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I'll preface this with I've been having a retaining wall/patio installed over the last week. A buddy of mine works at a co. that does this type of work, of which their team for this work seemed really knowledgeable. They are also providing a 5 yr warranty on the job.
The wall fill consists of recycled concrete, existing dirt from them making the wall footer, and 98% compacted sand. I noticed that the crew did not really tamp the sand prior to laying the rebar and concrete (3-4”). They smoothed it with a shovel and walked around on it… Everything I've read says it should be tamped. The foreman wasn’t present this day and I told him the next day that it hadn’t been tamped. There were also some issues with the slope of the concrete in areas as it was too high near the slab (I wanted it 1” below for drainage reasons) and didn’t slope properly toward the drains. They still had to mortar the sandstone on top of this, which gave them some room to play.
At first he said he could tear out all the concrete, but then he said he could fix it. They said there shouldn’t be much settling, if at all, since the sand was really fine 98% compacted sand. He also said that with the rebar/concrete/mortar/stone, there shouldn’t be an issue of support/sagging even if there was a small void in some areas since it was so reinforced. They also drilled holes in the existing slab to mount some of the rebar for support. So he scraped the concrete in the high areas and areas needing slope. They also tore out the concrete in the center (between sunroom and trees) so they could repour it since it was sloping toward the slab (needed to be sloping away) and needed to be 1” below the slab. On the sides of the patio, the stone will be level with the slab edge, but he is sloping the stone surface down and away from it toward the drains.
So should I be worried about the state of things in a year or two? I do have the warranty, but sometimes getting that honored for things like this can be a real pain. Currently they're 3/4 done with the job and need to repour the center concrete and mortar in the rest of the surface sandstone.
The wall fill consists of recycled concrete, existing dirt from them making the wall footer, and 98% compacted sand. I noticed that the crew did not really tamp the sand prior to laying the rebar and concrete (3-4”). They smoothed it with a shovel and walked around on it… Everything I've read says it should be tamped. The foreman wasn’t present this day and I told him the next day that it hadn’t been tamped. There were also some issues with the slope of the concrete in areas as it was too high near the slab (I wanted it 1” below for drainage reasons) and didn’t slope properly toward the drains. They still had to mortar the sandstone on top of this, which gave them some room to play.
At first he said he could tear out all the concrete, but then he said he could fix it. They said there shouldn’t be much settling, if at all, since the sand was really fine 98% compacted sand. He also said that with the rebar/concrete/mortar/stone, there shouldn’t be an issue of support/sagging even if there was a small void in some areas since it was so reinforced. They also drilled holes in the existing slab to mount some of the rebar for support. So he scraped the concrete in the high areas and areas needing slope. They also tore out the concrete in the center (between sunroom and trees) so they could repour it since it was sloping toward the slab (needed to be sloping away) and needed to be 1” below the slab. On the sides of the patio, the stone will be level with the slab edge, but he is sloping the stone surface down and away from it toward the drains.
So should I be worried about the state of things in a year or two? I do have the warranty, but sometimes getting that honored for things like this can be a real pain. Currently they're 3/4 done with the job and need to repour the center concrete and mortar in the rest of the surface sandstone.
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