backyard leveling question

[arjay57]

Good estimating, red92s.

While you are right that these projects can get fairly expensive, my feeling is that if you are talking about a nice property hardscape improvements are usually a good investment.

I'm no expert on it, however.

[ridesmart]

Originally Posted by red92s

So yeah, it becomes a $20k project pretty quickly.

Thanks for the details. Great

[Caleb Longstreet]

Originally Posted by red92s

The retaining wall is where a majority of the costs will come in. Depends on where you live, but generally once you get above 3 feet it requires permits and engineering. A geogrid reinforced wall would be required for 10' high, which will get expensive fast. You might be able to save some money by terracing (building two 5' walls), but this is still a big project that carries lots of liability if done poorly.

Just some quick and dirty math:
60'x16'x10' = 9600 cubic feet
Assuming the slope is a 45 degree angle, you need to fill in roughly half that amount, or 4800 cubic feet

There are 27 cubic feet per cubic yard of dirt, so you would require about 177 cubic yards of dirt. A typical tandem axle dump truck is going to hold about 12 yards of material, so you are looking at roughly 15 dump trucks full of dirt. Once you factor in compaction, that number will go up quite a bit. If you assume compaction adds another 30% onto the number, you'd need about TWENTY dump trucks. Fill dirt is cheap (sometimes free), but with poor site access that is already many thousands of dollars in dirt/hauling/bobcat/compacting costs.

Assuming you need a retaining wall 60'x10', that is 600 square feet of wall face. A decent estimate for each retaining wall block, which is about 1 SF of wall face, would be $6. That is $3,600 just in blocks alone. You still need drainage rock, drain pipe, and geogrid . . . which could easily raise that by 50%. So maybe you need $5-6,000 in materials to build the wall. You can probably take that number and double it for a labor estimate, and I haven't included any contractor markup.

So yeah, it becomes a $20k project pretty quickly.

Excellent quote and breakdown. People don't realize how much this costs. You can get it done for less and be disappointed but, they seldom listen....no matter. Trucks and drivers are cheap right now, CLEAN fill dirt is a hit or miss. I thought it would be 14 loads tops when you realize the plants he will put back or if there is any slope left...