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Thursday, June 16, 2011

The next recycled concrete retaining wall


In the fall of 2010 we envisioned a project to use recycled concrete to shore up the back fence that had a grade difference with our neighbors. This is where we started off (read here).

You can see the difference in grade in this picture



We completed that wall in the spring of 2011, and used up pretty much all the concrete we had hauled from almost 25 miles away from home in multiple trips.Filling it up took a lot of soil and compost, and needless to say time. (read here)

This is how it looks now


Ever since, we have been scouring Craig's list for any listings that had at least some decent looking concrete pieces. It turned out to be either too far, or ones broken up pretty badly.

Just a couple of days back during my drive to work I spotted a demo crew down our street tearing up an old house that was sold recently. I figured the driveways were going to be taken apart as well. We spoke to the guy doing the demo, quickly rented a pick up truck form the U-Haul down the road and bagged these beauties. This batch is much nicer than the ones we picked up the first time around. Bigger beefier pieces that have been broken into even pieces and they are also stained a light tint of green.


Our reliable "garden help" helped haul it in during the week and has been working on getting the wall up over the last couple of days.


Looks like I might get rid of all the soil (piled up behind the concrete pieces here) and compost piles I have had sitting around for this project.


2 comments:

  1. That is TRULY awesome!!! The simular shaping you ended up with is VERY lucky!!! Most of the stuff we end up with is not only hugely different sizes but also the thickness tends to vary. Would LOVE to see what it looks like now.
    Rex

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  2. Did you guys use any cement or adhesive between the stones? Or did you just stack them? It looks great!

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