One seemingly small but necessary step to completing the wall rebuild was the creation of proper drainage. We doubt this was done when the old wall was put in fifty years ago, and while it seemed a simple enough idea, it required quite a bit of work.
First a small trench was dug out westward of the north end of the wall (first pic). This was done with the excavator and was pretty straightforward. A long run of pipe was laid behind the footer with several vertical pipes joining it. It ran south to north and then turned to run out along this trench.
Second pic is a shot of it in the trench. As you can see it lay atop drainage cloth which was installed along the entire bottom and back (west) side of the trench.
The most difficult part of this work though was the section shown in pic 3. It had to be excavated by hand as that grey pipe running across in front of the white drainage pipe is actually the conduit carrying the wires running from the solar array that sits off the corner of the wall. Thankfully the people who did the solar install for the POs were very helpful when I called them for assistance locating the conduit. They sent me all their original installation documents including pictures and drawings so we knew exactly where the conduit lay and were able to expose it without any issues.
Then it was a matter of making a drain basin. Fourth pic is in its unfinished state. It was filled with large (four inch) river rocks and once inspected by our geotechnical engineer, it was all filled in with soil (pic 5) so that the last stages of the project could begin.
