Cement Bag Retaining Wall

[EddieWalker]

Your smart getting it all done now. Seems that when I get most of a project done, I tend to wonder off to another project, and then three years pass and it's all overgrown on me with weeds.

 

[bcp]

I find the shovel work to be some of the hardest. Lots of twisting of my lower back under load. Moving the cement wore us out....but there is something about shovel work that just beats me up.

That can happen with the wrong style shovel.

Top one for scooping loose dirt, bottom one for digging,


Is shovel blade angle important?

Bruce

 

[ultrarunner]

^^^ As much as I have used shovels... never really thought about high and low lift.

I do know I have broken all my "Best" shovels over the years... ones that had wood handles and simply felt right to use.

Now have some unbreakable fiberglass handled shovels and none have ever felt right.

Had a project where I would come home after work and mix a yard of concrete from sacks and pour... did build up the muscle mass but by yard number 12 it was simply too much for my hands... fingers have never really been the same since.

 

[WoodChuckDad]

I peeled some of the paper off the bags. All the bags on the top row seem to be cracked. I think a lot of this is due to how dry it has been. We got two soaking rains but other than that, not really enough. I don't have any worries about the strength of the wall, only the asthetics of it. My wife seems to like it, because she wants to cover it with moss and mushrooms. I was thinking i might get a small bit of skim coat to fill those voids to prevent water getting in there and freezing it apart. In the end, as long as SWAMBO is happy with it, I will be happy. I started this weekend with the objective of making the bridge more even. I had a grade I wanted to achieve and I need a massive amount of soil for that. So I decided to shift the material that was on the hill next to the road above the bridge and bring it down to use as part of the bridge and fill. This would accomplish two things. First it would give the even incline I wanted and it would also make the road a little wider at the beginning, making it safer.

It took two days to accomplish this and I'm very happy with the results. I would shovel enough material , working from the top, to create a new layer on the bridge 6 - 12 inches deep. I would then drive back and forth over it with the excavator, to pack it down. It was time consuming but what I ended up with seems rock solid and very drivable. I will used the tractor and the landscape rake to even it out, then compact it even more with the excavator.

I still have fill to drop in on the downward side, and I think I need another 80 or so bags of cement on the downward side, to lift the line up to match the banks.

Digging up the material on the hill produced some nice sized rocks that my wife and I used to create a driving barrier to close off access to land next to our gate. The loggers had opened that area up to create their base of operations.

The rocks don't look big in this picture, but most of them are several hundred pounds and a few were too big to manage into the tractor, even using a 6 foot pry bar. I used the excavator to bring two of them up.

 

[Wakey]

Really enjoying your thread. Beautiful property as is Mrs. Woodchuck.

 

[WoodChuckDad]

The blessing in my life are not lost on me. I have benefited from good fortune.

 

[WoodChuckDad]

I felt that the lower wall needed to be built up some. We added another 112 bags this weekend. It was just enough to make it even with the hillsides.

I pinned them together with rebar running at various angles then also going backward into the soil. Then I spent some seat time in the excavator and the tractor. I am happy to say that I am finished with the major construction of my bridge. I have a little shaping to do next week and I will be able to get the crush and run delivered and rolled out.


The cement bags worked well, however, most of them show cracking especially on the top layer. I think it is simply the way they have been packed so tightly by gravity compaction of the other bags on top of them....then when stacked, they kind of open almost like a flower blossoming....hope that makes sense. I feel confident that they will hold up but I may put a skim coat of cement on the top layer to prevent ice from forming inside the cracks and breaking them completely apart. In retrospect, I might have been able to build a form and have a cement truck come in and fill it....I imagine that would have cost more....and it would have a very different look. Precast inlets and outlets would have cost me $15,000. I priced them and was shocked. We have hardly had any rain this month so I'm not sure the bags are completely set up. I have poured a water across the tops but with the paper on the bag, It barely soaks thru. I will be sure to update with pictures when I get all the paper off and as I pretty it up a bit.

 

[Ford850]

Those last 2 pictures really give a good perspective of the project. Very nice!
If I were you, I'd get some quick final grading done and spread a mixture of grass seed and winter wheat on the exposed soil. The wheat will germinate and hold the soil through the winter and the grass will germinate in the spring. The wheat will become mulch by June.

 

[EddieWalker]

It's coming along nicely. How are you going to smooth out the dirt so you can mow there?

 

[s219]

Nice work -- looks great out there.

 

[PAGUY]

All your work and expense in building could go for naught if a heavy hurricane comes along and causes an overflow of the dam breast. I visualize an erosion that would wipe out the road should the pipes get blocked by debris from such a storm.

Putting in a bridge over the original crevice (ravine) might have been less consuming and practical in the long run.

JMO PA-GUY

 

[EddieWalker]

All your work and expense in building could go for naught if a heavy hurricane comes along and causes an overflow of the dam breast. I visualize an erosion that would wipe out the road should the pipes get blocked by debris from such a storm.

Putting in a bridge over the original crevice (ravine) might have been less consuming and practical in the long run.

JMO PA-GUY

Hurricanes take out bridges all the time. Bridges also fail more often then culverts, they cost a lot more money, and it would not have dealt with the need for a ramp to get to the other side of the pond.

 

[WoodChuckDad]

It's coming along nicely. How are you going to smooth out the dirt so you can mow there?

I'm hoping to get clover and some moss established. I will have to buy new rolls of landscape blanket since my thief took all of mine.

 

[WoodChuckDad]

All your work and expense in building could go for naught if a heavy hurricane comes along and causes an overflow of the dam breast. I visualize an erosion that would wipe out the road should the pipes get blocked by debris from such a storm. Putting in a bridge over the original crevice (ravine) might have been less consuming and practical in the long run. JMO PA-GUY

My land is separated by a serious ravine upstream of the pond and stream and marsh below the pond. The engineer designed the bridge to handle the "100 yr storm". Will it work? I do not know, but I have done everything I can to insure it is built properly. The engineer's original plans didn't call for a cement headwall. It was designed for soil at a 1 in 3 pitch. When I told him I was going to use a stack wall he said that would make it even stronger. I have had lots of questions from people about why I don't just build on the other side of the pond. My wife was one of them. My answer is simple. Because I want to build on the far side of the pond. At the top of the hill. If I build closer to the road, I would have a beautiful view. But it wouldn't be what I want. And I would spend the rest of my life living a quarter mile from the spot I want to wake up every morning. With the view I want. And the sunsets I want and the feeling of privacy that I want just out of my reach...because I didn't have the courage to build a bridge for fear that a storm might wash it away.
If I can't build where I want, then why bother building at all. I might as well sell the place and stay in the suburbs.

 

[Luke'sScreenName]

The last few post made me question if it should be called a bridge? Should it? Land Bridge? Levy? Just pondering.

 

[WoodChuckDad]

The last few post made me question if it should be called a bridge? Should it? Land Bridge? Levy? Just pondering.

A levee is built to prevent overflow. Basically a raised area on the bank. That isn't this. This is the opposite. This is an avenue for water to escape. A land bridge is usually land that joins to other areas of land across water. This isn't really that since even when it is wet you can usually just wak across it. This is a culvert bridge

 

[WoodChuckDad]

BTW. Currently the overflow is dry. And it has been dry for a couple months. The rain that we have had has been easily handled by the 18 inch outflow pipe in the middle of the pond. I have only owned the lad for a year so I have limited experience with it but so far winter is when it has been the most active. Ice snow and ice fall and build up and when they melt they flow down to the stream in significant enough and sustained enough volume to raise the water level. I'm sure that ice forming around the pope also will cause the level to rise. Also if leaves and branches build up around the outflow pipe the water level goes up.

 

[cat fever]

All your work looks great.
I know many areas of our country have lots of water so land owners have ponds and small lakes. Yours looks awesome. I am always jealous when I see that much water.
Looking forward to the house build.

 

[WoodChuckDad]

All your work looks great. I know many areas of our country have lots of water so land owners have ponds and small lakes. Yours looks awesome. I am always jealous when I see that much water. Looking forward to the house build.

I'm looking forward to it also. I wish I had been able to start the bridge earlier because I am not likely to be able to get my foundation done till spring.

 

[WoodChuckDad]

I had poured buckets of water along the top of the bags I stacked. From what I saw previously, I knew they would all have cracks in them. I peeled off the paper from the top bag This week and mixed up a couple additional bags of cement and made some patches of the cracks, filling in the voids. I't's not pretty but that doesn't matter. We want to have it gather a patina and I also plan to transplant some ferns and moss from a rock wall a couple hundred years away, on the other side of the swamp.

It has come along quite nicely. I had a couple contractors come in for my road build and they got their quotes to me in the last couple days. I will probably make a decision this weekend on who to use. Moving forward to the home build will be great...I'm sure it will make me crazy but I really want to get to the point where I am there every day.