How to Build a Stackable Retaining Wall

[Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] hi David O'Dell here with O'Dell complete concrete we're in a backyard of a house here and you can see they have a big slope up to the top of the hill and what we're gonna do is they have a little wood retaining up here at the top that completely collapsed over the years and rotted out so you can see they have these stacked stones here for the other retaining coming down the hill so we're gonna match it up tear out that wood and stack some blocks on top of each other first we got to clear out all these bushes and there's tons of them pretty overgrown up here surprisingly too because there's not a lot of water up here most of the water accumulates at the bottom of this particular hill so all that wood that was set there that was retaining it was set with 4x4 posts and concrete every 12 feet and then they just had some two by sixes stacked behind those are attached to those four by fours it lasted probably 15 or 20 years you know at best so what we're gonna do is use some gray stackable retainers a lot of times you can set these stackable retainers in a gravel bed but I'm gonna just use a concrete premix and set it in that and then I'll add water after I get everything set and that'll harden and attach to the wall so here's the string line that we're gonna use to actually set the retaining wall we have quikrete concrete here and we used about 30 bags what I wanted to do is get about 2 to 2 and a half inch thick bed of concrete premix as my base for this retainer and that's also dug in about a few inches so we're gonna have about 4 inch in bed plus the concrete mix itself this particular Hill is about a 20 feet 25 feet rise here so we got to carry these are this the 12 inch by 4 inch so they're lighter than getting the bigger ones easier to carry up the hill and they're also the same size of you can see all the existing ones that someone had did probably a previous homeowner did this slowly but surely little by little and terrorists this entire hill and this was out here in Mission Viejo California matter of fact I was at Home Depot picking up these stones here and one of the people one of the guys that actually watched me on youtube recognized me at the Home Depot in Mission Viejo when I was picking these up he happened to be a general contractor and uh I ended up meeting him and looking at some work for him so when we started stacking this retaining you have to cut a half block every other course that way you stay staggered all the way through now I'm just cutting these bags open actually my Sun setting this I'm just bringing the blocks up and we have a string line what he's doing here is spreading out at the premix and it's a dry mix that way it's easy to wiggle them around set them get them where you want them and then later we'll come back we'll start soaking behind the hill and the economy will get hard and attach now that space behind the retaining wall they these walls really don't work unless they have weight behind them they actually dependent upon weight behind them to make them structurally sound so you have to fill you have to backfill behind them if you go up too high without anything behind them it'll just tumble it'll tumble backwards so you have to backfill as you go up you can go about four four courses four inch before it will fall over backwards so you've got to have in you got to put the gravel dirt something behind it to stabilize it as you go up now as we set these you'll have to adjust them here and there put a little under check it with your level and bang them down now we don't have to use concrete mix underneath as your base but it's better than gravel since we're at the top of the hill we're not really concerned with water runoff and we are in Southern California where it doesn't rain very often anyway on the top of a hill scenario you're not gonna get a whole lot of water you're just gonna get what falls from the sky you're not gonna get runoff so very minimal water up here all the water is going to accumulate at the bottom of the hill and that's where gravel drainage things like of that nature that you really have to be concerned with up here all we're really concerned about is dirt retaining dirt now right now I'm coming back behind my son Timothy and I'm so I'm cleaning the block with the water hose and putting a lot of water behind the wall to make sure I get that premix well saturated and I'm back filling at the same time up here at the top of this hill the only thing draining in the direction of that retainer is from that property line fence to the wall so we've got about a two-foot area of drainage but that's what it looks like when you're all said and done and then we've matched the existing a a couple years and it should be faded out pretty nicely and look real real similar to what's been going on through the rest of this hillside those top two courses I actually used a I don't think I filmed that part but I went and got some masonry caulking glue and squeezed and I removed the top two and glued them down just in case someone was up there walking around you don't want those to fall over that's the idea of the glue thank you for watching if you like these kind of videos subscribe and hit the bell next to that and you'll get the latest and greatest as I roll them out thanks for watching have a good day you

Channel: Odell Complete Concrete

Views: 169,608

Keywords: how to build a retaining wall, diy retaining wall, retaining wall design, how to dig for a retaining wall, landscape wall blocks, diy retaining wall build, how deep to dig retaining wall footings, garden bed retaining wall, retaining wall drainage, how to level a retaining wall, how to set blocks for retaining wall, stackable retaining wall

Id: AwVZN1sGsiE

Length: 10min 17sec (617 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 01 2018