we find BURIED Utilities the WRONG way!

most jobs change in some way shape or form it doesn't really matter how thorough you are in your initial blueprint how detailed you are in the plans and how well laid out you think you have everything sometimes you find things that are just unexpected and throw a complete monkey wrench in everything that you have laid out and that's what's gonna happen today you're gonna see the boys have plan a but then they have to go to plan b and then at times they're going to have to go to plan c and we're going to take you through the discovery process and then we're going to watch what what they do to overcome the obstacles that are they're about to face and we're just gonna let her go so without wasting any more time let's just get right into this one lane and i are wrapped up with our first wall of the season just turned out freaking awesome that was a really great way to kick off the year um we're hauling equipment out to our next one now he's up there a little ways uh so this one all i know is it is like a paver patio type deal i think this is actually like tim's on an uncle or something like that i'm not sure but i'll tell you what we'll all find out together the project the boys are going to be tackling is a paper patio with natural stone stairs and then that's going to be flanked on either side by a natural stone stairway this is part of the process that ended up getting changed it was originally slotted to be a paper sidewalk but you'll see what happened in just a moment what kind of example is he setting for the rest of us before we start a new project we go over the contract with the project foreman now in this case it's going to be blane and we actually leave him a copy of the contract with the complete material list as we have it laid out including all of the details that we've gone over with the customer in the contract so that our foreman is on the same page as the customer as the office settings stepping stones and decorative rock is part of it and then grading and stump removal so this grating portion is where uh moving the pine tree stump now kevin will go over where the gas is and everything around that there might be some stuff in that area um the the grating and removal disposal of uh one load of unsuitable soil i figured we'd scrape up about a load of rock and stuff there's gonna be more rock under this now where tim is currently standing is actually the old construction road and that has to be restored to a lawn but before we can just restore it we've got more construction to do so we're going to use that construction road before we take it out oh yeah we're right down here on the river i've got an importation of one load of structural fill soil and then whatever you get from the patio i was thinking of throwing in this low spot here and then we're gonna try to i've got about three loads of screening pulverized black dirt topping everything in here so we're trying to take out as much rock as we can sure um scraping it down and kind of however it works out but we want to get these grades working right i can't see us wanting to strip too too deep under this now so wherever this is the uh century your five inch step here then you got your one two three four five six inches and then you got one two three four five inch i'm just trying to think if we're doing two that would bring you i'm trying to make it there there's there's two steps right there you know two of them in here side by side and then when they where they meet we might have to do a little saw cutting to make them butt up a little tighter yeah you know where the two because there's gonna be maybe six steps here or six of those stones here and then two of them here is it that does that make sense to you because i never really did go over this with you this was just the idea we had so let's paint you a little bit of a clearer picture we've got an existing deck that we've got to work off from and the first step off from that deck has to be the same distance as each one of the stone stairs that we're going to be putting in so our first step down will be off the deck onto stone and then from that stone we'll be stepping off from that stone onto another stone and from that stone we'll be stepping onto a patio so we've got to reverse engineer everything and set the patio at the right height to allow us to get one stone step on a second stone step on and have each of those equal the distance of a step down off from the deck onto the first stone so that's what tim wants to set initially with blaine and then he's going to let him go but these are the kind of decisions that we like to make sure that we have a second opinion on before we just let somebody go because if you screw this up then everything you do afterward will be just nothing but a problem now you're going to see two pieces of equipment on this job site more than anything else a kubota skid loader and a bobcat mini excavator but what you may notice is that the kubota skid loader does the majority of the actual cutout in the area where they want the patio there's currently a fire ring and a lot of grass and turf all of that has to be removed now you have three different types of material below your pavers you have raw ground which we're going to call your base then we have sub base which is the material we're bringing in right now and then you have screened sand the sub base or the material you see right here is recycled class 5. if you got in there with the forks and just lifted that sucker up yeah i'm just worried about the roots that have gone yeah yeah yeah yeah this is good dirt that's some good dirt this area happens to be the green zone so this black organic material is perfect for the new grass that we plan on putting in at the end of this project it's not suitable for the paper patio plane is careful to shake as much of the excess organic material off from the stump because the recycling facility where we take it to doesn't allow dirt and debris mixed in with their stumps you'll notice that this street has no curb and so all of the water that hits that street dumps directly onto the customer's property and then because it's down a hill goes right into their new structure that they just built is going to dump right onto the patio that they want us to put in and we've got to put in a drainage swale to control that we install the drainage swale as the very first step that way if we get any torrential downpours during the course of construction we're not going to end up with a complete washout now i'm going to jump in here because i'm guessing more than a few of you are asking why don't you have fabric below that rip rap well because we're right on bedrock so we are actually laying rip rap and bedrock on a foundation of your bedrock therefore the fabric in this case really isn't an absolute necessity during this phase of the project we want to be very careful that we don't over excavate or cut our sub base material out too deep if by chance we do happen to cut too deep we can't just put the material back in like nothing happened we've got to actually place it in lifts and compact it to make sure that we have a hundred percent compaction below this new paper patio that's going in so by being a little extra careful during this step it will save us a lot of potential work down the road [Music] now whoa whoa whoa we can't just cut to any measurement because that's the right measurement we've also got to take into account that we've got to remove all of the organic material so for example let's say we know we've got to cut eight inches down to get the proper amount of base material in but we still have black or organic material eight inches down it doesn't mean our job is done then we have to keep going to remove all of that organic material and knows under no circumstances are we allowed to put a paper patio on any kind of black organic or non-structural fill soil now look very closely at the soil it still looks probably black to the average person but to the trained eye the black material has now been successfully removed and we are starting to get into the brown structural zone so we can just start to skim off any of the excess black dirt get that out of the way and then leverage that brown structural fill for our base and then bring in our sub base material or the recycle class 5 [Music] next on this project the customers also requested that we flank the paper patio with two natural stone sidewalks which are more of just natural landscape features to tie everything together than actual structural physical sidewalks it's more for aesthetics than it is for use but we still want to put enough bass down that it won't move our sub base material is recycled class 5 and what this is it's road millings that has been pulverized and crushed the largest pieces are three-quarter inch in diameter but they go all the way down to fines and they basically pack up hard as concrete [Music] okay so here's the problems that we're running into first of all the property that we're working on right on the river the problem with that is you know millions and millions of years ago this was all under water from the bluffs over there to the bluffs past the side of the the shore over there a little ways and because of that this is nothing but limestone under there you get about six to eight inches underneath the topsoil solid limestone right okay first problem second problem so homeowner you know wants steps along here but they want them going all the way across and how they wanted them they wanted one two three cross here there's no way that we could get that where there wouldn't be trippers second problem with that is how they were cast they're cast on you know all four sides so with the overhang on each one of the sides we won't be able to get it tight there'd be two to a two and a half inch gap in between each each one of the stairs if that makes sense that's not something that we can saw cut if it was natural stone we could saw cut it but why we couldn't saw cut those is it's painted concrete right so you cut and then it's just going to be concrete because it's just painted on the outside second problem after that we switched the type of step we're going to use we got these ones over here and blaine lane and i have used these ones before these are the ones that we switched to they're still rough on the three sides but not as bad so this is something i'll be able to shave down so we'll be able to get a nice tight fit or a tighter fit on there and these are the same color all the way through they're not just painted that's the third problem fourth problem we're going back to this whole yard being nothing but limestone and the homeowner here out to this little dealy ran a bunch of gas lines and stuff like that saying that there's three running up to the house they're all on top of each other so gave us a rough idea where they were we dug we found them there's a three today we're excavating and thank god blaine's seen this there's another one this is gas it feels like an electric these were the ones he told us about right here this bundle it's like gas electric some other nonsense right so we have called in a utility locate and basically what that means is they come out and they locate the public utilities from the road to the main structure which may not necessarily be your work zone but they are obligated to notify you of where those utilities cross through any potential work zones but any utilities that run from a main structure to an accessory structure are not located or marked by a utility locate that's up to the customer to notify you the contractor now in this case the customer told us about three of the lines that he knew about but it was pretty obvious that there were two that he wasn't aware of and sam is thinking that those two lines are a gas and electric line put together which is a very deadly combination if blaine did happen to go through that and they were a gas and electric line combo all in one as he punctured the gas line and then punctured the electric line as the gas was escaping the sparks from the electric line would ignite it creating a pretty massive mass so if you guys do happen to run across a line and you do think it's a gas and electric combo like you see here that should be a very big red flag to stop work and make sure that you get that taken care of before you go any further because if you do puncture those two together it's not gonna be pretty i cannot tell you how close blaine came to taking that out so freaking close he didn't thank god but here's the problem all of this is sitting on limestone it is just a massive massive solid chunk of limestone all the way through here we're not going to be able to move these lines out of the way the homeowner wanted us like a paver little pathway going into the patio over there and that is absolutely 100 percent out of the question now we're not going to be able to get enough base in here i'm not wanting blaine and i aren't wanting to go over gas lines or none of this this is a mess the sketch factor on this bit right here is high so we are having to change the plan again which isn't a problem that's usually how it goes once you start getting into these things and stuff like that but oh my god there is a reason you get these things down as far as you can this is this this this almost ended up being a really really really bad day and i don't know if the homeowner didn't know that this one was here or or forgot to say something or i don't i don't know if he only said that there was these three and apparently there's not so okay so this project it's not not a hard one nice little patio and some other stuff but this has been such a freaking nightmare already ah oh gosh it it that i just i don't i don't even know what to say this is such a freaking this has turned into such a mess so it's been our experience that most projects do end up changing in some way shape or form it's just the nature of the beast as we're doing a design build project the customer's vision sometimes change sometimes the circumstances on the jobs dictate a change but either way the ability to be flexible and to roll with it helps keep a project on schedule imagine if the customer basically came out and said no if he had zero flexibility we would have been at a standstill at that point because construction would have had to stop until those lines could be buried properly and we would have had to gone into contract changes and overcharges it just is part of the job so what could be considered a mess in some situations can also be considered a mixed blessing if you have a customer that's willing to work with you it makes such a difference in the world and that's our video for today you guys except we're not done on this project but we will be on the very next video we're going to get the patio installed all of the natural walkways installed and all of the changes that you've seen us fighting through in this video come to life and you get to see the finished project in the next video if you like projects and videos like this give me a thumbs up it really does go a long way it shows me that i'm on the right track and if there's anything else you guys want to see hit me up in the comments down below i love making content for you guys now here's a couple three ideas that i had that i really wanted to shoot past you some of you guys have wanted to find out more about a mower called the fly mower or a hovermore well i happen to have one of those and i think i should do a video for you on that another one is i've got the hill from hell over at shangri-la douche some of you guys remember that project that i bought over the course of the winter and have been slowly working away at well we got a lot of work to do over there and then i've got a pretty nasty road with some massive potholes and divots and i want to take a new attachment through it and see how it does so that'll be coming down the pipeline as well as a lot of fun stuff from our crews out out in the fields god bless you guys go get em and hopefully we'll see you on another one catch you later