57 Stone

Today I do not want to talk to you about dirt. I want to talk to you about this stuff: 57-stone. This is a course stone about 3/4 - 1" and it's great for drainage.  We're building a paver patio that's going to extend off of the house to just a portion underneath this deck. So, what's important here is this wall’s pretty short. It's about 3 ½ ft tall at its highest point, so you might be tempted to try to get away without drainage. We've seen a lot of jobs where contractors will just backfill with dirt only.

I do not recommend in any situation but specifically where water is going to be sloping down and has a potential to seep in behind this wall. What we've done here is we've put in a boat load of this 57-stone instead of using dirt.  In a normal drainage system, you're going to have about 12 inches of dirt that you're going to wrap in a fabric and allow that to create a separation between your gravel and your dirt.

So eventually they don't combine....

Frozen Loaders

Whether you own big loaders like this or smaller loaders like this, it's not a matter of if they will freeze up, but it's a matter of when. Today I'm going to teach you how to thaw out the frozen loader. I'm going to teach you how to keep your loaders running all winter long without having problems. I'm also going to cover the early warning signs that a loader is starting to freeze up, allowing you to catch it and keep it operational before it becomes problematic. So let's get started. You are probably here in this video because your loader is frozen up and you don't know what to do. The answer is simple, your fuel lines are frozen, and you have to thaw out those fuel lines. Under optimal conditions you'll have a torpedo heater handy. You put that right where your fuel filter is because nine times out of ten, that is where the problems occur. Here is what you need to do, you need...

If you are doing any type of irrigation work, then you know that the sound a screwdriver makes when you poke it through the lawn into the grass and you hear plastic. You know that is one of the most rewarding sounds. That means you've been looking for an irrigation valve in a yard and you finally have hit plastic. Now you can actually begin the work of replacing the faulty valve. So, I want to give you a quick outline of what this yard looks like.  It is really, really big. It's fall and there are leaves all over the ground.  I looked at this yard knowing I had a leaking valve somewhere and thought, "This is going to be a really long day trying to find this."

Look for the Green

But one thing that I did as I came around the side of the house, and what I noticed is about a 4ft diameter patch that is much darker green than the surrounding area. So, it made me think, "Why is that so much darker of a green color?" Well if water is leaking, it's irrigating it very well and...

I’m with Zane Hill, he is 16 years old. He started his mowing company with $0 he is gonna share. Thank you for coming on the air.  I absolutely love this story. Can you tell us how you got started, Zane?

Chick-Fil-A

In summer 2016 I searched and searched for jobs young kids. I didn't have my driver's licence and stuff, so I was going to work at Chick-Fil-A, but I decided not to because it was so much work to get there and back every day. I actually never mowed before. Never even my yard.  My dad told me to go cut the grass, so I cut the grass and it was kind of fun. I liked what I did and you could see the final result that was where it got all started. So you were 15 when you started cutting grass for the first time? Yes sir. You are 16 now?? Yes, I turned 16 over the summer. And you have your own company called the Young Man and His Mower?? Yes sir. How did you get started? How did you get mower??

Bike Carrier Trailer

Luckily my parents had two mowers.  My dad...

How to Build a Retaining Wall and 6 Reasons they Fail

Today we're going to cover six big mistakes when you're building a retaining wall and how to avoid them so let's get started. I predicted this wall would fail over a year ago in this exact spot, in this exact way. You can see where the grades behind this wall have dipped down. It's going to blow that wall out and in fact, we had one catastrophic wall failure on this project last year and we had to repair it. We got another one coming up; it's not because I have a crystal ball it's because the writing was on the wall. It's just completely shot right there, that's from drainage, from not maintaining it. You can see where all the grades have dropped down in here and now we've got big sinkholes behind this retaining wall. I can literally stick my leg down in here, up to my knees. You can see this distinct angle, it’s all bowed out.

Avoid Problems

This problem could have easily been avoided had the property owner, the...

  Today we're giving you some professional tips and techniques to help you build an amazing backyard patio of your own and it's all about the base and nothing to do with the bricks.  This means we're building a cutlass paver patio and we're going to show you how to do the same. So, let's get into it.

Base Material

We're going to divide the base into three distinct categories, the first category is what we call the sub base and that is the raw soil.  How to prepare that? What to look for? And what you're going to need to know to make sure that when you lay your patio now, it looks the same ten years from now. The second category is what we call the imported base material.  That's what you use to separate the sub base from your pavers.  The third category of base material is your sand base or your screed rail, and there may be a little bit of controversy on this last point.

Sub-base: Soil

Let's look at the sub base material or the raw soil. This is the most...

HOW TO BUILD A RETAINING WALL

STEP BY STEP GUIDE

Today we're going to take you step-by-step so that you can build your own retaining wall. Covering some of the most vital parts in retaining wall construction.  Including the excavation and the initial sub-grade protection which will be the main component to the longevity of your wall being straight and perfectly flat-topped, or ending up years down the road having a wave in it. We're going to help you eliminate that. We will also be looking at the material used in your first course of block. How to base and level that most critical element: the very first block that goes in the ground Then we are going to show you how to construct a 90-degree corner in case you happen to have any of those on your site. Take your project from something that looks like this, to something that looks like this.

Step 1

The very first step we've got to do is remove the existing CMU (Concrete Masonry Unit) retaining wall and prep the sub-grade. Most of...

Sod Basics

It's all about the sod today. We're going to talk about what it takes to have a successful, instant green backyard. We are going to go over grading, we're going to go over the depth of black dirt and to dispel a few myths there. We're going to talk about the watering schedule; when to water, and how much. We're also going to go over when you can mow the sod. We're going to teach you how to peel back the sod and determine how healthy your sod is and then the scourge of sod, fighting the Japanese beetles. What to look for, so you can cut them off before they become problematic, so let's get into it. The first thing I want to do is to dispel a myth that you've got to have four inches of pulverized screen black dirt. If you actually put that much black dirt on top of your subgrade, this soil, this black dirt is going to compress and cause uneven waves in your sod. The four inches isn't necessary and sometimes incorporating it can be a little difficult like tilling your entire...

How to Bid Mulch

Money is in the mulch, you guys know that I do demolition, excavation, I do all these massive retaining wall projects but there is a reason why I built and developed a course specifically on mulch. Every time you see the mulch, you should be able to see dollar bill certain on the floor in front of your eyes, so get ready and check this out. The reason I built a course directly on bidding mulch is because the profit potential in mulch is absolutely amazing. We are talking about incredible profits of 80%-90% on a job. But there is a rhyme and a reason to achieving those profits. At Dirt Monkey University, I created a course specifically to help contractors like you understand how to format your most proposals to have guaranteed profits every single time. There is no magic mystery number.  I show you how to calculate mulch up and break it down in a per cubic yard or a per ton basis. Whether it's hardwood, rock, or even rubber mulch,  we build profits into...

Q & A Decoding Estimates for Construction, Landscaping and Lawn Care #1

Q & A Decoding Estimates for Construction, Landscaping and Lawn Care #3