LOL! Yeah... I just didn't mention all of that. I had a BKD 88D out there spinning augers down to competent rock... they made it all of one flight. LOL! I pulled the engineering expertise from the fine P.E.'s at my office. All was well by my calculations according to them (although they wouldn't stamp it for some reason... not sure why. LOL!)

RP

 

Glad to see I wasn't the only one out toiling in my yard over the weekend!

I had a similar project that required about thirty 10' pieces of dimensional lumber and 500 pounds of river rock. Only RockPick is apparently a braver man than I, since I couldn't bear to haul the load home in my beloved Blue! I have two serviceable trucks (a '97 Ranger in fine condition and my new '05 F-150) yet I popped the $20.00 to rent the truck at Lowe's to haul my stuff home!

The Ranger is sitting in the garage with no insurance on it right now (I'm driving my wife's old '97 Sunfire into the ground as my regular vehicle right now) and the new F-150 won't be used to haul anything more destructive than a few bags of groceries!

 

So what does it retain? Midgets..Floods.. Mudslides...Flowers???

 

Brad,

Nice work! I'm doing a similar project towards the end of the summer. One question: Does your base row go all the way to the end of the wall underground, or did you just level it with the ground as it disappeared from view, and then use the end of the next chorus as the base for that section?

I hope that question is understandable, I just read it and it confused me a tad!

 

Soon to retain a lot of 'greenery' and a bunch of topsoil/mulch. It's more of a landscape feature than a retaining wall.

 

I understand totally...

No, the base doesn't go the entire way around at that level. I believe for walls that are to be 3 blocks or higher, they recommend a 8" base... ironically, the blocks are 8" so, as I progressed (starting at the lowest point) around to the sides, I stepped up when I had greater than 8" of drop from the native down to the top of block. In short, I kept at least 8" of base (with 3-4" of sand beneath the bottom block) all the way around.

The trick during the entire project is keeping that bottom layer of blocks perfectly flat and only doing a 'lift' (step up on the blocks) when you can (and not before then).

Not sure if you're anywhere near Home Depot but they had a free CD Rom that really did a nice job of explaining how to do the install when going into a sloped hill or similar. While it's not the end all to good instructions, I definitely picked up some tips and hints that made the install easier... See if you can snag that the next time you're in the big orange store...I think it'll really put it in to perspective and give you a pretty good feel of how it should go...they were free...

The weeping willow and others are joining the bed today... Hopefully, I'm going to have time to go buy a load of mulch (gotta rent a truck before that happens though).

RP

 

I'll swing by the Orange store in the AM. Thanks for the tip. Mine will only be three or four choruses high I hope.

You know, if the company would send you to the Charlotte area for a three or four day job, I could have all the materials ready for you and you could moonlight and have my wall done before the flight home.

Of course I would withhold all beer till the wall was complete!

 

Let me see if I got this right.

You...

1. Dug a hole in your yard
2. Then put rocks around the edge of the hole (rocks that you paid money for BTW :even more comfused LOL
3. Then, put the dirt back in the hole plus added more dirt to fill to the top of the high dollar rocks.

If it went the whole length of the slope to slow erosion.
Then I could understand.

If it was the whole length of the slope at the base of the slope about 8' - 10' high. Then you took a dozer and pushed the top of the hill into it and added dirt as needed to level the yard for a certain use.
Then I could understand it.

But currently it looks like way more time and money than I can even phathem spending for a flower garden. River rock works great for my wives flower gardens... I just lay them down in a predetermined layed out pattern. Then build a wall until level. Then back fill.

Just my 2 cents.
Does look like a good wall though.

 

I am gonna do the same thing. I looks nice and adds a touch of class to a yard. He is planting a willow tree there (good choice in my book).

All in all, RP did a really nice job. I have seen the finished product at a bank in Athens, and man it looks great.

trust me.

 

jamzwayne said "trust me"?



I like the willows but they do have a short life span. We have planted a couple, but then switched to Bald Cypress. Good job RP. I wish my wife would let me use those bricks. She has to have everything out of natural stone, sure complicates the process.

 

You'd better hurry before it rains! Lol! They're giving flash flood warnings down here on the KY/TN line.

 

That's all I use is natural stone, some wroght iron occasionally and either treated lumber or cedar for landscaping. (except the fire place/ pit/ Bar-B-Q is lined with cinder block.) But has a natural rock exterior. I just can't bring myself to pay that much for rocks. I also wont buy any rock that is a local natural resource. I might would pay to import rocks from other states or countries that I cant find on my property... I always joke that I have a rock farm because dosent matter how many I dig up. Then 3 more pop up some where else. I have more rock piles than you could load up in a day. I try to find anything I can to make with them to get them out of the way and useful at the same time. A place down the road retails them for around $120 a pallet. If it wasn't so much work then I would load my collection up and vend it to them for 1/2 that for them to Get rid of at 100% profit. I could probably make 10K a week for several weeks. Then I'd have to start mining to maintain that life style.. Plus I'm lazy thats way to much manual work at one time.

I am thinking about using rock for the exposed foundation of the basement. I haven't decided what kind of rocks I want to use there yet. Thinking about importing some castle stone from Ireland. Just to bring a little bit of my heritage back to me.

BTW, I knew why he did it and it does look nice. I was just making a joke.
I also always joke about us fertilizing and watering the yard.. Then mowing it back down (especially funny when someone fertilizes and waters then complains that they have to mow. (DUH!) LOL Didn't we fertilize and water it so that it would grow??? It just doesn't make logical sence, but we all do it anyway. We're just trying to have that picture perfect yard...

Think about this.
The average American home owners spends 10 grand a year on yard maintanence and I can't remember how many hours it was that we waste on it. Lets say it's 5 hours a week for 6 of the 12 months, then a few hours the other 6. Just the 6 months of 5 hours a week is 120 hours, or 5 full days at 24 hours per day of work, or three 40 hour work weeks. If I gave anyone $10,000 and said that you have 3 weeks vacation and could spend it however you want. How many would go to thier yard and spend all of the money and time there?
Yet we do it every year. It's mass insanity at it's most refined and I'm just as quilty. I've spent the last 2 years doing time managment studies on my own yard and have it down to 2 hours per week for maintnence during mowing season. (I'm hoping to drop that down to 45 mins with the purchase of my new tractor in a month or two. (There is my share of the 10 grand for the next 3 years. LOL) Then less than 30 mins through the winter.
I'm a huge fan of time managment it drives my wife crazy. She use to say all the time "Whats an extra 5 mins?". Then I showed her 30 daily task that we do that I have shaved 5 mins or more off of each one. At 5 mins each that is an extra 2 hours and 30 mins per day that we have. Now she hates the process of time managment but loves the outcome.

Sorry getting off topic so I'll stop there...






Yep nice pile of rocks you stacked up there RP.

 

PSS-
It's 'sell', not 'sale'. 'Sell' is a verb. Someone who sells printed words for a living might know that.

My apologies to everyone else for finally having to point this out to PSS. I just couldn't stand it any more.

 

LOL

Thanks
You are offically hired as my "unpaid" "free"lance online editor! LOL

Edited to add:
There I changed it for you!
Does that read better for you?
I need an online editor for here because as everyone knows that I am soooo conservative and worried about proper grammar as well as political correctness on these threads.
LOL
Actually I'm lucky if my post has all of (the) spelled T.H.E. and not T.E.H.

Who takes the time to sit and edit each of their post for grammar and spelling.. That goes back to time management. It's not making money and it's not saving time. I waste to much on here as it is because I am ridiculously addicted.

Edited to add:
You are now FIRED as my editor!!!
You missed the run on sentence in that same statement.
I'm sure there are more, because I didn't edit the entire post.
You stink as an editor! LOL

Edited again:
You are right though I should know that by now.
That’s one thing my editor is always throwing back at me to correct besides the (Teh) problem and other typo's. (Note: I refuse to pay them to edit my post on here.) I also have a bad habit and actually got sent to another department at a newspaper that I once worked at, for repetitively spelling Limousin as Limousine. I also constantly spell throw as through for some stupid unknown reason.

 

HOLY ***** Matt.

You have got to be tired of all the typing by now. Hell, I'm tired for you. I wish I had your typing skills.

[EDIT]

I like typo's. Makes reading post on this forum that much more exciting and a challenge.

I acceppt typoes....thay shoe wee ar all only human.

BTW Matt, I enjoyed reading your post - with or without teh ( ) typo's.