Doing my part to stimulate the economy.Follow

Last summer I did this work

But over the year my wooden wall was evidently not supporting the dirt behind it properly, so I decided to tear it out and make a large stone retaining wall. Right now this is how it looks.

I have a packed and level base of 6 inches of trap rock ready to lay these blocks tomorrow (and probably Sunday). A few more pictures of the blocks. 48 blocks total, 46"x18"x42". And another one, one more.

We get to use this to place them on the ground, since they weigh somewhere between 1500-2000lbs (according to the manufacturer).

Hurricane Sandy seems to have been a good thing for me. Last week they were calling for 20-30% chance of rain here in Michigan (has been raining almost non stop for 3 weeks). I think the Hurricane has helped draw down the colder dry air from the North and now they are calling for 0% and 10% for the next two days. A little colder, 40F, but that's ok.

Edit:
Seeing those images from Summer of last year and comparing them to Autumn this year... things look so much more green during the summer.

Edited, Oct 26th 2012 9:50pm by TirithRR

Two days of work, and it's now done. Just gotta fill the area with all the sand I dug out.

Front view.
One side.
Other side.

Back side.
Other back side.

Got all the base blocks placed and level the first day, along with the portion of the wall going out from the house on the left side. Second day we finished the rest. Making sure the blocks were level took the longest. Then placing the rest went relatively quickly. The corners were a pain because of the way they were sized they alignment nobs had to be trimmed to fit properly (manufacturer told us that before buying them). Luckily I had an air chisel. I tried doing it by hand (chisel + hammer) and it would have taken forever. Grabbed the compressor and air chisel and it was done in almost no time.

That's an awfully small door to fit your sarcophagus through,

The tops are cupped, so you can fill about 6 inches of dirt up to the edge. The only ones that weren't cupped were the corner blocks, which I thought I would work with (Find something to do with the stone tops on the corners)

The ends I'm leaving open because I want to expand it in the future, but they make full and half block tops with the cups for the dirt. I'm going to just kind of bury the knob for the time being, then dig it out when I go to expand it further. I think they make solid tops too, not exaclty sure, but I went with the cups to let me fill them with dirt.

The stones can go 9 feet (6 rows) without needing any geo-grid stuff. The base around the stones is going to be filled about 4 inches with sand/gravelt on the driveway side and crushed stone for the walkway in the middle.

Edit:
I have a full installation manual for this block system, includes stuff about the cap stones, half blocks, stepping, etc. Redi-Rock is the name, Google has a few hits on the manuals. The local company I was with didn't have the special corner blocks with the elongated holes and the smaller knobs, which is why I had to cut the knobs by hand to make them fit. (The installation instructions say you need to as well, if you don't have the smaller knob ones).

Edited, Oct 28th 2012 9:01pm by TirithRR