Compaction strategy raised paver area

Honestly I could have done it with 3-6” or whatever and took my time but we had to bring all the base at once. It was originally a $15,000 lawn tear out and new soil with seed. Then 3 weeks ago it’s oh I hav a small change before you start, 60k hardscape job

J. Baker said:

Jumping jacks aren’t good for stone, only dirt.
I’m not really sure what you’re asking. You want to pack 8” at a time? There is no shortcut to packing a base. It just takes time.

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well it’s just a long treck from driveway to backyard and was wondering most efficient way to compact. I’ll probably end up just spending a full day shuffling piles around and using the 300lb machine with 3” lifts

Yea I think the hassle of carting a big compactor down and back up with a rental not worth it to save 2 lifts. It is what it is, will update pictures once I get going

While were here wanted to get some second thoughts on tapering side wall on raised patio areas. Or crowning the pavers. I did one fairly large 2 foot tall raised patio around 1800 square feet but otherwise haven't really done one. That one was rounded and I dropped the grade for drainage. This one is a bit taller about 3.5 feet or 5 blocks and a cap. I remember a thread here from a few years ago where some were saying angle the walls or put a garden bed along the front of the wall. Not really an option on this plan.

Yea its Allan Block like these ones but the 18" wide and 12" depth ones (80 lb blocks) and the pavers would be flush with wall

basically a 16 foot straight run straight from big concrete existing retaining wall and bottom of stairs, then a curve in front. Only its 5 blocks high plus the cap, not 2 like in the above picture

Im on a Facebook hardscape group and most people are using the 3/4 inch sized clean base and then the 1/4" roughly sized clean base instead of sand. Funny how things change like that, quite a bit different from road base. I know a couple people in the industry who wont change their ways though.

Hayduke said:

Looks great Mitty. Nice work. Reminds me how much I used to enjoy cutting soldier course pavers on a wet table saw...in the winter.
I doubt anyone would notice a 1% sloped wall. I see companies do that and more like 5% around here all the time.
It will be a worthwhile experiment to report back on...
I'm real curious what I assume to be railing post brackets in the caps. Are they concreted in or just drilled into the caps?

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well I already built the wall flat but the upper half is surrounded by natural boulders. So I was going to make the patio flat, or just have 1% grade on the top half of patio and blend it into flat. I don’t think it would be noticeable. I have 9” block buried but there is a natural rock step that I wanted an extra inch of paver on because it’s a tall step.

those brackets - I let them homeowner do it but he didn’t mention it until 2nd to last course. So it’s a 12” rebar with bracket and concrete in the top 2 rows. Then I notched caps around it. I know technically they say 3 rows.

I told him to make sure the rail is like 3’ tall or less and 1 side will be fastened to the house.

he is going to build something that hopefully won’t promote people sitting on it.

Yea the brackets are square and looks like he welded the rebar onto them. His weld probably breaks/fence breaks before 2 rows of block filled with concrete is ripped out

Well he did the weld and he set them in concrete himself, building the rail as well. So I’m not too worried about it - only thing I’m worried about is our wall not failing. I haven’t actually touched anything - except cutting in the caps around it.

Oh and the wall does have 1 percent slope and going to crown up in the middle of patio but only about .5”, can’t notice it

slope starts from the straighter stretches so I added the slight crown from around steps where I left it flat

Hayduke said:

Looks great!
But yeah, tons of cutting! Field pavers, soldier course, wall caps....
I burned myself out one year on a bunch of high volume cutting jobs like that. I always try to convince my clients now that straight lines and corners look better! Thankfully my lead guy seems to bizzarrely enjoy cutting pavers and caps....

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well I think this job will be 350 man hours and had 35,000 for labour. Bought myself a 220 lb whacker and crappy rigid tile saw specifically in my material cost for this job too. I don’t have a good husq or IQ saw which I should get to speed it up.

I think about 25% of that time is table saw cuts, 1 at a time

The shoe is a good idea, I have 2 of those big saws but don't use very often anymore because I can't do free hand cuts without swerving. We don't have harbour freight but a couple other stores like that. The rigid saw is ok for 700 CAD, the blade lasted for 1000 square feet of cuts and 130 wall caps. Just barely goes through a cap. This job would probably have been closer to .33 hours per square foot if I had to do excavation. I had an excavation company that the homeowner paid and did not include the dig out in my quote, he paid separately for it.

the masonry blade is segmented, but its also some crappy "exchange a blade" brand which I haven't used before, was only one available. It probably doesn't last as long, the tile blade, but I like how accurate it was. I can easily adjust for the wider masonry blade, but when I was fixing up my cuts and shaving off tiny pieces, it seemed to work well for that.

So after a week of heavy rains - maybe an inch per day without a break. Also a king tide washed away part of their front yard.

thr lowest corner of my upper wall had water pooling infront.

built lowest block sitting about 4” above their drain tile - a solid 4” pvc. It comes out and goes under concrete.

I can see on their clean out on concrete patio the level is high and backed up, also a stream coming out the corner of the wall.

At least I noticed before I finished up but looks like I have to take apart 3 x 6 blocks and 4x3 paver area, dig out 3 yards of backfill, repair the pipe, hopefully that’s it, then rebuild.

probably cost me a week