Good News Bad News

So, after working all day thursday and a few hours Sunday, here's where I stand.

There is a drainage system (perforated 3" tube and gravel) behind the wall. I'm up to almost the final course or so.

I finally got the courage up to test the drain that I repaired that runs from the back downspout along the length of the walkway and down the driveway. I was relieved to see water pouring into the street....whew.

I made life tough for myself by adding the vertical sections because the wall block height was not consistent. So fitting the blocks between two vertical sections was tricky and time consuming. I eventually found a few tricks to make it easier.

When I had to slightly widen the space between sections, I used two 8" blocks rather than one 16" block. I did the opposite when there wasn't enough space. Sometimes, the three pound malot came in handy.

The corner was a little tricky. I wanted to interlock the main and back wall. It meant making sure both walls were level with each other. I also had to line up the blocks so that the lengths ran into each other in the corner but the rightmost side of the back wall lined up. I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out.

I'm trying to decide now, how high to bring up the wall. I want to make sure that the neighbors mulch/dirt doesn't flow down over my wall. At the same time, I dont want the walkway to feel boxed in. I think I may add one more course.

So, I've got about 1/3 super bag of CR6 left (still with some to put down), 1/3 bag of gravel and a full bag of sand. It looks like my measurement for those materials was right on. However, with about one full course on the wall to go, I've still got half of three pallets of wall block.

The good news is that I've got plenty of wall block and I'll have enough to use some to build my step out the door. The bad news: a retaining wall and raised garden would sure look good in front of this tree...

Progress

The weather man said rain and thunder storms all weekend. I should have known it would be nice. We did get rain in the evenings but it was nice during the day. Also, the rain turned the CR6 into a cement-like materiel that packed well.

My wife had to go out of town (read, "partied it up in NYC all weekend"). Since the kids wouldn't BOTH fit into the pack-n-play (without a good bit of force) my time/progress this weekend on the project was due largely to my Mom and to Uncle Tony and Aunt Madeleine who came over and took the kids off my hands for several hours (thanks again).

A neighbor came over the week before last and looking at all of the "super bags" asked, "just how many wheelbarrows do you think that is?" Well, this (and an episode of Sid the Science Kid) motivated me to "estimate." Actually, it game me something to think about while I was shoveling. It turns out there are 15 heaping wheelbarrows per super bag. I have 7 super bags times 15 per = 105 wheelbarrows full.

From the get go I was disappointed by the (lack of) documentation that came with the Nicolock material. I emailed them though and got a call back from Alan who was great and answered several questions about setback (none required) gluing courses (recommended) drainage (nice but not necessary for my height).

So, here are some pictures:





Looking pretty good I think. The wall is pretty darn straight and level. I laid and relaid the first few blocks (top right corner) four times before I got it right.

The CR6 base is in pretty good shape (level and tamped). I've got probably another inch in some places to put down. I also figured out how I was going to lay the wall going along the back.

BUT, my pride and joy was the job I did creating the step in the wall....almost. Because the wall is on a hill, I decided to make a step in the base course so I wouldn't have to dig so much more dirt out from the top half of the wall. I didn't realize what was involved.

It gave me a chance to put my new laser level to work (David White 48-M2XLE fro $99 from ToolKing - about $80 cheaper than I saw anywhere else. Here is a drawing of what I was doing. This meant leveling the lower block at a height where the upper block would also be level. I used my laser level to line up the top of the lower block with the bottom of the rightmost top block. After a while and a lot of tweaking I got the blocks level.

I was proud of myself - just one catch I didn't realize till later. I used a random offset for the lower block (the orange arrow). The distance should have been four inches. My wall block widths are 12", 8" and 16" and four inches tall (I stand some upright). Distances that are divisible by four are easier to reach. As the top row continued along the bottom row, eventually (at the end) the blocks did not line up. I'll likely just ignore the offset - the lower course is almost two inches shorted than the rows above it but it will be hidden once the pavers get in. But, it bugs me.

I had the mechanical tamper all weekend (at $69 per day). This is really a waste of money because I only ran it a few times. It was fun though (and luckily, my office mate warned me about how the tamper can take off on you - it did). In the tight quarters of my walkway, the thing was pretty unwieldy. I went to our new home depot today and caved today for a hand tamper ($29) which will be handling my remaining tamping duties.

Here is what is left of the super bags (I've been through 4 and a half of the five CR6 and still have one of sand and one of river rock).


The guy who delivered the material recommended using the super bags for leaves. I've given up on that. If you cut them and open them like an old bag of jiffy pop, it is MUCH easier to get the stone out.










Best purchase so far: A tie between my knee pads and paying the extra $10 for a 3 pound hammer rather than a one pounder.

Worst purchase: The tamper rental

"Best" backhanded complement (from my Mom), "It looks good, it will be great when you can start seeing progress." :)

One Down

Last weekend I was up in New Jersey (the nice part) and didn't get much done. Got back early Sunday, and got some digging in, but didn't make any huge strides. I DID take some pictures of my progress, but unfortunately, I took them with my cell phone (camera was mia). Unfortunate because I couldn't get pictures off of my phone, a samsung omnia which is....less than ideal.


Anyway. This Friday my shipment arrived from the quarry:

• 1 Cube 1-1/2 Normal Colonial Cobble oyster color ($316)
• 1 Cube Normal Colonial Cobble oyster color ($295)
• 3 Cubes Tuscany Wall adobe color ($705)
• 5 Super Sacks CR6 ($333)
• 1 Super Sack sand ($69)
• 1 Super Sack Gravel 3/4" blue ($66)
• Delivery first 2 pallets ($95)
• Delivery Each additional ($20 x 10 = $200)

For a grand total of $2189 after tax.



What does all this look like??

Each "Super Sack" has about 1 1/2 tons in it (that's ...3000 pounds) or something like a buzillion kilograms.




I took a bunch of pictures of the delivery (a truck with a boom that could extend up my driveway)...but alas...I took them with my aforementioned cell phone.





I dug more on Saturday and leveled. I bought a lot of supplies (mostly from Home Depot).

• 10 drain pipes (for behind wall and along driveway ($52)
• Two 1" pvc pipes to screed the sand ($5)
• One 3lb rubber hammer ($30)...could have saved $15 on a one-pounder, but the directions said 3 lb, so I bit the bullet.
• One mason chisel (gonna try it before a saw) ($10)
• 48" level ($16)
• 3/4 drill bit (used to drill a hole in the foundation for to wire an outlet outside (one day) ($12)
• Kneepads - I FINALLY broke down and dropped coin on some kneepads ($17)
• Landscape Fabric ($45)
• Edging - to hold the pavers in place near the front of the house ($17)
• Edging stakes ($8)
• 8 drain couplings - I may return some of these ($14)
• 3 drain elbows ($15)
• 2x4 stud - for screeding sand ($3)

For a grand total of $266

I also rented a tamper ($69) for Sunday (and almost rented a saw for the pavers - file that one into the "wishful thinking" category).

Sunday morning, the area looked like this. I turns out that I had the wrong dimension in my head for the wall blocks, so I needed to widen the channel for them.





I decided to have one tier in my wall. I also (finally) solved the drainage puzzle. The french drain running down the right side of the walkway is a solid drain surrounded in river stone and wrapped in weed cloth. The back and front downspouts feed the drain. I think the stone is to help drain the back yard.

Thankfully, I ended up leaving the french drain alone (mostly). The weed cloth needed some repairs. There was a drain in the back (inside the cloth) that went down into the pipe. I assume this was to drain water from the surrounding soil. The pipe coming up needed to be shortened. I removed the cap, sawed off a few inches and replaced it with a new one. It worked surprisingly well.

I reworked the drainage along the driveway (which I'm still not quite sure what it's for). But I've seen water come out. It's only a 1 1/2" PVC tube, so I put in an elbow joint and routed it down a 4 inch drain tube.

Everything took longer than expected of course. Here are some pics from Sunday:





Yes, I somehow ended up with child duty on my big work weekend, so, I had a "helper."

I have officially forfeited my standing for "Father of the Year." I'm sure there's some way to put this off on my wife...wait she abandoned me to go out with her sister. (of course, there's more to that story, but that's the one I'm sticking with)

Finally, Sunday evening. I've made a dent. My drainage problems solved. Measuring done. I finally got to moving rock INTO the area.

To do this, Plan A was simple:

1) Step from the dirt into the Super Sack
2) Shovel the CR6 into the wheelbarrow

There were a few challenges. First, I hit a lot of rocks (har, CR6 is crushed rock". Also, this material is meant to get pretty firm when it's compressed with a tamper (so the deeper I dug, the tougher it got). Finally, standing and shovelling in a confined area isn't easy. If you've ever stood on a shovel and lost your balance, well, doing that in the bag has some consequences (about 5 foot drop). Yes, I did that once, but thankfully, my incredible dexterity allowed me to fall into one of the other bags...smooth.

Unfortunately, all of that didn't get down until is was too late to fire up the tamper. So, $69 down the drain.

HOWEVER, after then day was done, this is what the area looked like:

I'm ready to compress the top and start putting down the wall. I wanted to tamp down the wall aggregate before laying the landscape cloth on that side.

Most importantly. This is what the "Super Sack" looked like:



Not so "Super" now!

one down...