There's a right way and a wrong way to install silt fence, so I'm going to cover that today. Let's talk about the orientation of the fence, the difference between standard fence, steel reinforced fence, and bio logs.

Silt Fencing

We're out here installing silt fence. Now we've already got one row of silt fence which has been up and functioning for about 90 days now. But the city wants to see a reinforced silt fence. I'm going to show you the difference between them and show you how to install them. Jake's just manually digging a trench, or you can get a trencher. This way works well. You have to get about a six-inch deep trench to tow it in. Now as we look at the one that's already been installed and been in service for a while now, you can see that it's actually buried right there and that's a key element. The other thing is which way you orient the silt. A reinforced silt fence looks like this and actually has wire mesh. It's more of a permanent structure.

Reinforced Silt Fence

A...

We’re going to do a review of this Echo PB-77H Backpack Blower. Now the first thing I can tell you about this blower, in my opinion. I’ve used it for quite a few hours, and is this thing is a beast. When I use this thing, I can actually feel the torque.  When I trottle it up, I can feel it shifting my body back.  So, if you guys are going to be using a machine like this, synch the padded straps tight.  Don't leave them loose hanging on and then throttle it all at once. Can you actually feel it?  Yeah. It pulls me back.  I've noticed that I have to have the straps tight, and when I throttle it up it pulls me back.  Which is not back, because when you're buying a blower, you want power. You've used this blower more than anybody else.  What are your thoughts?  Works good. Runs good. I mean, it has a lot of power.  In can clean out rock beds and grass and all that stuff. You've run this thing over and over again, day after day,...

Mistakes Happen

The project that we're working on is this townhome complex behind me. We've got about 18,000 square feet of shade tolerant discovery Bermuda sod going in behind these town home units. The entire length of these buildings is about 1100ft long and this project is presented a number of problems. I want to talk specifically about utilities. All of the cable, gas, power everything runs right behind these buildings.  Tight down the center is the main gas line.  We've obviously located everything, but we have still had a number of lines get cut.  We're hand digging drainage from all of these buildings, every downspout, every air conditioning unit, all the condensate line surface basins. We're hand digging it into a series of storm basins that are already in place and we're going to be putting wraps around each of the storm basins.

The Unavoidable

This project we have had cut utilities which I would consider unavoidable.  The white wires behind me are...

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Stan Genadek: What's up Dirt Monkey Maniacs? Today, we're going to talk about what everybody says you need to do, but nobody shows you how to do it. Not a lot of you know that I own a lawn care company, what you don't know is, my excavating company is completely separate from the lawn care division and what nobody knows is that I own a third company doing pure construction, decks, house additions, remodeling work and two other companies. All of my companies run themselves without me, you're going to see that today. If I can do it, you can do it. Each company is completely unique from the other companies but the systems that run them are not, they’re universal across the board. But what's even more important is, I'm going to teach you guys how to do the exact same thing. When you understand the basic principles of a system, you can tweak it and make it fit just about any company's profile. The system is the fundamental key to building a...

Whether you're seeding a brand new lawn for the very first time or you're overseeding a thinning out existing lawn, we're going to give you three rules for success using three very simple tools. It doesn't even have to be as complicated as this thing. It all starts with the base.  If your subsoil it's hard like concrete, your new lawn doesn't stand a chance. Ideally you must loosen up the top four inches, but a lot of people mistake that for thinking they need four inches of black dirt. Nothing could be further from the truth. The perfect man will have 1/3 black dirt, 1/3 sand, and 1/3 compost. Once you get the subsoil ready you can lay down your seed.

Seed Type

Rule number 2: for the best long term results, you have to pick the right seed right out of the gate. If you have a wide open sunny area, use a sunny mixture. But if you've got a shady area and you use this grass seed, it will sprout and it will germinate, but it will slowly die off. That's why you would need a shady...

Part 1 - How to Build a Patio - Ultimate DIY Installation Guide

Part 3 - How to Build a Fire Pit - Stupidly Easy!

Seat Walls & Columns

We're building seat walls and columns today. That's right, we're going to give you all of the skills, the tools that you're actually going to need from start to finish to put this project together. What would be really cool is if we could just have installed this project for you, but this isn't a dream so wake up. When we started, we had our questions.  Questions?! We actually had no clue what we were doing. We've never seen this wall system before in our lives, but we figured it out and we want to show you how simple this system is to actually put together. Yeah, you just have to be able to run a skid loader and a chop saw and other heavy equipment. No big deal, right? Yesterday at this time, this was barren dirt, now you're just bragging, I think I need a weed whip. And a new bench. Today we have a 16 x 16 patio installed, and...

Part 2 - How to Build Patio Seat Walls & Columns DIY

Part 3 - How to Build a Fire Pit - Stupidly Easy!

Stan:

Belgard is sponsoring a three part mini-series on how to install seat walls, columns, a patio like this, and a fire ring. Sponsored means: Belgard asked me very nicely (“you mean with money??”) to put together the most comprehensive patio installation guide that's ever been created, ever! But we're going to go even deeper down the rabbit hole than just talking about technical details, we’re going to talk about cost.

Phil:

We're going to give you everything you need from start to finish on how to build this. You’re probably wondering what type of help do I need, what type of tools do I need. We're going to tell you, step by step what it's going to take to complete this project. Stan: There is no chance I can get all that done in one video. That's a good excuse to subscribe. Now you prep the base, tell me exactly what you did? Phil: To...

Stack-Stone Retaining Walls

If you've ever wondered how they build those nice stack-stone retaining walls, I'm going to show you how right now. It gets started with a concrete foundation. So what we've done here is adjust for the elevation change.  This wall begins at the corner of the house. It's about 5 1/2ft tall. It carries on through the elevation change. This wall’s about 35-40ft long. At the very end of this was going to be about 8-10inches tall.  So we start off at a higher elevation and end at the lower elevation. At the foundation, we've begun by pouring a concrete foundation. This is going to have to step up on the bottom to adjust for the change in slope; so it actually rises in steps.  Let me try to get a close up of that.   Here's one of those steps right down here in this hole. You'll see this concrete foundation is poured at a depth of 6inches thick, and we step it up to adjust for the grade. Otherwise, this whole entire wall would just...

Jake Hatch of Black Sheep Skid has taken the skills he learned as a landscaper and transferred them into a form of entertainment.  Using his skidsteer and no safety equipment, he puts on a show that delights and terrifies audiences (and sometimes his clients, too).  Stan chats with Jake about the progress he has made with this endeavor and where he wants to take it in the future.

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