Tag: retaining walls

I met our architect and builder over lunch on site to discuss progress and next steps.

The site looks much larger now that all the piles of dirt have been cleared away and the ground leveled.

The biggest item is getting all the retaining walls completely backfilled with dirt.

From the upper terrace, the dirt is now level with the top of the walls.

It is also amazing how much space there is on top now that the dirt has been filled in and a good portion of the brush removed. It is also very sunny and has a completely different feel from the lower wooded portion of the lot. This will make a great area for both edible and flowering plants that just won’t work in the shaded portion of the property. I’ll also have a great place for a few beehives.

Rain is in the forecast for the next week or so, but next steps are starting the remaining excavation work for the house foundation and start forming it up.

The work has begun on moving the dirt back behind the retaining walls. The trench has been filled in and the dirt moved into one central pile.

A dirt ramp was also constructed to get to the upper terrace. This picture is the top of the ramp looking down.

The dirt is about halfway up the wall. They also cleared out a lot of the bamboo and brush on the upper terrace to allow the bobcat access to dump in the dirt.

The next week should consist of backfilling the rest of the wall and then starting the excavation work to start building out the house foundation form.

Waterproofing has been added to the back of the retaining walls before the back-filling can begin. After I took this picture and was walking down to leave, a crew of workers showed up so I’ll have to try and stop by again this weekend to see if any dirt has been moved around.

Not a lot of new progress since the last post, but I did want to get these photos up showing all the forms removed from the north wall.

Lots of progress since I went by on Sunday. We now have all the retaining walls poured. The walls around the storage shed slab are complete.

The north wall is also poured and connected to the wall on the west side.

I honestly wasn’t expecting these to get done so quickly but I’m not complaining. Next steps will most likely be backfilling behind the walls on the west side of the property and then starting excavating for the house foundation.

It is a gorgeous day in Austin so I swung by early to see if the forms had been removed after the walls were poured on Thursday. Sure enough, we now have a nice concrete wall.

In addition to that, the north wall forms appear to be completed.

They have also started the walls around the storage shed.

Here is a video showing the progress on the back side of the lot.

We’ve made some progress with the retaining walls and storage area foundation.

Here is a close-up of the storage area slab.

It appears that the wall on the north side of the property did not get poured, but it at least is formed up.

Here is a shot of the steel inside.

While it would have been nice to get the north wall poured as well, the west wall and the storage shed slab were the main gating factors for getting the foundation of the house started. Any progress is good progress and I’m glad this was done as rain is in the forecast for the next few days.