Just for something different….let’s build a retaining wall!
On to the last one, thankfully – across the front of the shed, which will define the slope for the original driveway to come down and meet the level of the carport, and down the back of the shed to stop the neighbour’s carport from ending up in mine. Seems important.
The main complication with this wall is the constantly changing levels – both sides start at the height of the concrete kerbing under the hibiscus hedge, then fall away with the ground level. The wall panels I went with have a nice triangle-shaped panel to make the level changes less severe, but that means the post on the ‘downhill’ side of the panel has to be slightly higher than normal to trap the lower corner of the triangle, so there’s LOTS of height changes while setting up the posts.
Went with the same long-span top bars (and reused most of the bars from the house wall, since they’re the same posts & panels) to hold it all together, made more complicated by the constant height changes. I’m experimenting with some better setup on the formwork though, because I wasn’t happy with the house wall’s forms or how long it took me to take it all down.
I’ve got each panel sitting on a couple of ‘feet’ to raise them up further (this concrete needs to be deeper than the house wall’s, as the wall is higher), with small blocks to hold it off the posts. These blocks also hold up a strip of builder’s plastic on the inside of the formwork, which will hopefully make it a LOT easier to disassemble. I’ll backfill and prop on the outside of the form so it doesn’t explode outwards under the weight of concrete, of course.
Meanwhile the earthworks guys have been stockpiling sand, so the house area is pretty much covered in big piles of sand ready to be spread out and compacted. Progress!
