building rock walls?

I have stacked a rock or two, but this is my place now and I have about 500 SF or so to build. Max height is 4' without engineering. Walls will taper from 1' to 4'. minimal keying and more batter vs vertical. Typically you stack from in front, but this is not an option. I am building the long (east wall) from above as it is 10' from the property line. The clay is strong stuff and I expect little in the way of vertical settling on virgin material. The wall runs down a slope and I plan on a perf pipe and drain rock behind to daylight at the far ends of both walls. The charts I have read say 9 SF per ton for 3 man and 12 SF per ton for 2 man. I'll figure on 50 plus tons. The close quarry has 2~3 man for 35 a ton. Should I just take off the tailgate? I can weld a picking loop back on and just set and take it off 5 times. Not that big a deal. you just face it on, close the latch, and drive the pins in. I have even thumbed it on and off. I will employ a ground artist to help out.

Yeah I would take of the tailgate. Welded a short piece of chain on ours for R&R'ing. $35 per ton is super cheap. Here ledge rock for wall building is $125/TN. This is the stone I would like to use for our walls. About $2,300 per load delivered for 15 tons. Are you planning on an fabric behind the wall? I am considering it to keep any fines from migrating through the cracks.

That's a possibility. I can get fabric and also they're making jaw run at the pit with a 3/4 screen if you can believe it. It's really fine stuff so I could run that behind the wall for nine bucks a ton. It wouldn't pass water too rapidly, but it would pass it eventually compared to the clay next to it. And you have to remember we just don't have that much of a rain event here. The slope of the bottom of the wall is crazy. It goes screaming off to the north so the water can just run behind the wall and daylight out the end.

I like to put mortar mix and just dump a few bags as I go along. Its pretty cheap and if there is any water it sets up pretty well.

This was a few months ago. Those big monsters in the foreground are 4 and 5 man and I would use the little ones in the background.

For only a 4' tall wall, I would use 3 man size rock on the bottom. Then 2 man size rock in the middle, and then finish on top with one man and half man. I doubt a perforated pipe is needed behind, but do use 2-4 angular spalls/chunk for drainage and structural support. Permeable cloth behind is not a bad idea. A lot of this depends on how your "style" of building is. I like to build walls that have the rocks more tightly fitted in place. Yup, hard to build when you are above and can't see the placement. I've had fights with employees telling me the placement looks good, and then I get off the machine, go down and look, and tell them that, that's not going to work.

My landscaping brother is coming to be the artist. I'm quite pleased and so is he I think. If he likes it, I'll be good with it. He is used to hand stacking big rock but he is 72 now and does not need to be lifting that heavy stuff. So we'll do it the diesel way.

Always prefer the diesel way. Work smarter not harder.

Stone work can be significantly different depending on the purpose and budget. I did this little quick and dirty pond retaining wall that will end up being part waterfall with stone that came out of the ground while digging the ponds. This is not at all how I would do it for a retaining wall, especially next to a house. But for this purpose, the customer is happy because it didn't cost a lot and is planning to plant flowers in all the voids.

that looks almost like natural ledge at the left. We don't have ledge around here, it all got hammered by the glaciers many times.

skyking1 said: that looks almost like natural ledge at the left. We don't have ledge around here, it all got hammered by the glaciers many times. Click to expand... Yes, some of it came off the solid ledge in flakes.

PeterG said: For only a 4' tall wall, I would use 3 man size rock on the bottom. Then 2 man size rock in the middle, and then finish on top with one man and half man. I doubt a perforated pipe is needed behind, but do use 2-4 angular spalls/chunk for drainage and structural support. Permeable cloth behind is not a bad idea. A lot of this depends on how your "style" of building is. I like to build walls that have the rocks more tightly fitted in place. Yup, hard to build when you are above and can't see the placement. I've had fights with employees telling me the placement looks good, and then I get off the machine, go down and look, and tell them that, that's not going to work. Click to expand... @PeterG I sent you a message.