Position Boulders for Stability

with this in mind contractors will usually try to install Boulder retaining walls using stones of inadequate size for what they must retain this means that the songs stones are simply too small the strength of a boulder retaining wall and its overall holding capacity comes from the sheer weight of the boulders being used small stones simply can't hold back big banks the second misapplication when building a boulder retaining wall is using a large boulder but using it in the wrong way boulders are by nature very irregular in their shape and size meaning that they will have typically have a small side and have a big side here's another great example these are phenomenal stones in and of themselves like here it is signed by Paul I can reuse every single Boulder here but I'm not gonna be using it for its face I'm gonna be reusing it for it step this Boulder right there we rotate it 90 degrees get the depth into it not the face surface area but the depth this Boulder right now probably has 6 square feet face by the time I'm done using it we'll be lucky if we get 2 and a half 3 because it's not a very thick stone this way it's gonna be deep into the bank which is gonna resist movement oftentimes contractors will try to put the big side on the face of the actual retaining wall but the strength of the retaining wall lies in putting the big size into the bank one Boulder may have a face that is 8 square feet and have a side that is 4 square feet now the contractor is going to try to optimize the square the face square footage of that stone so instead of putting the face square instead of putting the big side into the bank and burying it they're gonna flip that and they're gonna put that into the face so we are at the site of a failing Boulder retaining wall probably 10 footer and great boulders they use awesome stones but the construction itself how they put it together where this front wall has its main issues you can see that they were optimizing the face of these boulders instead of giving it sit of having a boulder like this they use the big face area that should have been flipped sideways so it went into the hill because now there's nothing behind that