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SirGrotius

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That's a lot of straw. What kind of backyard operation do you run? We have a few chickens and it's like 4 bales and we're good ad infinitum.
 

jbarwick

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That's a lot of straw. What kind of backyard operation do you run? We have a few chickens and it's like 4 bales and we're good ad infinitum.

No more chickens. HOA does not allow them. Our house sits on an acre and there are quite a few flower beds but really it's just an expanse of pine straw....
 

NakedYoga

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The lawn guy at our new house texted me the normal "spring cleanup" he did for the previous owner. The cost is laughable and said it usually needs 220 bales of pine straw, a mere 50 more bales than someone else estimated.
If you weren't spending so much on lighting, this wouldn't be a big deal.
 

PhilKenSebben

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No more chickens. HOA does not allow them. Our house sits on an acre and there are quite a few flower beds but really it's just an expanse of pine straw....
I can group all of this with the lighting I am coming down to do....
 

PhilKenSebben

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My tree guy is coming next week taking out 6-8 trees, big haircuts for all of the remaining, cutting down dead stuff removing general scruff and crap (no stump grinding, just flush cut) $3k. I am thrilled at the price and quantity of crap coming down. Should be a very good week! Yard clean up the week after that

After that (mock me if you will) we are caught up on all of the **** that was just ignored by the... impecunious?...cheap?...will never know....previous owners.
 

Van Veen

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My tree guy is coming next week taking out 6-8 trees, big haircuts for all of the remaining, cutting down dead stuff removing general scruff and crap (no stump grinding, just flush cut) $3k. I am thrilled at the price and quantity of crap coming down. Should be a very good week! Yard clean up the week after that

After that (mock me if you will) we are caught up on all of the **** that was just ignored by the... impecunious?...cheap?...will never know....previous owners.
That's basically where I am. Now that I got my BidenBux, we have one dead pine to get removed (assuming tornadoes don't take care of it for me tomorrow). That's the last of the "day 1" stuff I'm planning to contract out.

The next major project is replacing the retaining wall, which I'm going to try to DIY. Might regret that, but I can't afford $10-15k to contract it out. It's probably going to be $5k in material alone between block, gravel, drainage. That's not including demo/disposal of the current railroad tie wall (can't just rent a dumpster because of the creosote). I might have to rent a mini skid steer and/or mini excavator. That should be fun.

This weekend's project is removing and patching the wall registers we had moved.

$3k is a great price, though. $750 is the best quote I got to take down a single dead pine. I have another arborist coming to look at everything and (hopefully) come up with a longer term plan. There are a lot of overgrown "weed" trees potentially choking out desirable trees that need to be taken care of plus a lot of neglected pruning.
 

PhilKenSebben

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That's basically where I am. Now that I got my BidenBux, we have one dead pine to get removed (assuming tornadoes don't take care of it for me tomorrow). That's the last of the "day 1" stuff I'm planning to contract out.

The next major project is replacing the retaining wall, which I'm going to try to DIY. Might regret that, but I can't afford $10-15k to contract it out. It's probably going to be $5k in material alone between block, gravel, drainage. That's not including demo/disposal of the current railroad tie wall (can't just rent a dumpster because of the creosote). I might have to rent a mini skid steer and/or mini excavator. That should be fun.

This weekend's project is removing and patching the wall registers we had moved.

$3k is a great price, though. $750 is the best quote I got to take down a single dead pine. I have another arborist coming to look at everything and (hopefully) come up with a longer term plan. There are a lot of overgrown "weed" trees potentially choking out desirable trees that need to be taken care of plus a lot of neglected pruning.
Because you are my friend, I am going to share a secret list of things I will never do:

1) Lindsay lohan
2) travel in space
3) build any sort of structural retaining wall

Somethings in life are worth paying for man, and that kind of work is very very high on the list! But good luck if you can do it.

That tree price seems high. The company I use is always great price, insured, bonded all the good stuff, and they are always do a great job. There are lots of tree companies uphee though as we are a fairly wooded state, so maybe that helps keep the price down. If they are charging 750, you had might as well do add on work because once they are there and set up it is easy and quick to cut everything else down and toss it into the chipper
 

double00

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we took out trees n stumps last year, i did a few fruit trees myself and probably spent 400 on stump grinding and pruning but we get primo wood chips from our tree guy so the value is very very good.

Veenerino how tall is the retaining wall? our backyard slopes away so i've been thinking about masonry retaining planters level to the house footing but it would only be 18" or so with a flat fill.

if it were taller or retaining more than a couple feet i'd be considering my options carefully and convo with the city building folks to figure out the best course (especially if the original is failing)
 

Van Veen

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It's about 3'. Not terrible, except for the fact that it's like 75-80' long.

I'm looking at a modern system like Techo Bloc or VersaLok. They seem pretty foolproof with the locking pins as long as you start with a level base.

The parts that scare me are demoing the existing wall and excavating for drainage.
 

jcman311

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It's about 3'. Not terrible, except for the fact that it's like 75-80' long.

I'm looking at a modern system like Techo Bloc or VersaLok. They seem pretty foolproof with the locking pins as long as you start with a level base.

The parts that scare me are demoing the existing wall and excavating for drainage.
Its all about dat prep work!
 

Piobaire

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I don't know how you guys do all this home improvement ****. If it's more the a 45 minute all in task I call someone in.
 

Lizard23

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Drainage needs to be strongly considered as you can really screw things up if you dont know what you are doing. Its a literal cascading issue.

We used techo block for ours... shockingly we picked one of the more moderately priced options because we liked the modern look. I think it was called G-force. One of the plusses if you DIY is the block is open inside and designed to be filled with gravel as you build. Makes it cheaper and better drainage.
 

Lizard23

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This is what we used in slate gray:

 

Lizard23

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Found a pic of construction - you can see what i mean about the block design from the block in the foreground.

7FF8C671-5876-48AB-BCB4-728AA45377FA.jpeg
 

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