mind makes right so he said when he healed on the keys or over our head I live in that grip and now he'll learn at the end with the tables turn forgive me pygmy [Music] [Applause] [Music] the grades done it's time to cap the wall so we ended up buying a brand new chop saw just a couple months ago just a monster piece for projects like this but this is what the guys still use this little Dewalt 9 inch battery-powered concrete saw you can hook water up to it I don't know why they don't have it hooked up right now I think it was just because they were making a quick cut but that's also why they like this sauce because it's just so handy for little quick things that always fires up I don't make any money if you guys buy this I don't care if you go out and buy it or not but this thing is way better than I would have ever given it credit for when I first seen it I thought it was a joke first time I ever seen a saw like this I'm like give this to my grandson as a toy take the blade out and give it to him but this thing is turned out to be the biggest surprise yeah so if you look closely you'll see Sam is actually underneath the porch gluing the caps under there there's literally just inches to spare there that's why we had to get that first calculation just right because there was no room for error [Music] [Applause] so with most of the wall done the grading completed it's time to pack up and go home but we're gonna have a little bit of fun before we take off on this project I'm gonna let Sam do the walkthrough on the final job show you guys everything that we accomplished on it and then we're gonna have a little fun we just got our site all finished and buttoned up we got the we're gonna do great off where it needs to be we have a pretty good Swale going on this way and right down the hill here the hoe know the homeowner is gonna put in gutter right along here with the downspout going out and right about in here to get the water going right down the hill there no there's uh we have our drain tile running the inside all the way down the inside of the wall here and running out into the woods here about that's about 25 feet or so so get that good and gone our wall is all buttoned up that was a real fun stacking block down in there we have our pretty a pretty aggressive slope on here get all the water going well away from the house so we are going to play probably the meanest joke that I could ever think of and I didn't think of it I got to give credit for this one too Sam Tim who co-owns GT lives with me happy to be on vacation and he is a worrywart I don't even know why he goes on vacation because he worries so much about the company while he's gone I can't imagine that he enjoys his vacation so we're just gonna have a little bit of fun with him while he's gone what we're gonna do is we're gonna Park this truck right next to the house and then Photoshop like it's starting on fire maybe even attempting to catch the house on fire but then we're gonna text the pictures to Tim and when he tries to call us back we're not gonna get through the phone so we're not gonna do this hat we're doing this the whole way guys I want you to meet Kent Kent how you doing good this is Sam's dad and this was all Sam's idea so Kent is a master photographer and good at photoshopping so we're gonna do this the right way to make it look like it's it's I think we can work with this we'll have it will have something like this and we'll make it on fire and make it look like the garage is catching fire as well lighten it up a little bit smoke pouring off of it what do you think yeah I forgot I'll catch some later and we're gonna get him in on it oh you better yeah you bet he would like to do I want as many people in it as can be I brought a fire extinguisher with me so if we can like the fire extinguisher is on somebody sitting in it like they're snoozing and then if we've got a third person here going because the things on fire we have a catastrophe here let me get my fire extinguisher awesome we got to pull blame in planes actually the only one working right now I Blaine can you come and be a movie prop for us I think I think we need a third person to be part of the set up there you go we actually got the fire extinguisher to work I want to be able to see you and I want you really stretched out you know yeah yep they're fighting the fire and then we'll have Blaine let's see where we're gonna have you work the best probably gonna be right about here we'll start with you right about right about here and you're staring at the sea gonna hate god there's a fire right about here yeah we're gonna have the fire blazing it's awesome cuz that's the one that has the fuel fuel cell on it that's that's as emotional as Blaine gets paid to hear if he takes his hat when he puts it on backwards doing real for [Laughter] I can't argue that this is wrong to do but it just feels right yeah we are that's what I'm talking about looking good so we see the logo very nice we got several other people in here that are trying to save the situation that it ain't working and so when this happens we're probably going to hear I just text him emergency you need to going so did you figured it out we thought for sure we'd get you with that one we had Sam's dad put it together and everything man [Music] Sam's over here going oh my god Tim's gonna make me do the crappiest jobs all summer long after this but it's worth it all right you guys well that's our adventures today so I'd like to hear from you what kind of practical jokes have you guys seen pulled on your job sites cuz if you got a good one I'm all up for pulling a better one on Tim god bless you guys go get them and do me a favor check out these other two videos I'm popping up on the screen right here for