The Weekly Patio Update

I’ve actually managed quite a bit of progress in the past week or so. I completed the excavation, over the course of the 3 hottest days no less. Additionally, all of the base stone has been filled and I’ve laid the first course of the wall. I’ve even started filling in behind the wall as well.

Worthy of note, I’ve added a catch basin to handle the our curtain drain. The original pipe posed a problem- the height of the pipe was going to interfere with the finished height of our patio. After speaking about it with a landscape guy, I basically had 3 choices: one, to cut and cap the pipe; two, to re-route the pipe; and three, change the height of the pipe using a catch basin.

The easiest was just to cut and cap the pipe. I also ruled it out almost immediately. Even though I’ve never seen water coming out of this pipe, I didn’t want to tempt fate. No, I wanted water to have some place to go. So, of the remaining two options, the catch basin was the simplest. The way it’s designed, I can even use a smaller pipe to make sure I don’t run into any problems with clearances.

If you’re wondering if I’m worried about the post on the far right, the answer is “a little”. I didn’t originally dig that close it it, but the dirt kept falling off. Luckily, with the wall going in now I’m less worried than I was since the back filling will shore things up.

As for wall features, it’s obvious this one is much longer but much shorter. Hmmm, that last sentence reads funny. What I mean is it won’t need to be as tall as the other wall, but it is much longer with the ‘S’-curve design. The height will gradually fade from about three-and-a-half feet at the house to about 18 inches at the other end. I’ll be following the same basic build process- build up the wall, then back fill with large stone and the three-quarter inch stone, cover with the landscape cloth and complete the back filling with sand and top soil.

One quick observation about this wall versus the other is I’ve been able to use larger stone more consistently on this first course. Looking at how the other wall came out, I’m not sure if that’s good or bad. On the one hand, the larger stone on the bottom theoretically makes the wall stronger. On the other, I think the randomness of rock size makes for a better overall look. That said, it’s early days for this wall. I seem to remember not knowing what to think of the first one and it ended up better than I’d hoped for. Perhaps the medium is the key and as long as I build it solidly, the appearance will take care of itself.