WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.840 Now that the asbestos is completely clear from the tech house, which unfortunately was in the 00:00:05.840 --> 00:00:10.640 caulking for the electrical wiring, meaning that we had to pull all the drywall off, 00:00:10.640 --> 00:00:16.320 there is a ton of work to do in here. But unfortunately, this is a thing. But that 00:00:16.320 --> 00:00:22.000 doesn't mean we can't work on the backyard. The plan today is to tear down that ramshackle shed, 00:00:22.000 --> 00:00:27.520 fill the pond, do some leveling, figure out a better plan. We've got a whole team of wonderful 00:00:27.520 --> 00:00:30.800 loans here to help us today. But first, we're going to segue to our sponsor. 00:00:49.200 --> 00:00:53.280 First thing we need to do is take out this shed so we have a way to get the escalator into the 00:00:53.280 --> 00:00:55.680 back to do the rest of the work. Watch your head. 00:01:09.440 --> 00:01:13.040 With the shed out of here, surprise surprise, you're helping us come up with a plan for the 00:01:13.040 --> 00:01:17.280 rest of the backyard. There's some stuff that we figured out already, like that we don't want to 00:01:17.280 --> 00:01:22.240 deal with this water feature in the longer term. But what we don't know is how to deal with this 00:01:22.320 --> 00:01:26.800 tiered setup that we have going on here, as well as if you have any brilliant ideas for 00:01:26.800 --> 00:01:31.280 this random shed. Can you tell me what the objective is for the backyard before we make up a plan? 00:01:32.560 --> 00:01:37.760 We feel that Yi is going to want to spend time back here with his family and friends, 00:01:38.480 --> 00:01:43.520 but is going to be the kind of guy who wants a relatively low maintenance backyard. Okay. 00:01:43.520 --> 00:01:48.640 With that in mind, we'd love to optimize the space for something like a robot lawnmower, 00:01:48.640 --> 00:01:52.480 which obviously is not going to be a thing with this two tiered setup. 00:01:53.280 --> 00:01:58.080 However, we're not going to be able to completely get rid of the two tiered setup because you can 00:01:58.080 --> 00:02:03.360 see the land is not flat here and that fence bordering the neighbors at the back is elevated 00:02:03.360 --> 00:02:07.440 compared to where we're standing right now. Okay. Do you know if there's anything in here? Like if 00:02:07.440 --> 00:02:11.760 we wanted to rip that out and just make a little area in the back that slopes and put shrubs and 00:02:11.760 --> 00:02:15.680 stuff in there, could we do that? We can rip cut slash whatever you want. It's going to be a lot 00:02:15.680 --> 00:02:22.240 of work if you do that. That's why we got this wonderful high morale team of people to help us. 00:02:22.240 --> 00:02:30.160 What we're hoping is that we can rip the ties out, use a lot of the dirt to fill the pond, 00:02:31.440 --> 00:02:38.560 and then use the bricks to maybe make like a fire pity hanging outie spot and then get 00:02:38.560 --> 00:02:42.800 rid of the rest of it. I think a deck area there would be really nice. Maybe put like a little 00:02:42.800 --> 00:02:49.200 love seed or sectional, maybe a little patio table. Yeah, I'll deal with that another time though. 00:02:49.200 --> 00:02:53.040 Today we're in the yard. Yeah, I know, but you said come up with a plan. You can't get started without 00:02:53.040 --> 00:03:03.200 having a plan. You can. We have. Here's the plan. We are going to move this retaining wall pretty much 00:03:03.200 --> 00:03:08.560 back to that back fence so that we can maximize the amount of flat level on that we have back here. 00:03:09.120 --> 00:03:13.360 We're going to figure out exactly how far off the fence it has to come in order to have, you know, 00:03:13.360 --> 00:03:19.920 good structural stability. But regardless of that, pretty much all of the existing plants 00:03:19.920 --> 00:03:24.800 are going to have to go because this is an extensive enough redo that we're probably going to end up 00:03:24.800 --> 00:03:33.280 damaging them anyway. Sorry, buddy. There is one exception. We want to keep kind of a raised seating 00:03:33.280 --> 00:03:40.240 slash fire pit area up here, which would hopefully allow us to keep this and this, some of these like 00:03:40.240 --> 00:03:44.320 bigger plants that'll make it so we don't have to just be hanging out here and just 00:03:45.440 --> 00:03:50.000 staring at the fence that's in such good condition. The only thing though is that tree takes up a 00:03:50.000 --> 00:03:54.400 lot of space. Do you want, because you can get shrubs and things like that that are skinnier, 00:03:54.400 --> 00:03:58.000 that will give you that green effect without taking up so much space. I think I'm okay with 00:03:58.080 --> 00:04:05.440 it. It's kind of a feature tree. No. This one's nice. This one's nice. It's really big and it's 00:04:05.440 --> 00:04:09.840 kind of in the middle. Okay, well let's see if we can keep it. With that in mind, we've got to start 00:04:09.840 --> 00:04:15.760 somewhere and I'm going to assign myself lifting up and stacking all these bricks. Actually, why don't 00:04:15.760 --> 00:04:19.840 we start with the plants? Those little things? They're probably going to take more effort than you 00:04:19.840 --> 00:04:25.920 think. They usually fight for life. Okay, I'm going to do it then. I'll do this. All right, start punching. 00:04:28.880 --> 00:04:35.440 No, I'll go get a shovel. Jordan, there's one problem with the pond. Okay. We cut a bunch of holes 00:04:35.440 --> 00:04:40.800 with the shovel and the liner. Yep. As you can see, it's not draining at all. If it doesn't drain 00:04:40.800 --> 00:04:44.800 though, that is a problem because then you'll get like soggy grass and stuff after. It'll 00:04:44.800 --> 00:04:50.000 turn into a big mud mess. Yep, we could remove all the rocks and then pull the liner out and see 00:04:50.000 --> 00:04:55.520 what happens and see what happens. Okay. If we get most of them from at least this side and then 00:04:55.520 --> 00:04:59.760 pull. We could maybe like cut around that side if we have to from the top or something. 00:05:00.880 --> 00:05:04.560 Okay. Other than that, we've got to get like a sump pump or something to pump out all the water. 00:05:04.560 --> 00:05:10.080 Yeah, we don't have that. Do you got a hose? I have a saw saw. Actually, a hose would work if you 00:05:10.880 --> 00:05:16.320 start a siphon. Yeah. I'm not sucking on that. That's why I didn't suggest it. 00:05:19.520 --> 00:05:23.520 What? I'm definitely going to need more tools. I'll need like a hatchet or something to cut some 00:05:23.520 --> 00:05:31.120 of these roots. This thing's in there, buddy. Now that looks pretty loose, but it's not because 00:05:31.120 --> 00:05:39.360 these roots are strong little buggers. All right. See you later, buddy. All right. What else you want 00:05:39.360 --> 00:05:44.480 out, sir? Well, these two probably. Oh, those ones are big dull. Maybe those two in the corner. Okay. 00:05:44.880 --> 00:05:55.600 You know what I'm kind of thinking, Jordan, is we might be better off pairing this back affair 00:05:55.600 --> 00:06:00.960 bit before we try to get at the roots because right now I can't even, I can't even get in here. 00:06:00.960 --> 00:06:07.920 All right. Let me go see what we have for tools. We basically just grabbed whatever people had 00:06:08.000 --> 00:06:15.120 lying around and a bunch of tech geeks didn't have a lot. You like that rust on rust action there? 00:06:15.120 --> 00:06:18.720 Can I make a request? Yeah, you can request anything you want. Can I have this plant? 00:06:18.720 --> 00:06:22.240 Can we try to save it? You want to have it? Yeah, I want to plant it in my place. You know how much 00:06:22.240 --> 00:06:28.240 more work it is to get it out in one piece, Alex? We got an excavator. You saw the size of it, 00:06:28.240 --> 00:06:33.360 right? It was a line of size excavator. Yeah. I don't think the excavator will be that useful, 00:06:33.360 --> 00:06:37.040 but I'll tell you what, you want to grab a shovel, we can try. Like I'm used to people being like, 00:06:37.040 --> 00:06:40.960 hey, that motherboard from that video, you know, could I have it? I'm not used to, 00:06:40.960 --> 00:06:46.800 can I have that plant? That doesn't come up very often for us. These looked like they were done 00:06:46.800 --> 00:06:53.760 not that long ago and that is very much a thing. Oh, okay. And Alex with a sledgehammer might see 00:06:53.760 --> 00:07:02.080 to that. I'm going to clear my, uh, yep. Boy, I'm fine. 00:07:10.160 --> 00:07:15.520 I have literally, I'm starting to get a bit of wiggle here. So basically we're going to here, 00:07:15.520 --> 00:07:20.640 if you grab that one, yeah, we're going to time it back, forward, back, forward, 00:07:21.520 --> 00:07:23.120 back, forward. 00:07:29.280 --> 00:07:35.120 Okay. So we got, I'd say a solid 10% of the root system. Good job team. 00:07:37.120 --> 00:07:38.240 All right. Where do you want it, sir? 00:07:42.960 --> 00:07:47.040 All right. And we only damaged the side of the house a little. 00:07:51.280 --> 00:08:06.240 Hey, the little shed's clear. We're good to go. I'm bringing in the backhoe. 00:08:07.680 --> 00:08:10.800 Not to be confused with my wife. She's just hoe, not backhoe. 00:08:12.240 --> 00:08:16.000 It's her last name. Now remember the basic controls, but it's been a while since I've 00:08:16.000 --> 00:08:19.920 tried to actually do anything useful. Oh, this is interesting. Okay. 00:08:22.800 --> 00:08:28.800 All right. Well, this is progress boys. Well, I feel like I'm on a real construction crew. 00:08:28.800 --> 00:08:33.920 I got five people watching me operate the thing. Whoops. They're supervising. 00:08:34.640 --> 00:08:46.080 Okay. Am I, so what, are we stacking? 00:08:46.080 --> 00:08:49.200 There's a lot of bricks. I don't know. You could reuse them. 00:08:49.920 --> 00:08:56.560 Yeah. Well, I was thinking we could reuse at least some of them for like, uh, no, actually, 00:08:56.560 --> 00:09:00.720 that's already brick. It's already brick for the whole side there. I think bricks are worth 00:09:00.720 --> 00:09:07.840 anything. Unless they say supreme on them. I mean, we'll have to stack them one way or 00:09:07.840 --> 00:09:12.960 another, whether we're disposing or okay. All right. So we're stacking. So short answer. Yes. 00:09:13.360 --> 00:09:27.360 Look who's arrived and she brought the suck. 00:09:30.080 --> 00:09:35.280 That's what it does. It's a pump. It's a pump for sucking water. We're gonna, we're gonna put it 00:09:35.280 --> 00:09:42.080 in there. Question for you guys. Is there like a firm plan for this or what? Nope. Cool. Good chat. 00:09:43.200 --> 00:09:47.680 Anyone got a knife? Uh, sure. Hit me. 00:09:50.320 --> 00:09:54.800 Maybe try not turning it on and just use the blade. Solid. 00:09:57.760 --> 00:10:02.880 Okay. Here's the plan. We're going to put this hose on the inlet. Then we're going to put this 00:10:02.880 --> 00:10:10.000 filtered thing on the inlet thing. All right. That way we're going to avoid sucking up any 00:10:10.000 --> 00:10:16.480 pieces that are so big they're going to clog up our hose. Hey, no one's falling in. All right. 00:10:17.360 --> 00:10:18.240 Okay. Here we go. 00:10:24.400 --> 00:10:31.200 All right. Strong flow. Yeah. I just want to ideally get a little bit of this out before the pump 00:10:31.200 --> 00:10:38.000 grabs it. I think it's okay right now because it was still going. It was still pumping real good. 00:10:40.000 --> 00:10:42.000 Just wanted to grab a little bit of this out of here. 00:10:55.040 --> 00:10:59.520 Well, there's why you guys couldn't bend it out. Wow. That was deep. 00:11:01.600 --> 00:11:09.200 Cool. Times however many more. You guys might have actually dug this out enough. Hold on. Give 00:11:09.200 --> 00:11:17.280 me a sec. Oh yeah. We just need one person on either side and we'll push and pull. Okay. So, 00:11:17.280 --> 00:11:22.640 yep. And then push and then your way and now my way and now your way and now my way. 00:11:24.560 --> 00:11:26.960 Okay. Now you can just cut what's left of the roots there. 00:11:29.600 --> 00:11:36.000 It's a good Tuesday when you've wrestled a bush. Hey, Jordan, how's the pump doing? Good. 00:11:36.000 --> 00:11:40.640 That's the everything's okay alarm. All right. I think realistically this is probably about as 00:11:40.640 --> 00:11:45.040 far as we're going to be able to go before it's sucking up more sludge than water. So the question 00:11:45.040 --> 00:11:50.720 is what do we do with it? Obviously we can't have it just completely stay here. It's going to 00:11:51.280 --> 00:12:00.080 pool there and it's going to be a swamp forever. How removable is this? Yeah. What if we suction 00:12:00.160 --> 00:12:07.360 underneath the membrane? Oh, yeah. Okay. All right. Ready? Jack, go for it. 00:12:10.960 --> 00:12:15.920 Well, you can see it going. That's great. How much of this do we think we need out of here? 00:12:17.600 --> 00:12:21.440 Like, I mean, this isn't very much moisture in the grand scheme of things. 00:12:22.080 --> 00:12:28.800 What I'm worried about is just like always being like a swamp under here. Yeah. I think only if 00:12:28.800 --> 00:12:32.640 the water ends up running into here, which I don't think it will if we remove all the stuff. 00:12:34.080 --> 00:12:49.040 Because this amount of water is the dirt's going to soak it all up. Okay. 00:12:49.360 --> 00:12:51.360 Okay. 00:12:52.880 --> 00:13:00.800 Not too much left. Are you not going to help? Spittin' time. You know what? That's fair enough. 00:13:00.800 --> 00:13:06.320 We're obviously not done back here, but I am, I gotta be honest with you, I'm kind of blown away 00:13:06.320 --> 00:13:12.800 by how much progress we made. We got all of the brick torn up and neatly stacked. So whether we 00:13:12.800 --> 00:13:18.720 decide to use it or whether we don't, it's there. I feel like it might end up being a freebie item 00:13:18.720 --> 00:13:24.240 on Facebook Marketplace, but hey, let's see. We got the liner pulled out of that pond. So now 00:13:24.240 --> 00:13:28.960 it's ready to get some gravel and sand put in there so we get good drainage and then we can 00:13:28.960 --> 00:13:34.400 spread some of that topsoil from the second tier down onto it. We got a bunch of the big plants 00:13:34.400 --> 00:13:39.280 removed that we don't want and some that we did want that Alex took away. So I'm guarding that 00:13:39.280 --> 00:13:45.440 road away. I wish him luck. I don't think it's going to live. And we have a plan. Sure. And, 00:13:46.080 --> 00:13:52.560 we have this segue to our sponsor. It doesn't look like much, but we did make a ton of progress 00:13:52.560 --> 00:13:58.960 today. If you liked this video, check out other Tech House videos. This series, kind of a pain so far, 00:14:00.880 --> 00:14:03.040 but it's something different and I'm actually really enjoying it.