That's 55 tons of limestone boulders I've placed using the largest excavator a homeowner can rent. The largest is 3,800 lbs.
My question is how high does the gravel backfill need to come up behind the wall? To the top? The shorter parts it comes to the top, but the higher edge is 48 inches and that would be a LOT of gravel to get it to the top with minimum of 12"depth. I plan on having landscape fabric come up the height if I don't need gravel to the top.
The boulders are on 4 inches of compacted #57 gravel, 4" corrugated tubing wrapped in filter fabric follows the base and are graded properly left an right.
by thazmaniandevil
4 Comments
Someone correct me if I’m out of pocket, but I’m not that worried about those boulders shifting from hydrostatic pressure as I would with concrete blocks. I feel like any drainage you add is going to be help, but the weight of the boulders is doing most of the work regardless.
Generally speaking, for a *typical* wall, the gravel comes up to the second-to-last course. Native dirt and soil will backfill the top course. As mentioned, this is *not* a standard wall. I would *think* you could get away with less if you really wanted because the boulders are so heavy that hydrostatic pressure isn’t a huge issue. But at the time, it would really suck for one of those to get pushed out of place if the joints between the surrounding boulders aren’t well-secured.
Bravo sir. Nice work
This is a big open space, have you considered putting a pool there , take a picture of that place and upload it on planmypool to get visualization of how a pool will look like there