All Forum Posts by: Kevin C.

Way to go @Dawn Anastasi - Congratulations!

I can only dream of deals like that.

After being passed around a few times in the Soil /  Conservation dept I finally received the following response:

There’s not much that can be done that won’t be expensive and involve an engineer. It is typical and normal for ephemeral creeks to erode the stream banks and move; they are active and this is part of their normal function in most cases. Your best bet is to consult an engineer or follow-up with the companies you have already received bids from if you wish to protect your house.

So, no help there, back to the Shotcrete guy.

Shotcrete guy has come back with numbers based on him shoring it up how he has done similar jobs, but this one is more extensive than what he has dealt with in the past.  He reached out to a contractor he has worked with that does work like this for the highway dept and that person brought more info to the table.  Bottom line, shotcrete contractor is going to try to get the contractor that does erosion work like this for the hwy dept and an engineer that he's worked with all out to take a look and give me their thoughts.  At this point, the shotcrete solution looks very promising, but I don't have any numbers yet from the hwy dept erosion contractor on his anchoring solutions or any feedback from an engineer that deals with these sorts of issues.

As soon as I meet with all the contractors mentioned and get more info from them I'll post what I find out.

Spoke with owner of a local shotcrete company and forwarded him pictures of the creek wall.  He said he's addressed erosion projects like this with shotcrete and will be coming out to look at the creek early next week.  Hopefully shotcrete is a less expensive solution than the bag wall bids I've gotten so far.

@Ryan R.

I didn't build the deck, so I don't know how deep that corner support goes, but we plan to demo the deck and rebuild it anyway.  The top side erosion I'm confident we can control with plantings.

I thought the same thing about shotcrete. We've had pools built and the process they use to build the pool looks like it would work to shore up a creek wall.

I've got an email to a company that does shotcrete to see what they think.

I also have a contact I was given with National Resources Conservation Services here locally I'll be reaching out to to see if they have any ideas.

I was told it was a mixture of shale and limestone.  There are parts that are very solid and other parts that are soft/flaky.   

I'm leaning towards having the bag wall put in, it shores up the creek wall and top side erosion all at the same time.  

Here's a link to more pictures for your viewing pleasure.

More pics of erosion issue

@Bill Gulley  Great suggestion, just emailed the conservation district for this area to see what suggestions / ideas they may have.  I forget the number, but one company I think was saying something like 10 to 12 truck loads of material.   Both companies have suggested 100 to 120' of bag wall ranging in height from 10 to 14'.

One company said he could just go 6' or so up and save us about half, the issue there is if the creek were to ever come up over that 6' level, the water could take the wall down.   I don't believe the creek would ever come up that high, but I don't know that I'd risk a bag wall coming down on that assumption.

@Wayne Brooks I don't think a 1:1 slope would work, the creek walls are about 12' and a 1:1 slope would put us too far into the creek bed   Both companies we met with said bag wall when they saw what we were dealing with.

Yep, most of the rock is soft and flaky, but there are parts where it is very hard and not flaky at all.   We can address the soil erosion up top with plants, but the wall erosion, that I guess I'll need to have addressed.   Not sure if we should monitor it first since at this point we don't know how quickly the erosion is occurring, or just bite the bullet and have it done now.   The people that looked at it said it's good there is rock there, even though it is mostly a soft/flaky rock, they say it is substantially stronger than if it were just dirt.

It could be the creek wall holds for another 30 years, or it could let loose who knows when.

Pay now, or pay later when the hand is forced...

Not really a DIY task, but not sure where to post so I stuck it here. moderators please move it to appropriate forum if there is one more appropriate.

We have a property that is on a heavily wooded 2 acre lot with a seasonal creek, seasonal as in when it rains, the creek has water.   The house sits very close to the creek, maybe 12' or so on one back corner.  A deck off the house goes to within a few feet of the creek bank.

The creek wall is 10' to 12' foot high off the back of the house.

On the other side, the creek back slops gently up into the woods, so no concerns on that side.  The creek turns a little right at about the corner of the house and right at the turn area there is significant undercutting of the rock.  The first picture below shows what the creek wall looks like approaching the rear of the house,  the second picture shows the undercutting of the rock wall at the creek level, the third picture gives you a better idea of where the house and deck are in relation to the creek wall.

We've owned the property a little over 3 years.  I didn't even consider the creek as an issue when we bought the place.   We probably paid not much more than land value for it, and it included a 2100+ sqr ft log cabin home and a 1800 sqr ft shop (insulated metal building, very well built).  The log home had been neglected for many years, livable, but with issues.  We fixed up the home and our son and his family lived there for 3 years.  He recently moved on and we have moved into it.  

We were down in the creek area cleaning up debris a month or so ago and that's when it hit me that erosion could be a problem.

We have bids from a couple companies that specialize in erosion control such as this to shore up the wall.  They both propose what they call a 'bag wall', which is basically special concrete bags stacked up to form a wall.  A footer is cut into the creek bed, and rebar is used to keep the bags in place.  The area behind the wall would be filled with gravel and it would have drains to allow any moisture that gets behind the wall to escape.   The concrete bags are perforated and over time they erode away and you are left with a concrete block wall.  These bids have come in at $42K and $52K.  Both companies say this type erosion is common here (North Dallas Area) and bag walls are a permanent solution.

FYI - house was built in '84, shop in '04. 

Has anyone had any experience with an erosion issue such as this, and if so, how did you address it?

Thank You,

Kevin