Retaining Wall:Completed

Retaining Wall Replacement: Part III

Afternoon of Day 2:

The corner was the last part of the wall to be built.

 

 It looked like we were going to have a half-load to a load leftover, but the corner used up quite a bit of this pile. We also placed some rock on the edge of the turnaround to prevent anyone from driving over the septic tank anymore as well to create a garden.

 

 

 After Day 3:

The third day was needed to finish the main retaining wall, build the secondary wall, and regrade the side lawn and back hill.

 

 There were several boulders left over, so we ended up with a second retaining wall which is helping level out our side yard.

 My future vegetable garden.

 

 The last part of the project is installing the catch basin, trenching a pipe from the downspout at the corner of the house to the basin, and then spreading gravel on the driveway and turnaround. 

 

Completion pictures to come later this week in Part IV. See you then!

Retaining Wall Replacement: Part II

 8:00PM

 We came home from dinner to find a second excavator and...

...rock deliveries numbers 3 and 4 of 4 in our driveway.

 

7:30AM

 

 The crew today is only about half the size of yesterday's, but they are still planning to finish the second half of the wall today.

 

The final positioning of most of the rocks is done by hand. The excavator is too strong make the final adjustments.

More pictures and videos to follow in Part III.

Retaining Wall Replacement: Part I

7:00AM

The tools of the trade...

 ....shovels, level, and mallets,...

 

  ...chisels and hammers,...

 ... your excavator,...

 ... and your dog named Luna.

 The retaining wall removal and preparation for the new wall began immediately.

 

 The back side of the retaining wall fell over in one piece, with not much effort.

 That pile represents about 10 minutes of work and that's only because they had to wait for a nest of angry bees to move along.

8:00AM

Rock delivery number 1 of 4

 The rock for our retaining wall is no ordinary rock. It is coming from Manhattan, specifically from the Second Avenue Subway line, which is currently under construction.

 

The other challenge was trying to find the pipe and distribution box for the septic. As it turns out, our 30 year old map was wrong, but they did find it after a lot of digging.

 

 

 11:45AM

Rock delivery number 2 of 4

 

Delivery number two had a small complication when the truck got pinned between the tree and the rocks that it just dumped. The exacavator had come to the rescue.

1:00PM

 

One more video to give you an idea of the pace of the work. Each rock has to be put in place, so it seems like a very slow process, until you realize how far they made it in one day. Check out those pictures in Part II.

Retaining Wall Before

 Just to give you an idea of what we were working with originally. We hadn't experienced a collapse yet, but we also did not want to wait until we were at that point.

 

 

Revealing the View

Before

After

There is a void now in the hill. That is our back yard where the trees were topped.

 After day one. They were cut short because of pouring rain.

Completed

 Due to the proximity of property lines, they were only able to cut a window looking West. At least now we can see the sunset in the winter and the summer now.

 Fully opened looking slightly SW.

 The large and small windows.