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Scope Of Work: Rebuilding the front step wing walls. Natural stone coping. Rebuilt retaining walls. New walkway pavers.
Timeline: 3 weeks.
Budget: $40,000.00 - $35,000.00
Designer: Garry Reisky of Terraform Contracting
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When I first started talking with this homeowner about their project, they mentioned something about some holes in their steps. What do you mean holes in your steps? We have holes in our steps and it’s time to address these issue. If you look at the before pictures there are certainly some big holes in these steps that needed attention right away. The holes are actually in the wing walls on the side of the steps and the driveway side was the one in the worst shape. After consulting with the homeowners a plan was put in motion. The walkway, retaining walls and front steps would be upgraded, the driveway would remain and as you see from the final picture a small section of interlocking pavers would be installed where the driveway meets the sidewalk.
After removing the old materials and sending them off to recycling it was time to go after the wing walls and tackle the hardest part first. There was a slight blow in the driveway side wing wall and that was a little troubling. I had some questions. How far would the wall be needed to be taken down? Are the walls supporting the steps? What about this bow in the wall, what’s going on behind there? Fortunately the steps and walls were independent of each other and that put my mind at ease. The walls weren’t supporting any gravel or soil behind them so the one side could be taken down without an avalanche of material spilling out onto the driveway.
The block wall was slowly dissembled and any sound sections were left intact. For good measure we took our vacuum and sucked out whatever was in the empty space of the blocks. We went right to the bottom and removed any debris and standing water. After that it was fairly simple process to rebuild the driveway side wall and patch any small holes on the other side. Once the block was put back we added steel and core filled the block with concrete to make sure this would be one solid wall!
With the most challenging part of the project behind us it was now time to add some curb appeal. The retaining wall on the left side was replaced and new steps were added on the opposite side. A new retaining wall was added to create a little more room when opening their car doors. New stone was installed on the steps and finally some lighting was installed. Let’s not forget about the stucco! After all the masonry repairs were completed the wing walls were redone with matching stucco to the house to bring everything together. The homeowners were extremely happy with their new front and it turned out well if I do say so myself.
Garry’s final words
As a homeowner it can be challenging finding the right contractor to do a project like this, who do you trust? How do you know you’re not over paying? These can all be valid concerns. It all comes down to trust, right? Has the contractor done a project like this before, is this their primary discipline? Are they asking the right questions. Do they have the right people do complete the project. These projects can be difficult to price accurately due to unknown factors, unfortunately I can not yet see through the ground or concrete walls. Fortunately, working with these homeowners they were reasonable and understood that if there is something that would be a show stopper , we would call a timeout and come up with a solution. That solution would most likely involve more time and more money. It’s good to know these things before hand so that any surprises later on are something that was discussed previously and a could be a possible outcome.
Materials used on this project
- Interlocking pavers: Unilock Artline, almond grove.
- Natural Stone: Banas.
- Lighting: In-lite.
- Retaining Wall: Unilock Pisa 2 and brussels dimensional.
- Black Pebbles: Beaver valley stone.