Hello folks, Kirk and Jayson are here with Kirk Giordano plastering today. I want to talk about
something that I know a lot about lateral movement is. We did this wall several years
ago. The homeowner called me and said, gee Kirk, we got a hairline crack. I said you're gonna get
more than a hairline crack depending on that wall and what we have here is a wall of 200 feet long
12 feet tall, and what they have here island up now we've got a hundred tons of dirt pushing
this wall this way now something you folks don't often hear me say, but a buttress is a wall that
stabilizes a vertical wall now a buttress can be done many ways you do your foundation and
one side is flat and the other is at an angle that that proves so that when the dirt or the
earth many many tons push this way it stabilizes a bit more even with a buttress can this craft
absolutely even if they put tiers ten feet down 15 feet down can it move absolutely I'm looking
right here at the base and the base and the dirt has pulled away about six inches I could stick
my whole arm in there is it normal pretty much it is normal it's nothing to be concerned about
but up top here we have separation I thought I'd point that out because this is what the video is
all about and you folks who have retaining walls without buttresses reinforcing it or if you didn't
go 15 feet down with tears and even if you do go 15 feet down with tears I've seen waffles crack
like an egg steel because humans cannot judge the rain it rains for 30 days to three months
that weight saturates the ground swells it and pushes it adds an extra 20 tons pushing it this
way so we all we can do is the best we can to engineer something that it won't crack hairline
or move but sometimes it fails Jays gonna come up top here I'm going to show you what exactly
I'm into alright guys this is give you another bird's eye view of what's going on here you see
this is separating it separated a quarter-inch a quarter-inch looks pretty bad and Nick they even
have rebar in here and it was poured solid that's about the best you guys can do when
building a retaining wall that's 12 feet high 200 feet long and then the other direction is 20 feet
long what's happening here is normal a hundred tons of dirt pushing it it pushed it enough and
it's this is the weak link to the entire wall the rest of the wall no cracks the rest of this
wall no crack but this is a joint so without a buttress here and even if you had a buttress it
could still happen here's how we repair it now now granted I'm using the same cement as we use
the first time here we take it and and what I say how we repair it is this going to last forever no
no way it's not what I told the homeowner as I said you do know this is not stucco's fault it
is the fault of movement there's no such thing as stucco deteriorating a wall it doesn't work
like that stucco does not deteriorate any wall stucco is cement plaster so it doesn't it will
not deteriorate a wall it has nothing to do with the structural strength either this is
cosmetic what we're doing the finish we put on here before it's simply cosmetic so what we're
doing here is I'm pushing it in this large crack I opened it because I was curious and when I opened
it I found this guy here this is cinder block this cinder it pushed away just enough so the
cinder block exploded and when I've seen this about 20 times cinder block can explode with
enough movement this piece came from here so what we're doing is we put it back together like so and
then we take a float and we just float it right in there this float is dry but I'm gonna try to
make it work even with a dry float because do this in one take all right here's what we do we
float it to give it the same texture as I did a few years back now we're floating this and
again guys common sense says this cannot be a permanent thing unless the ground has moved all
its going to move and sometimes that does happen where it's unstable so the rain pushes it and you
got about three to four years before it becomes stable meaning that's it's sank as much as it's
going to sink depending on if it doesn't rain for say 60 days and you got the same action occurring
anyway this is called a float finish that we're doing on top of here basically what we're doing
is blending this back into the original surface and that's all it takes but the main thing of
this video is not to show how to patch it but to explain lateral movement because I don't
explain lateral movement too often because we don't encounter it too much we're doing stucco
we're going vertical we don't have to do too much lateral that's for slabs foundations and things of
that nature anyway just a word about lateral movement since I haven't covered it and this
this fix here give me the perfect opportunity to and by the way guys I told the homeowner a couple
years ago I said don't worry about it and he's got trees planted all the way down he says the
trio cover the crack eventually and I thought good attitude because you're never gonna permanently
fix this at this stage so nothing to be too too concerned about just know what's happening anyway
my name is Kurt Jason on the camera way thank you guys for watching and as usual we'll see you guys
on the next one once again folks we thank you for watching and I really enjoy all your comments if
you guys like this video please click the like button down below and also if you enjoy what we
do subscribe to our channel so we can keep making these videos for you my name is Kirk
and Jayson we thank you for watching and from the entire giordano family we'll see on the next one