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Guy at the hardware store saved me $800 on my retaining wall
I was standing in the gravel aisle at the Smyrna Home Depot trying to figure out how much drainage rock I needed for this backyard wall. Been watching YouTube videos for weeks and my head was spinning with all the different calculations. An older guy in a beat up Braves hat walks over and looks at my cart full of bags. He says "son you're buying the wrong stuff for Atlanta clay." Spent 10 minutes explaining how our red clay needs a different base than what the national tutorials show. Showed me a simple trick using landscape fabric and 3/4 inch clean gravel instead of all that fancy drainage pipe. Saved me about $800 on materials and the wall is still standing 8 months later. Anyone else get schooled by a random old timer at the hardware store?
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jenniferb5314d ago
Did that guy with the Braves hat happen to mention wrapping the fabric up the sides of the base trench too? I've seen way too many walls fail because folks just lay the fabric flat and call it a day. The trick is to leave enough slack so the gravel can settle without tearing the fabric, and you really gotta overlap the seams by at least a foot in that heavy clay. @evab52 mentioned a garage door story, and that's the same kind of "one weird trick" wisdom you can't get from a YouTube video just a guy who's already made all the mistakes. I always tell people to double check any national tutorial against what the locals at the store say, because soil and weather change everything.
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