Cement Bag Retaining Wall

[EddieWalker]

jcummins. Culverts on driveways are not the same as lake spillways or overflows. But reading all the precautions and thought that WoodChuckDad has put into this, it sounds like he is doing everything possible to avoid any long term issues. Water is never ending, and in the end, it always wins. We just do everything possible to make sure it doesn't win for as long as possible.

I like the use of clay. I guess I missed that part of this. The mixed concrete will help, but it's not perfect because it will not bond to the culvert and eventually separate. The combination of the two should be good enough. Not 100 percent, but what is?

 

[WoodChuckDad]

I was back at it yesterday. I had another load of gravel delivered to the bridge. I focused on getting the cement bag retaining wall started at the outlet end, so I could backfill with gravel. First I dug out a space under the end of the pipes that was wide enough for two bags. I removed about 4 inches of gravel and less than 4 inches of dirt before hitting bedrock on the pipe on the left, and the pipe on the right was already at bedrock when I spread about 6 inches of gravel on it so all I had to do was pull that out. Then I started moving cement bags. I am going to include a picture of how I stored them on the site for the last month, because I was very happy about how they held up. I was worried about getting moisture from the ground and air into the bags. IT has been very humid and we have had a few hard rains. Overall it has been dry the last month so I think part of this was just luck. I covered the entire stack of cement (10 Pallets) with black plastic and used gorilla tape to keep it tight on there. I had already started opening it on the right hand side when I decided to take a picture.

There were about 48 bags per pallet. 80Lbs each. My tractor can pick that up but the whole thing was bouncy. Part of that is the springiness of the pallet forks. I didn't like how it felt, so I offloaded 2 loads of 12-14 bags to my Bobcat UTV and moved them to the bridge. Getting the bags from the road, down to where I wanted to use them was a chore. I had brought a large plastic sled with me thinking I might have to load 2 bags at time and drag them down the hill of gravel. I decided that was going to be too much work, so I knocked down a few more trees on the hill and built up some dirt so I could get the excavator close enough to dump the bags as gently as possible onto the ground right in front of the work area.
Some of the bags were broken before coming off the pallet. I set those aside for later. dumping the bags resulted in about %20 bags breaking. Broken bags were placed on the inside stack and severely broken bags were left on the ground and the cement was shoveled behind the stacks, and mixed in with the gravel backfill.
Having to move the bags 3 times was not a lot of fun. I got thru 2 pallets yesterday and backfilled up to the level of the stack wall.

On the far left of wall you can see a little zigzag pattern that I did because I wanted to incorporate a natural protrusion in the bedrock, into the wall. As I go up, there is a large ridge sticking out that will work well to keeping the wall locked in place.
My wife and kids are going to be out there today....I don't know if the boys can lift those bags, but we are going to find out.

 

[Luke'sScreenName]

DUDE! You are my hero. I love it when a true DIYer takes on a project like this and tries to do it right. Perseverance and effort. I hope it's as rewarding as it is hard. :drink:
If I was closer, I swear I'd come help just for solidarity.

 

[EddieWalker]

Why did you go with 80 pound sacks instead of 50 or 60 pound sacks?

 

[ultrarunner]

When I was a kid the county used burlap bags with cement for retaining walls... I was fascinated watching the work.

The burlap was course and bags almost fused together and over time the burlap disintegrated.

 

[WoodChuckDad]

Why did you go with 80 pound sacks instead of 50 or 60 pound sacks?

I think I was calculating cost and 80 lb bags were a better value. In retrospect it would have been worth a few bucks more for easier work. My boys and I are at bojangles fueling up. Wife is on the highway with the daughter heading home already. They don't eat fried chicken. Weird. We are al ragged. I may not be able to post all the pictures till tomorrow. But here is one to give an idea of the progress.




I'm gonna need more cement for the other side. This thing never ends.

 

[WoodChuckDad]

I appreciate the kind words. It is definitely not easy work, but I will feel better about it, knowing I didn't take shortcuts, and I will never forget it.....and my kids won't either. Every time they visit, they will tell their own children how they built that bridge with their own hands.

 

[WoodChuckDad]

I found out that my boys can lift those bags. So can my wife. She outworked the boys... darn near outworked me. We got 4 pallets of cement stacked up. On average, the pallets had 42 bags. 6 layers of 7 I might have miscounted the pallets I did yesterday. Today, the tractor absolutely did not like lifting the top pallet off the bottom pallet. Not enough ballast on the rear. I have my 84 inch landscape rake on the back, and not the box blade. So everything was carried in the UTV. We have had 10 pallets to start, and we have 4 pallets left. That makes me think I may need to get some more cement...either a couple pickup loads or a good trailer load. We will see.
The first thing I did today was increase the backfill and then we started moving cement bags. My boys were not shy from the work, so I was happy. And once I showed my stepson what was needed with knifing in the gravel, he threw himself into that task as well. We spread the 18 tons that were left on the bridge this week, and my wife brought down about 7-8 more tractor loads from the pile at the road.
I drove a couple dozen 4 foot long, 1/2 inch rebar rods into the stacks to pin them together and a few rods thru the stacks into the gravel backfill.

We made pretty good progress today. The walls for the retaining wall are two bags deep, except the ones that border the clay wall of the ditch.

The backfill is 4 feet high, all the way the the end of the pipe. I will even it out then start loading clay on it. I may go another layer or two with the bags just to match the edge of the ditch.

There was a fair amount of concrete mix left in a pile. I figured it would be fine, since I intend to come back and dump 10 tons of riprap down there to help slow down some of that fast water coming down the pipes.
The view from up the road, looking down at the bridge isn't too bad. We are getting there.

 

[Threepoint]

[snip]
If I was closer, I swear I'd come help just for solidarity.

This was my reaction, too, and I'm a lot closer. But my back hurts so much just from following the thread, I had to lie down til the feeling passed. :laughing:

 

[WoodChuckDad]

This was my reaction, too, and I'm a lot closer. But my back hurts so much just from following the thread, I had to lie down til the feeling passed. :laughing:

I can't say my back doesn't hurt. Really, it would be easier to list the parts of me that are not sore. I bought a new pair of leather gloves three weeks ago. I steady have holes in the fingertips. I dropped 6 lbs of body weight this weekend. But I have done the same thing the last two weekends. I'll put most of it back on in the next couple days.

 

[PAGUY]

I am thoroughly confused as to why all the cement bags are at the exit side of the pipes and not at the entrance of the overflow side? The water exiting will erode below the pipe where you intend to place rip-rap which makes sense or erosion could cause one **** of a hole. As for the entrance of the overflow side I would have a cement truck drop a load around the top of the pipes and up to the waters edge creating a funnel appearance in front of pipes. This water will only be present as overflow and not constantly running through the pipes. Am I correct on that issue?

 

[WoodChuckDad]

I am thoroughly confused as to why all the cement bags are at the exit side of the pipes and not at the entrance of the overflow side? The water exiting will erode below the pipe where you intend to place rip-rap which makes sense or erosion could cause one **** of a hole. As for the entrance of the overflow side I would have a cement truck drop a load around the top of the pipes and up to the waters edge creating a funnel appearance in front of pipes. This water will only be present as overflow and not constantly running through the pipes. Am I correct on that issue?

You are correct, the water will only be present as overflow. I put the bags at the lower end because I want to contain my backfill.m and have a less severe slope from the ends of the pipes to the road surface. There isn't much dirt below the spillway, as the natural flow of the previous existing spillway had already worked its way down to bedrock.
I will be drystacking above the spillway for a retaining wall as well. It's just going to take me a couple more weekends to get that done. I put my focus on the lower portion this weekend because I want to get the bridge more stable and secure.

 

[Ford850]

Your view from the road rotated upright:

 

[WoodChuckDad]

Your view from the road rotated upright:

I hadn't noticed that two of the pictures display upside down when enlarged. How did you fix that?

 

[Threepoint]

I hadn't noticed that two of the pictures display upside down when enlarged. How did you fix that?

Curious about this, as well. For awhile now, every pic I attach on TBN as a correctly oriented thumbnail will display rotated 90 degrees right. So I have to rotate the original 90 degrees left before I upload and post it. I don't recall this being a problem months ago.

 

[jcummins]

Curious about this, as well. For awhile now, every pic I attach on TBN as a correctly oriented thumbnail will display rotated 90 degrees right. So I have to rotate the original 90 degrees left before I upload and post it. I don't recall this being a problem months ago.

And ...for me....they open SLOW. Something about attachments on this forum isn't right.

 

[Ford850]

I hadn't noticed that two of the pictures display upside down when enlarged. How did you fix that?

I opened yours, saved it locally on my PC, resaved it there after rotating it 180 degrees, and then attached it to my response. Not sure why they do that sometimes, but your picture looks much better upright.

 

[Tinstafl]

I go to a place in Texas with a 20 foot plus retaining wall made out of stacked cement bags. I think there were 12,000 of them plus a few. it is very strong and has held up in huge rains from hurricanes since the 70s.

 

[WoodChuckDad]

I go to a place in Texas with a 20 foot plus retaining wall made out of stacked cement bags. I think there were 12,000 of them plus a few. it is very strong and has held up in huge rains from hurricanes since the 70s.

Where is that? I'd love to see a picture of that.

 

[WoodChuckDad]

So. We did a little work on the bridge this weekend. I had a few things slowing me down. Saturday was my granddaughter's first birthday party and in the evening I went to a family BBQ for my sister in law. Sunday I got started with my wife and son around noon. The weather was great...it didn't get over 81 all day.
I started by digging almost a foot below the pipes....I hit bedrock on the far right pipe. I busted open about a dozen bags and filled the channel I created with concrete mix. At about 6 inches, I laid in several pieces of rebar, then filled it to ground level and started laying in bags.


We stacked the bags, and moved in soil, tamping it down an inch or so at a time. We were extremely careful to pack the soil in with the tampers as tight as we could. In the channel I created under the pipe I knifed in the concrete mix and brought it up several inches before starting the bags. Behind the the cement the clay is packed in tight for about 8 feet. It's amazing to me how much soil it takes to backfill when you are compacting it. I am very fortunate that I had help.