Retaining walls and patio

[Muhammad]

Over at my brother's house he has some soil erosion going on and desires a more aesthetically pleasing hillside. His house sits above the street so our plan is to run a long wall on the hillside as well as a three-tier wall in front of the house.

He also wants to replace his old backyard patio with pavers to make room for a hot tub.

This is the before.

 

[Muhammad]

Cut the existing patio into sections so we didn't have to get a breaker. Of course the guys we hired with the excavator had a breaker. Oh well.

Also have about 15 stumps to remove along what will be a new fence line.

 

[Muhammad]

Stump removal

 

[Muhammad]

Filing this 40 yard dumpster, first with that concrete patio.

 

[Muhammad]

Big stump removal. Wound up burying this one.

 

[Muhammad]

Side of the house excavated out

 

[Muhammad]

Digging out the hillside and a rough cut of the trench for the crushed stone footing.

 

[Muhammad]

Somebody, not saying who, got a little too close to the cable line that wasn't buried but rather just sitting on top of the hillside. So that needed a new conduit and RG11 coaxial cable. Well run it in front of the retaining wall for future access if necessary.

 

[Muhammad]

Ready to level off the trench by hand and fill/compact with crushed stone got the base to lay blocks on.

 

[Muhammad]

Back yard, electrical for hot tub.

 

[Muhammad]

20 yards of 3/4 crushed for the wall.

 

[Muhammad]

495 of these plus 135 caps on the way. These are the 91lb bad boys that get locked together with pins and filled with 3/4 crushed stone. We'll also use grid in two courses but don't have the room to go the full 4 feet behind the wall that the mfg asks for.

Local building code doesn't require a permit for a 4 foot wall so we are okay with a little less room behind the wall than a higher wall would require to satisfy an inspection. I'm pretty confident that these will last quite a while since the hillside is largely retained by some fully grown ficus trees in the lot above. Those ficus roots are growing all the way down to the area around the wall so if anything they might overthrow the wall some day if they keep on growing down.

By hand stacking these blocks it's a relatively economical solution without going all out with a fully engineered CMU wall.

Next step will be to fill in the back yard trenches and maybe bring in some smaller equipment to assist with moving rock and blocks.

 

[KennyG]

My back hurts just looking at this.

 

[Xfaxman]

 

[dougtrr2]

If those are keystone blocks, buy some lifting handles. They are worth every penny. If you have the handles to the outside it works good for two people moving the block. You can reverse the handles and have them cross each other. That makes it easier for one person to lift and align the block.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct...l-Lifter.htm&usg=AOvVaw1xUIP8fUPUlrmYJ4trY841

I rebuilt my retaining wall this summer and those lifting handles saved a lot of smashed fingers. I also used two 1/2" eyebolts connected with a short chain. I dropped the eyebolts into the pin holes and then used the backhoe on my Kubota BX24 as a crane. I replaced the center tooth with an eyebolt and had hooks on the chain. It worked really well for the teardown, not needed as much for the build up.



Doug in SW IA

 

[Streetcar]

Make sure to install drain pipe and have outlet for it. Poor drainage is a common cause of retaining wall failure

 

[Muhammad]

Make sure to install drain pipe and have outlet for it. Poor drainage is a common cause of retaining wall failure

Agree about the drain pipe and having gravel backfill to allow drainage is key as well. We obviously have enough gravel!

I was planning on getting some lifting handles for the blocks, yes.

Was also thinking about bringing in a bx for a week to help with moving gravel, moving blocks, etc.

 

[EddieWalker]

Pretty exciting project!!! It's flat where I live in Texas, so I find working on hillsides and retaining walls to be very interesting.

 

[Muhammad]

Pretty exciting project!!! It's flat where I live in Texas, so I find working on hillsides and retaining walls to be very interesting.

For the engineers in the house, it gets fun when you start to calculate the requirements from a load perspective. I'm not an engineer and forget whatever math would have helped me calculate it. What's really fun is how different types of soil change the numbers.

 

[MossRoad]

Looks good. :thumbsup: