Building retaining walls, one.

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This blog can be found in full at this link, DIY Retaining walls

We can build many types of retaining walls, this above is a masonry stone retaining wall, these types of retaining walls last for a very long time, when they are built well, like the one above, but they cost a lot more than other types of retaining walls. So, let us talk about how we build them. 

Welcome to our article, DIY Retaining walls. 

Dear readers, let us talk about how we build retaining walls, and why we build them. You see, most people that own a standalone house, want to improve their property by doing a few things in the yard, where they can stay outside and have a garden, or have a barbecue with their family and friends. But there are times when it is not easy to stay outside, because the yard is not level and, in some places, it is hard even to stand up straight, so, something needs to be done to improve the situation. In this case retaining walls can help solve that problem. But how do we build retaining walls one may ask?

Before we answer that question, let us talk about the retaining stone wall shown here in this article, I reckon that it is a well-built stone wall, but a wall like that is very costly and hard to build, unless you are an expert and know what needs to be done.

But, let us see what we can learn from this stone wall picture, just by looking at it and trying to imagine how this wall has been built. What we can note from the picture is that the retaining wall has been built leaning towards the bank it is holding up, we can see this at the right end of the wall where the wall goes around the corner,  the stones are laid dry as there is no sign of any mortar around, the stones are not all the same size, and they are longer and shorter stones, but they are all the same thickness and they are laid the same way as we lay a course of bricks, but at the same time the mason has made sure that the vertical join are not setting one above the other, and this is a hard thing to do with stones all different size, everything is so tidy, the wall thickness is not shown anywhere, but because there is a very low wall started near, it seems that the wall has been built like a double brick wall, we can also guess that perhaps some of the short stones are not really short, but they have been laid like a header brick to tie the front with the back of the wall, at the top the last course of stone, the stones are longer and as wide as the whole wall itself, so that they would tie everything together. These are the main features that we can learn from looking at this stonewall picture.

Now that we have explained that, let us write how to do it yourself retaining walls. You know, there are many types of retaining walls, some are easy to build others are hard to build, and there are many reasons for building them. So, this article is going to be a long article, because we want to tell you about them, as much as we can. Anyhow, because this is a long article, I need to tell you, that we have split this article and we are writing two blogs, this is part one.   

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How to build retaining walls.

Okay, there are several ways how to build a retaining wall, and there are several types of retaining walls that we can build. Therefore, first we must see what we gain by building this type of retaining wall, or that type of retaining wall, and above all how much it could cost, before we can decide what type of retaining wall to build. Now we want to build our retaining walls with building materials that are easily available, to avoid extra cost. So, look what local materials are available, where you are. You see, if you are in a place where stones or rocks are plentiful, and you may even have some of them in your yard, then it is cheaper to build your retaining wall with these materials, and even if you have to buy the lot they are cheap anyhow; but if you are in a place where there are plenty of trees and there is even a sawmill nearby, then it is more appropriate to build it with timber.    

Having said that, it is obvious that for you to decide, what is the best retaining wall to build; we need to explain to you what could be done and how can it be done. Therefore, hereunder we will try to do that. Let us start with a very easy and cheap retaining wall that most people can do themselves, even if they don’t know much about building, as long as they have a few tools and know how to use them; here we are saying that anyone of us can dig a few holes in the ground to place a few short posts and place a couple of sleeper timber planks against those posts, then secure them by nailing or screwing them to the posts. It sounds and is simple, isn’t it? But this is not the only retaining wall that we want to show you, so, keep reading this article, while we add more descriptions, because you can even learn how to build them.  

Timber sleeper retaining walls. 

Building a low timber sleeper retaining wall is easy, just about everybody can do it, you can do it yourself, if you follow our explanation in this text here, all you need is a crowbar, a post hole shovel, a hammer a few long nails or screws, a saw, a type measure and a few treated pine sleepers that today are easily available at most timber yards.

If you are in Brisbane Australia, these are a couple of addresses of local timber merchants and hardware to get what you want. If you are somewhere else, you need to find your own.  ‎

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bunnings_Warehouse

Now, let us assume that you have visited your local supply, and you have got all you need, so, you are ready to start, you have also worked out where you want your sleeper wall to go; So, start digging the first hole where the wall starts, you need to dig this hole about 600 mm or more in the natural ground for the post to be strong enough to hold the pressure of the retaining wall when the wall is back filled; you may have to concrete around the post for extra strength, but this is not a must do, if the retaining wall is low, because you can replace this with, packing the soil tightly around the posts and if you have some rocks, wedge them between the top of the hole you have dug and the post at ground level, because the rocks will exercise their pressure on a larger surface of the natural soil than the post, they will be able to hold back the soil pressure of the wall more easily, now that you have done the first post, you can repeat the same procedure for next post and so on.

The posts can be made from the same material of the sleepers; you can saw them to the right length and fix them in the ground as we have said above. Now, to make it easy let us say that your wall is going to be the length of a sleeper plank, and you have dug the two holes and fixed the two posts. So, now you can just place the first sleeper against the posts at the required level; the levels of the sleepers is better if you work it out from the top down, because it is easier to change the bottom than the top, you see, in this case you can always dig a bit or add a bit of soil at the bottom to fit the bottom sleeper. So, mark on the posts the level you want to reach with your last sleeper, and then mark down from this level the number of sleepers you are fixing on these posts, once you have done that you are ready to fix your sleepers on the posts. 

We believe that most people can build a timber retaining wall, perhaps not as high as this one shown in the picture, but say a couple of timber sleepers high. Anyhow, let us explain how it is done.  

Fixing your sleeper to the post. 

To fix the sleepers to the post now is simple, but still you need to do a few things right, if you want your wall to last a long time, with the materials you are using now; it is useful to know that in this case it is highly advisable that you use galvanized nails or screws to fix the planks to the posts, because the retaining wall is in contact with the wet or humid ground constantly, therefore, normal nails or screws will rust easily.

You have bought some 75 mm and 100 mm galvanized nails to do the job, so, you hope that you can drive these nails into the sleepers and posts just by using a hammer, because it is the fastest way to get the job done. 

Okay, if you are good with your hammer and can drive nail easily it is the best way to go, provided that the timber is soft enough to do that, and if you have used treated pine sleeper it can be done, as all you need to do now is to place the sleepers where you have marked on the posts and nail them in, and then you can backfill behind the retaining wall and the job is done.

But what about if you are using hardwood or old dry hardwood, because you got it very cheap from a second hand timber yard, because they were overstocked they sold this timber at a very special price, which was less than half the price of the treated pine sleepers; so, you were happy to buy it because it was cheap and the timber being hardwood lasts for a very long time, but now you may have a problem to fix the sleepers to the posts, because it is near impossible to drive nails into this old dry hardwood timber, unless you drill a hole for every single nail, and even then the nails can bend even if you are an expert with the hammer.

If this is the situation and it is hard to nail this timber together, you can overcome the problem by using couch screws or bolts, so, you use a drill and drill a hole for your galvanized couch screws or bolts and tighten the screws or the bolt nuts with a spanner. But if you don’t want to do this extra work and you want to use the galvanized nails that you have already bought, then you can do the following: drill a hole as deep as you can just use a bit a fraction smaller than the diameter of your nails, then try first with the 75 mm nails how you go, if it works and you believe that the nail go deep enough into the supporting post and hold well then your problem is solved, but if the nail bends or don’t go deep enough then you can try the following, and this is one of the last tricks of the old trade, which not many people know or use, this trick is not a trick at all and once you know it, you can feel even stupid for not thinking about it yourself; so what is it? Okay, when you pick up your nail to nail in the hole you have drilled, dip the point of the nail a couple of centimetres into a bit of Vaseline or mechanical grease, if this is not available just wet a bar of soap and rub the point of the nail on the wet soap, this greasing of the end of the nail will make it easier to drive it into any wood including dry old hardwood.

I believe that I have said enough about simple timber retaining walls, for you to have some idea how to build them, so, now let us talk about another type of retaining wall that can be easy to build, it is a type of concrete wall that the blocks are laid dry, so, anyone can have a go; and if you don't get it right the first time it is easy to fix.

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Link Block Mortar-less Walls. 

Link Block Mortar-less Retaining Wall Blocks

This is a different type of retaining walls made with dry blocks, the mortar is not required, it is a low wall easy to build, so, most people can do it themselves. Now let me tell you this, on the internet I have found this local supplier who has placed a few short videos how to build these walls; the videos are at the bottom of the page, please use the link here-under, I reckon it is worth to watch them, if you want to build any retaining walls. As I have said this is only a local supplier in Brisbane Australia, therefore, the same materials may not be available where you are living, but by watching these videos you are going to learn something useful anyhow. 

No need for Mortar

http://centenarylandscaping.com.au/product-guides/retaining-walls/firstqualityretainingwallblocks/?gclid=CPOE9-

So, I hope you have used the link above and you have been able to see the videos. Anyhow, whatever you have learned can be helpful one day.

And now I want to explain a certain situation that I have come across while I was writing this article.

 

Now, as I have said, not all concrete retaining walls require fresh cement when you build them, some of these concrete blocks are made to be laid dry, like the one in this photo and many other sort. 

Let me explain the situation. 

Dear readers this article was supposed to be about retaining walls, but as it happens I was forced to change that name because it was already taken in Hub Pages, so do not aspect that all the retaining walls described here are suitable to do it yourself, because we have named our article, DIY Retaining walls, because the retaining walls that we are going to describe here are not easy to build, so, they are jobs for trades people, but if you feel that you can do it then have a go, sometimes a bit of challenge is good for you. Now that we have explained the situation let me continue to describe how to build a garden rock retaining wall.

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We must say that rock retaining walls blend well in the garden, they are natural since rocks are found everywhere in the natural state among trees and grass. 

 Building a garden rock retaining wall. 

To build a garden rock wall as shown in the picture is a lot harder than you think, and you need to know how to go about it, you see, you need to have a good eye to see how the rocks that you have can fit together to make a wall. There are a few ways how to do this depending how tall the wall is going to be and lots of other things.

You see, if you have only a very low wall you can just lay one single rock one after another, or two rocks one on top of another making sure that you choose the best face to show at the top and at the front, the other part of the rock can be hidden in the ground, or at the back since you are backfilling behind the wall; in this case it is not necessary to use any concrete, as the stones can be laid dry, but if you want you can use concrete.

Before you start the wall, you must dig all the grass and loose soil, even if your wall is going to be low. If the wall is going to be in a place where the ground is slopping down, make sure that you dig at least a few inches into the solid natural ground, so that the wall you are building can sit on firm natural ground, so, your wall is not going to slope down the first heavy rain you have after building.

Now, in this example, we are building a low stone wall and we are not going to use anything to bind the wall together, so, there is no cement or anything else between the stones, in this case because there is nothing to stop the rainwater to run between the stones you don’t need to worry about drainage. You see, one of the greatest problems with retaining walls is the water that can build behind them, the water and wet soil puts pressure on the wall and if the water cannot get out the wall is going to fail.

Now it is helpful to have a look at some stone retaining wall, and for this reason in mind I have found this link in the Internet; so, have a look at the pictures in this link; www.australianrockwalls.com.au/  there are several types of stone walls, now you can start thinking how and why they have been built that way. 

Anyhow, this is the first part of this article, see you in next part, buiding rock retaining walls. 

To see more, or the entire article click on this link, DIY Retaining walls. 

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House building in Brisbane.

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In Brisbane there are many stand alone houses, this type of house above we were building in the eighties, they were more expansive that the houses that we were building in the sixties, but they were better houses than the smaller timber house of the sixties. 

The houses that we were building in the seventies, were mostly timber houses on concrete stumps, then they started enclosing part of the house below, with brick walls or timber partitions, later they were built with mixed up building material.   

Welcome to my article, House building in Brisbane. 

House building explained. 

Dear readers, today we build many different houses, depending on the country or even the zone where we are living. 

Anyhow, we must build houses to live in them, so, in this article we are talking about that, because this is what I did when I came to Brisbane Australia in the sixties. I know that today building houses can be different from then, but not very much. Anyhow, we are going to talk about house brick bases, and working as a brickies labor.

House building in Brisbane in the sixties, was and is different from the old continent of Europe, because over there most houses are made of masonry, timber over there is more expensive than in Australia, and because of the colder climate. You see, thick walls of masonry absorb the heat during summer and act as storage of this heat by releasing it slowly during the colder months.  Anyhow, houses over there are built mostly from masons’ bricklayer and concreters, and the carpenters play a smaller part than they do in Australia.

Therefore, when we the European migrants came to Australia in the sixties, we thought this is strange to live in timber houses, and we were surprised to see that the carpenter played the role of builders, when houses were being built, because in the sixties most houses were made of timber, we are saying this to compare houses building, between the old continent and Australia in those times. Now we are not saying that this was good or bad practice, since we soon accepted the way of life we found, and we thought there must be a good reason for it.

So, we all did what we had to do in whatever employment we found, and those of us who ended up working in the building industry, we did what we were told to do. But as we know, everything changes with time. As we will see later, when building houses with timber will change even here. Now that we have made this comparison, let us go back to what I was doing myself in helping to build these houses. Therefore, let us talk about how most houses were being built by teams of workers, because that is how we were building houses in Southeast Queensland in the sixties.

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House building in Brisbane in the sixties.  

In the sixties and seventies, most houses building were done from teams of subcontractors, who had their own team of building workers, even if they were only a small team of two or three people, like the team I was working with, which had two tradesman and one labor (myself).  Now let me tell you, what sort of teams were there; first there were the concreters and bricklayers. When building small houses that did not have a lot to do with these trades, concrete and brickwork could be done from the same team; then there was the carpenter team, then the roof, the electrician and the plumber and the plasters. The work of the builder, which most times was the leading carpenter, because he had the largest job; not only he was building the timber frame of the house, but had to organize all the teams in a way that was appropriate, so that they were not in each other way while they were working, and finally do all the finishing work required.

In those times to be a builder of these standalone houses on an approved block of land was easy, as long as you were a building tradesman and had building knowledge and had the money to build them, you had this opportunity to build one of these houses, of course there were local authority inspections to be had while we were building, but if you knew what you were doing it was easy to pass. So, there were many house builders around that would hire teams of building workers as we were.

I need to say that the building industry in Australia is one of the main driving forces of the economy, since it employs lots of people that are willing to do hard physical work to earn their living, you see you don’t need to be a learned person to work on the building, all you need is common knowledge of things and enough English to understand what is wanted from you, if you know what you are doing; or you work with people that speak your native language and they explain to you what you need to do, but you had to work hard to keep this job.

I believe that in the sixties and seventies there were good opportunities to work on building houses, because the price of the houses was more affordable than they are today. Just looking back at those prices, we can say that one of those cheaper houses would be worth about four time the average wage of a person working full time for a year, so, most people could afford them; therefore, those builders that were building them were able to sell their houses at a decent profit that would enable them to build other houses.

As we know things changes with the passing of time. So, let us look at what has taken place, in the houses market. As we have said, in the beginning houses in Brisbane were mostly made of timber, and they were set on timber stumps, then in the sixties because the timber stumps would rot or they would be attacked by white ants they gave way to concrete stumps, and some brick walls under the house. Then from just a brick wall in front of the house they changed to a full brick base and concrete stumps or steel posts, then came the era of the brick veneer and finally concrete and cavity bricks. Today, I must point out that building apartments is different from the sixties, they are mostly made of reinforced concrete. 

Now that we have said a few things about the history of house building in Brisbane, let us talk about my contribution in the building industry and what I did during the earlier part of working building houses. If I remember right in my last article, I was talking about how we were concreting the stumps for a new house, and we had laid the foundations for brickwork, therefore, let us talk about the brickwork that we had to do, to build a brick base under the house.

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 Brick base under timber houses. 

As we have said, there were many types of houses being built in the sixties, some of them had a brick base, or the front wall under the house built in bricks. So, this was another job that we did with our small team of bricklayer and concrete workers.

In order to be efficient and competitive a small team that lays bricks needs to be made of two bricklayers and a labor, of course larger teams can work well with a different number of people, anyhow this is what was like then and our team had two bricklayer and a labor as myself.

Now that I have explained that, let us start working, so that I can describe how things work out, who does what, and how it should be done. It is the bricklayers’ foreman that decides from where to start. But if he is not there, then it is up to whoever is there to start getting ready where the bricklayers must start. This is not hard to know because to lay bricks you must start from the lowest part of the foundation, So, when I was working as a bricklayer labor, I would get ready the bricks and the combo-boards, at the lowest point of the foundation, so, when the bricklayers had to start, all I had to do, was to give them fresh mixed mortar on these combo-boards, and then continue to supply them with brick and mortar as required.

Here I should say, that it is hard work for the bricklayer-labor and for the bricklayers, because at the end of the day one has to handle so many bricks, since in a day a bricklayer on a normal wall is supposed to lay on average 400 to 500 face bricks, or up to a thousand common bricks, of course this is wishful thinking and most times we didn’t, but we had to try to get there; this is how the bricklayers’ team works. Now let me break it down and describe what the labor does, and then what the bricklayers have to do; I know all this because later I became and worked as a bricklayer for decades myself, but now let us talk about what the bricklayers’ labor does.

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 Working as a bricklayer labor. 

What you do, when you are working as a brickies labor.

The brickies labor job is hard work, it is also a semiskilled work, since he has got to know how to make mortar and to supply mortar and bricks to the bricklayer at the right time in the right place. It is obvious that he must have at his disposition a mixer to mix mortar and wheelbarrows, other small devises to help him achieve that.

Here I need to point out that to start a new job it is very hard, as the ground on the site is not flat and there are hips of dirt around the foundations where the brick or block walls are going to be built, so, the labor needs first to flatten the ground a bit, so that the mortar boards and the bricks can be positioned at the right distance from the foundation, this is about 60 centimeter plus from the walls that are being built, so that the bricklayers have enough room to move and at the same time they can reach the bricks and the mortar-boards without walking; in order to achieve that there needs to be one mortar boards and then one stack of bricks, and again one mortar board and another stack of brick, and so on for the whole length of the wall being built. Now that we have made it ready, the bricklayers are going to start to lay bricks, let me prepare the mortar, which some people may call cement or combo.

Preparing or mixing the mortar

There are rules to follow how to mix good mortar, so, one must keep in mind first what sort of material is available and can be delivered on the local site, because quantity and quality may vary with the locality. Anyhow, let us assume that for this job a load of brickies loam has been delivered on the site; in this case this brickies loam has some lumps in it, so, it needs to be screened before or after mixing the mortar, as I have screened it, I am ready to mix it now.

So, I start the mixer and put in clean water, and a small measure of mortar mix (this is a chemical that helps the mortar to be more workable) then I put in say a shovel full of Portland cement and four shovels full of brickies loam, this is how we usually mix mortar to lay bricks, it is one part of cement to four parts of loam by volume, therefore, for bigger batches you can have say; three shovels full of cement and twelve shovelful of loam and so on. Of course, these quantities can vary, if for instance it is written in the specifications that the mortar must be made with different amounts of materials.

Anyhow, let me go back to this batch of mortar that I have mixed to the right consistency; Now, I take the wheelbarrow near the mixer and tip the mortar in the wheelbarrow, and then take the wheelbarrow with the mortar near the mortar boards, here I wet the mortarboards before I place the mortar on them and finally I am ready for the bricklayers to get started. From now on I must make sure that the bricklayers have always enough mortar and bricks, otherwise they will we shouting at me Bricks! Or combo! (Or mortar!). 

Dear readers, if I have missed a few things you have to use your own common sense to get everything going the right way, you see, most things on the building site is plain common sense.

I believe that I have said enough in this article, although there is a lot more to be said, how the bricklayers are going to lay bricks for this brick base. But I am going to leave it for next article, which we are going to call, DIY brickwork, there I will try to explain it in as many details as I can, how to build a house brick base. In fact, we are going to write a group of articles about bricklaying and other building trades; I hope that I can line them up in such a way that they make sense and it is easy to follow. Anyhow, see you soon in our next article, DIY brickwork. 

To see more click on this link,   House building in Brisbane. 

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