The Great Wall

We accomplished our weekend project! We built a retaining wall around the area that was excavated to the left of the driveway. They will pour a concrete pad in this area when they pour the driveway so that we have a nice level area to store our trash and recycle cans. The electrical and cable boxes are over on this side of the house as well. The big cement box in the ground is for the controls for the driveway heating system (for when we're old and can't shovel the driveway anymore!).

First step was to finish the excavation. This involved lots of shoveling and the electric jackhammer that Steve loaned us.

Once the hole was large enough, we could work on filling in the trench with crushed rock (out of spec ABC was the fill material of choice). Steve loaned us his large truck with a load of ABC. Many more hours with the shovel and wheelbarrow. Getting a level base was quite tedious, but Andy did a great job leveling and compacting.

Saturday morning we took Steve's truck to the local block place and picked up 64 landscape blocks and 30 caps. This was over 6000 lbs...Steve's truck handled it much better than the Toyota would have! It was easy loading with the fork lift, but unloading was another story... The driveway is too steep (and full of gravel) to be able to pull up so that meant walking each block up from the road.

A few more rounds of leveling the base and measuring with the transit and we were ready to start building with the block! Of course we had to pick a complicated shaped wall with a corner and an inside curve. We agreed on the placement of the first level and then it was supposed to be cake just stacking the blocks up from there. But of course the blocks didn't fit perfectly with the funny curve and corner. Luckily Steve loaned us his masonry saw so Andy had the tools to cut the blocks easily and make them all fit.



Joe stopped by and helped carry some blocks up the hill. He enjoyed seeing the progress and lending a hand...especially since it wasn't his project to worry about!

Deciding on the stair step pattern down with the top caps and the amount of back fill required was complicated, but I think we did a pretty good job guessing and planning. We finished up Sunday afternoon and had some daylight to spare for once! Now the excavator can finish back filling behind the wall and all along the south side of the house to get our positive drainage away from the house.