Final grade and landscaping around my ICF house

[Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] all right dump it so the whole purpose of this video is to get the whole outside of this foundation all the way around 360 degrees grade it off to the final grade and finish it so the plan is i'm gonna have a retaining wall right here and then another retaining wall on the other side identical to this one it's gonna wrap around to about here and then i'm gonna fill all this in about another about another two feet maybe 30 inches or so right here and then i'm gonna put like four to six inches of topsoil and make a garden bed all the way around this house about three feet out maybe four feet we'll see how much room we have here so the first thing i'm going to do is put a bunch of crusher run up against the foundation just as tall as i can stack it and then we'll push some of this stuff in here and then we'll go get more of this stuff from a borrow pit that i'm never going to return the stuff to and then we'll smooth that all out and then i'll put more fill here a lot more fill here this needs to come up like 18 inches and then at that point everything will be level and then we'll put the garden bed right on the side of the house and that will be sticking up further than everything so everything drains down this way and then over here this will be filled up quite a bit so it will also taper that way so that the rain never sees its way into there that way the water never drains this way it always drains this way and once i'm done with this side i'm going to go to the other side and do everything identical so that everything is symmetrical so then on the front here this is left really rough from doing the septic system so we're gonna fill this in it's gonna be like 30 inches to three feet of fill right here same thing over here and then this is going to be a deck here so i'm not going to do anything special there but then on both of these sides we're going to put garden beds as well flower beds whatever you want to call it we're going to put some sort of plants in there make it look nice the whole reason i want to do this normally you don't do this normally you wait to build a house to do this but this is my house so i'm doing it my way and i want it to be as safe as possible around here i don't want big rocks sticking up and the dirt all rough and people tripping over things sharp rocks everywhere a lot of this is shale and it's pretty sharp it's not kid friendly so i want to make this as safe as possible right now we have a fence around that whole area that way noah can stay in there and we don't have to worry about him running off and the dogs will stay in there and we don't have to worry about them running off after we get all the way around the house done i'm gonna go over here and do a whole bunch of work in this field here but we'll get to that when we're done and i'll explain that later [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] so so [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] you so [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] so [Music] so [Music] so i do need to do some work to this area right here i need to bring it up like another 10 to 12 inches right here and then taper it down into here but that's all part of the driveway so for right now i'm good on this whole side pretty much this whole half of the house is graded off except for the retaining wall that i need to do back there this is all graded off the way i need it and i'm going to create some sort of border here and then put some grass this soil that i brought over will grow grass easily a lot of the stuff that we have here is mostly clay but this is actually good topsoil here for the purposes of getting grass seed started this is good for now so now we'll work on the retaining wall over here and then we'll go around to the other side and do work over there so for this retaining wall i left it real rough right here i actually have zero experience with landscaping anything to do with landscaping i just i never really got into it at all i did some research on it but i've never done it before basically i want to start at that corner swoop over here stay straight for like the first eight feet and then start swooping over here and then it'll like kind of have a border all the way around and then it'll meet up with the border for the flower garden around here [Music] [Music] i still need to raise the grade up about eight inches in this whole area here so that's good because now i can just basically place some crusher run right on the ground right there as the foundation it's kind of like the footing for the blocks i'm going to do that eight inches thick so basically the top of that is going to be my grade when i'm done so that basically i just need to scrape a little bit right there and then that's all good here i just need to dig out up here because the idea is that i want the outside of the retaining wall to come around and meet up with the border up there which is going to be three feet out pretty much where that light is right now so once i get up into here i kind of need to step it up because there's no reason for me to dig six feet down and continue a retaining wall underneath of everything because this is gonna be the level over here and this is gonna be the level over here so it's just a waste of a lot of blocks and a lot of work too to continue the bottom of it all the way around so i'll step it up in eight inch increments [Music] so [Music] wow [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] sorry let's do this what are you doing [Music] oh oh okay [Music] so [Music] bye [Music] already [Music] hmm [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] so every one of them has stone inside of them and then i'm just trying to figure out how to put this cap on here i think this is how you do it or you just interlock on the straight run and then when it gets to the curved one over here i'm gonna have to custom cut each one to the angle i'm also going to put some filter fabric over top of this right over top of here and right down into there that way if silt's coming this way it doesn't get into this stone keeps the stone clean if you have silk getting all in this stone then it becomes like topsoil again and topsoil is something that stays wet so in the winter during the day when it melts the topsoil will be wet and then at night it'll freeze and it'll push out the wall [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] uh so [Music] those pipes were going to be used as a sleeve for the geothermal system but i'm actually going to it's going to be coming from over there so i'm going to just go right up here and right straight into the utility room so this whole area can get a retaining wall and it can get addressed everywhere around here over here this is all rocks that came out when i was digging the foundation i thought i was going to use in the backfill to take up some of the space there but i'm already close to the level so i don't want giant rocks in there but i have another place i could use these to fill up an area so i'm going to bring them over there with a skid steer and in this whole thing we can address that [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Music] basically i don't even need to cut anything until about right there this is all low enough so i'm just gonna add some crusher run compact it and then start my wall here finish the straight part of it and then i'll start digging for the rest of it [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] i got the gutter downspout drain put in connect it over here [Music] so [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Applause] [Applause] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] so this whole side is coated with topsoil i put some seed on before that so this is ready to go all it needs is some straw and i also put these steps here too i think it was just missing that just didn't look complete without that so [Music] foreign um [Music] i just want to step it up a few more steps and then later on when we're done building i can connect a little garden fence and then bring the flowers all the way around so that's why i haven't capped this yet but we'll get to that right now the other few things i wanted to finish this whole area right here i just want to make this all nice looking right now it's just all overgrown a lot of rocks and clay and the reason i never really did anything with this area is because it needs a little work first i need to connect the drain i have a footing drain right here and that flows into the pond and and so what i did is i had some extra sock on the end that's a that's like filter fabric that you wrap around the pipe so i just left that on there so no animals get in there so that's perforated pipe all the way to that point i'm going to turn that into solid pipe and then bring it right out to there and then i have another drain right here which you can't see because it's all overgrown here but that is for the drain for underneath my natural pool up there if you guys remember when i put that natural pool in i had a liner and then underneath the liner i put a bunch of drainage stone some filter fabric and i put some drains in so that way the water doesn't make the liner push up exit that into the pond as well i'm going to try to get them pretty close to each other so then the only thing that i need to disturb is over right there i'm going to have my geothermal loop for the pond so that whole upper area next to my excavator there and then to the right of my skid steer there that will be where i put the geothermal loop going through the ground and then bring it over into the house to the utility room over on that side [Music] [Music] that looks pretty good right i still need to do some work over there but that's like 50 feet away from the house so i'm not too concerned about that right now that needs to be dressed up over there but the rest of this this is all good [Applause] yeah the chickens are already eating it [Applause] [Music] [Music] ah [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] this whole area here is the borrow pit for all the dirt that i brought over to fill in next to my foundation so i know i have a bunch left here but i don't really know exactly how much i have until i start evening this out because right now it's really rough i've just been taking scoops out i haven't been leveling anything out so some places is like six to eight feet deep and then some places are mounded up like that is all rocks all that's just boulders like three feet or bigger and so the plan was to dig as much as i can as deep as i can put those boulders in there and then that'll allow me to take the most amount of dirt out of here so so right now i'm gonna dig this spot even deeper and then put all those boulders in there and then the dirt that i took out i'm gonna stockpile and then i gotta take the dozer and just flatten this all out so i know what i'm working with because right now it's kind of hard to tell the pond is also really low too so i have to keep that in mind i don't want to go too low because it's been changing a lot it's we're in like a drought right now so [Applause] [Music] [Applause] so this is the next area i need to address here this whole thing is real rough we put some stone here just temporarily just because i had some wood stored here that we were using for building but i wanted to get all that stuff out of here so and now i want to make this all a nice lawn right here i want to be able to put a small pool a play set and a trampoline over here and i want to grow grass all around it and maybe even put a fence around it this is a nice like uh 60 by 60 area here so i just need to raise the grade up so that everything can continue sloping to the pond i'm gonna use my rock bucket to sift out all the rocks as i bring in these loads of dirt [Music] um the consensus on this area has changed we're gonna grow grass in this whole area but we decided that we're gonna have so many things in this area that it's gonna be hard to mow around everything all the time plus we might fence it in so that makes it even harder so what we're going to do now is put some really fine stone in here i got some stuff that's called 1b it's like quarter inch clean crushed rock with no fines in it i've never got this stuff before but it's it's only like a dollar fifty per ton more than number two stone so it's not that expensive i don't really feel like putting geo down here but i feel like i should because it's gonna grow weeds otherwise up through the stones so i wanna keep the weeds out of here we were also thinking about putting sand here but sand when it gets wet and you got wet feet it like tracks in the house and stuff uh do um okay so over this weekend i put that trampoline there this pool right here this pool is only 169 at tractor supply and then we got that little playset and then this little thing right here so we made good use of this area i'm still filling up stuff i don't have quite enough water in there but makes a nice little area there's all their vehicles so it actually just rained which was very welcome because it's uh not rained in a few weeks very dry around here so i'm really happy with the way these retaining walls turned out i was able to match them up very well for some reason these flowers died but everything else is doing really good and at night it's really cool because we got them lights there we got lights there so it's like a little pathway this is the only part that i think didn't really take that well this area right here and then going up that way this whole area right here didn't really take with the grass grass is doing good there it's doing good there but this is the main path that we walk every day all day every day so this path right here is not really growing grass i think that's actually a good thing i think what i really needed to do was put some crusher run in this area i was trying to just save this area over here for working like with the crane and a telehandler boom lift that sort of thing for building the house i was designated in this area here that's why i didn't put any grass here also it works out good because i need to put the geothermal loop coming out from there and then over into the pond so that's why i didn't address this area that well i still graded it but it doesn't have topsoil and seed i just put some topsoil there but i think actually it works out pretty good over here that this didn't grow grass because i think i'm just going to end up driving over anyways and that crane has like 10 000 pounds on each tire so it's definitely going to ruin the grass anyways just walking on it just compacted it too much and the roots don't grow that well so once i put the geothermal loop in i can address this whole area my plan for this basically entire property is every area needs either grass or needs some sort of stone because the dirt around here is really dusty and when i was going back and forth with the skid steer it looked like the skid steer was smoking but it's not it's just the dust around here it's just been so dry i thought it'd be really cool to put like an outdoor projector screen right there and then this lawn would be a perfect place to like sit and watch a movie or something it just kind of feels like that area it looks really brown right now but a lot of that just because there's so much straw in here it actually is doing pretty good and the chickens keep going in the straw and they like push the straw aside and they bunch it up in some areas and then the grass doesn't really grow that well because of that but like this is this all was green before and now it's all like dying because the chickens just keep covering it with the straw i don't even need straw in this anymore this little retaining wall here i like the way that turned out and like i said i've never done this before and i have no idea how to plan this stuff out landscaping is just not something i really have any experience with so this is kind of neat here because this little spot here is right over where the kitchen sink is going to be kitchen sink's going to be right here with a window right here so you can actually look down here if you're like doing dishes or something plus you can see everything else around here and then there'll be a pretty big window here from the living room and then you can see everything that goes on in here as well as all that stuff there so it'll be a pretty nice view what's also nice about that area that we created is this little pendant area here we took a lot of the stuff out of there there's still a lot of stuff in there it's all kid stuff but we were able to move some of it over there that definitely frees up some space so maybe this can be more of an adult space now so the landscaping here wasn't too bad it was a lot of work a lot more than i thought i spent quite a bit more money than i thought too these retaining walls i probably have about eight hundred dollars into and then probably probably like a thousand dollars because then there's some material that i put in there just the mulch and the topsoil and the stone and the fabric and the caps and the blocks and the adhesive and all that stuff it's probably a thousand dollars into that so 500 per side i've had a lot of comments on how this skid steer seems to be working pretty good since i fixed it and yes it it has that's the answer it's been working really good i have no complaints there's no smoking on it it starts up right away runs good with lots of power i've had zero problems with it i don't know if you guys remember but over there we used to have two big pigs we got those pigs butchered actually and we ended up getting another pig for a pet that's delilah and she's actually a friendly pig she's a mini pig so i think she's much more suitable for us than the other pigs because they were getting really aggressive and mean i ended up getting about 500 pounds of meat from them but she's not gonna be for me she's a pet we had her inside for a while too we actually let her roam around here with no leash or anything she never goes anywhere she's kind of spoiled though so i made this look the best i could without getting involved in doing the siding just for any of you that didn't watch the first video the process for doing that is i'm going to cut that foam down right along the edge that i want and then i'm going to put stucco over it to cover the foam and then from there on up all the way to the roof is going to be stucco it's going to have like a mesh like a fiberglass mesh in there and it's like a stucco but it's it's made by build block so i'm gonna use that product because it's meant for ics so then it'll look official once i do that so this foam is all going to come off i didn't realize that i would be so low on it you know all that stuff is going to come off and it's going to look good when i'm done it's going to be very simple too it's not a lot of materials i've done jobs on houses where it was twenty thousand dollar signing job i'm gonna spend like 500 on materials i actually put a temporary erv in here and that basically gives the building fresh air at all times and right now i think it's on the 40 cfm setting that's about 850 square feet in there right now so that's plenty for that so it's always seeing fresh air i actually have a carbon dioxide meter in there so you can actually meter how much carbon dioxide is in the air and it usually stays around 450 ppm and i also have a radon detector and without doing any radon mitigation in here i'm below the threshold that i need to be so that's good that mini split has been working really good that unit right there plugs right into the wall it's 110 volts so you don't even have to run a dedicated line to it or anything you just plug it right into an existing outlet it was only 500 for that unit brand new shipped so this area over here i grew grass here and i didn't even plant any grass i didn't do anything this is just from grading this off with the dozer two years ago and this year it was just all overgrown stuff and i just took a mower and mowed this and now it's like a nice area it looks patchy right now but that's because we've had no rain for weeks months actually i got my garden all right so i'm really glad to be beyond all this stuff that i've been doing lately and i've been really biting at the bullet to start building here a lot of you guys have been asking why i'm not building yet and the main reason was i still needed to do a lot of work to my other house before i could put it on the market so now that that's done i am like a free man and i can do all kinds of stuff over here get this thing built really quick as long as the heat lets us because it's really hot out lately so anyways now that i can move on i'm going to start tomorrow on starting these walls and i'll see you guys on those videos [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Jesse Muller

Views: 73,496

Keywords:

Id: yUlE_7Id8e8

Length: 74min 4sec (4444 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 25 2022