We Destroyed the Tech House Backyard

Now that the asbestos is completely clear from the tech house which unfortunately was in the caulking for the electrical wiring meaning that we had to pull all the drywall off, there is a ton of work to do in here. But unfortunately, this is a thing. But that doesn't mean we can't work on the backyard. The plan today is to tear down that ramshackle shed, fill the pond, do some leveling, figure out a better plan. We've got a whole team of wonderful volunteers to help us today. But first, we're going to say goodbye to our sponsor. They said it was the best way to learn to code by making it fun. I even used Codecademy to get 25% off my first month or year. There was just one problem. It was so fun that I couldn't stop. [screaming] I couldn't stop. Yeah, [singing] I've got some work to do. Me and you and I can make our dreams come true [music] together in this tech house. First thing we need to do is take out this shed so we have a way to get the excavator into the back to do the rest of the work. Watch your head. With the shed out of here, surprise surprise, you're helping us come up with a plan for the rest of the backyard. There's some stuff that we figured out already like that we don't want to deal with this water feature in the longer term. But what we don't know is how to deal with this tiered setup that we have going on here as well as if you have any brilliant ideas for this random shed. Can you tell me what the objective is for the backyard before we make up a plan? We feel that Gee [music] is going to want to spend time back here with his family and friends, but is going to be the kind of guy who wants a relatively low-maintenance backyard. Okay. [music] With that in mind, we'd love to optimize the space for something like a robot lawn mower, which obviously is not going to be a thing with this two-tiered setup. However, we're not going to be able to completely get rid of the two-tiered setup because you can see the land is not flat here, and that [music] fence bordering the neighbors at the back is elevated compared to where we're standing right now. Okay. [music] Do you know if there's anything in here? Like if we wanted to rip that out and just make a little area in the back that slopes and put shrubs and stuff [music] in there, could we do that? We can rip, cut, slash, whatever you want. It's going to be a lot of work if you do that. That's why we got this wonderful, high-morale team of people to help us. What we're hoping is that we can rip the ties out, Okay. use a lot of the dirt to fill the pond, okay, okay, and then use the bricks to maybe make like a fire pit-y hangy-outy spot, and then get rid of the rest of it. I think [music] a deck area there would be really nice. Maybe put like a little love seat or sectional, maybe a little patio table. Yeah, we'll deal with that another time, though. Today, we're in the yard. Yeah, I know, but you said come up with a plan. You can't just start it without having [laughter] a plan. You can. We have. Here's the plan. We are going to move this retaining wall pretty much back to that back fence so that we can maximize the amount of flat level lawn that we have back here. We're going to figure out exactly how far off the fence it has to come in order to have, you know, good structural stability, but regardless of that, pretty much all of the existing plants are going to have to go because this is an extensive enough redo that we're probably going to end up damaging them anyway. Sorry, buddy. There is one exception. We want to keep kind of a raised seating {slash} fire pit area up here, which would hopefully allow us to keep this and this some of these like bigger plants that'll make it so we don't have to just be hanging out here and just staring at the fence that's in such The only thing though is that tree takes up a lot of [music] space. Do you want cuz you can get shrubs and things like that that that are skinnier that will give you that green effect without taking [music] up so much space. I think I'm okay with it. It's kind of a feature tree. No? This one's nice but this one's really big and it's kind of in the middle. Okay, well let's see if we can keep it. With that in mind, we got to start somewhere and I'm going to assign myself lifting up and stacking all these bricks. Actually, why don't we start with the plants? Those little things? They're probably going to take more effort than you think. All right. They usually fight for life. Okay, I'm going to do it then. I'll take I'll do this. start punching. No, I'll go get a shovel. Jordan, [snorts] there's one problem with the pond. Okay. Uh we cut a bunch of holes with the shovel in the liner. Yep. As you can see it's not draining at all. If it doesn't drain though, that is a problem cuz then you'll get like soggy grass and stuff after. It'll turn into a big mud mess. Yep. We could remove all the rocks and then pull the liner out and see what happens. And see what happens. Okay. If we get most of them from at least this side and then pull Maybe maybe like cut around that side if you have to from the top or something. Um Okay. Other than that, we've got to get like a sump pump or something to pump out all the water. Yeah, we don't have that. I Do you got a hose? have a sawzall. Actually, a hose would work if you um You start a siphon? Yeah. I don't want to be sucking on I'm not sucking on that. [laughter] That's why I didn't say Justin. What? I'm definitely going to need more tools. I'll need like a hatchet or something to cut some of these roots. This thing's This thing's in there, buddy. Now that looks pretty loose But, it's not cuz these roots are strong little buggers. All right. See you later, buddy. All right, what else you want out, sir? Well, these two probably. Oh, those ones are big, though. Maybe those two in the corner? You know what I'm kind of thinking, Jordan, is we might be better off pairing this back a fair bit before we try to get at the roots. Cuz right now, I can't even I can't even get in here. All right. Um let me go see what we have for tools. We basically just grabbed whatever people had lying around. And a bunch of tech geeks uh didn't have a lot. You like that rust on rust action there? Alex, can I make a request? Yeah, you can request anything you want. Can I have this plant? Can we try to save it? You want to have it? Yeah, I want to plant it at my place. You know how much more work it is to get it out in one piece, Alex? got an excavator. You saw the size of it, right? It was a line of sized excavator. Yeah. Um I don't think the excavator will be that useful, but I'll tell you what, you want to grab a shovel, we can try. Like I'm used to people being like, "Hey, that motherboard from that video, you know, could I have it?" I'm not used to, "Can I have that plant?" Um that doesn't come up very often for us. These looked like they were done not that long ago, and that is very much a thing. Oh, okay. And Alex with a sledgehammer might see to that. I'm going to clear my uh yep. Wait. I'm fine. I have literally I'm starting to get a bit of wiggle here. So, basically, we're going to Here, if you grab that one, yep. We're going to time it back, forward, back, forward, back, forward. Heave. Okay, so we got I'd say a solid 10% of the root system. Good job, team. All right, where do you want it, sir? The truck? Or there? That works for now. All right. And we only damaged the side of the house a little. Hey, the little shed's clear. We're good to go. I'm bringing in the backhoe. Not to be confused with my wife. She's just hoe, not backhoe. It's her last name. Now, I remember the basic controls, but it's been a while since I've tried to actually do anything useful. Oh, this is interesting. Okay. Well, this is progress, boys. Wow, I feel like I'm on a real construction crew. I got five people watching me operate the thing. Whoops. They're supervising. Okay. Am I So, what are we stacking? There's a lot of bricks, so I don't know. You can reuse them. Yeah, well, some of them are fine. I was thinking we could reuse at least some of them for like a No, actually. That's There's already brick. It's already brick for the whole side there. Do you think bricks are worth anything? I not really, but no. Unless they say supreme on them. Buying them, yeah. I mean, we'll have to stack them one way or another, whether we're disposing or Okay. All right, so we're stacking. So, long short answer, yes. Look who's arrived and she brought the suck. That's what it does. It's a pump. It's a pump for sucking water. We're going We're going to put it in there. Question for you guys, is there like a firm plan for this or what? Nope. Cool. Good chat. Anyone got a knife? Uh sure. Hit me. [snorts] Maybe try not turning it on and just use the blade. Solid. Okay, here's the plan. We're going to put this hose on the inlet. Then we're going to put this filtered thing on the inlet thing. All right? That way we're going to avoid sucking up any pieces that are so big they're going to clog up our hose. Hey hey hey, no one's falling in, all right? Okay, here we go. All right, strong flow. Yeah, I just want to ideally get a little bit of this out before the pump grabs it. I I think it's okay right now. Cuz it was still going. It was still pumping real good. I just wanted to grab a little bit of this out of here. Well, there's why you guys couldn't bend it out. Wow, that was deep. Cool. Times however many more. You guys might have actually dug this out enough. Hold on, give me a sec. Oh yeah, we just need one person on either side and we'll push and pull. Okay, so yep and then push and then your way and then my way and then your way and then my way. Okay, now you can just cut what's left of the roots there. It's a good Tuesday when you wrestled a bush. Hey Jordan. How's the pump doing? Good. As long as everything's okay, alarm. All right, I think realistically this is probably about as far as we're going to be able to go before it's sucking up more sludge than water. So, the question is what do we do with it? Uh obviously we can't have it just completely stay here. It's going to pool there and it's going to be a swamp forever. Uh How removable is this? Yeah, what if we suction underneath the the the membrane? Oh. Yeah. Okay, all right. Ready? Jack, go for it. Oh, you can see it going. That's great. How much of this do we think we need out of here? Like I mean this isn't [music] very much moisture in the grand scheme of things. You know what I mean? What I'm worried about is just it like always being like a a swamp under here. Yeah. I think only if the water ends up running into here which I don't think it will if we remove all the stuff. Um cuz this amount of water is is The dirt's [music] going to soak it all up. Yeah, it's going to soak this amount up. Not too much left. Are you not going to help? Putting in time. You know what? That's fair enough. We're obviously not done back here, but I am I got to be honest with you. I'm kind of blown away by how much progress we made. We got all of the brick torn up and neatly [music] stacked. So, whether we decide to use it or whether we don't, it's there. I feel like it might end up being a freebie item on Facebook Marketplace, but hey, let's see. We got the liner pulled out of that pond, so now it's ready to get some gravel and sand put in there, so we get good drainage and then [music] we can spread some of that topsoil from the second tier down onto it. We got a bunch of the big plants removed that we don't want and some that we did want that Alex took away. I saw him saw him carting that road away. I wish him luck. I don't think it's going to live. And we have a plan. Sure. And and we have this segue to our sponsor. The Coding Chronicles. Woah, what is that place, Boots the Bear Wizard? The Citadel Sudo, seat of the High Council of Admin, the most powerful coding wizards in all the land. Stubborn old farts, everyone. Farts? Come now. Oh. Hey. Hey. Halt. What? You three getting inside the Citadel? You having a laugh? Yeah. People are so entitled these days. It's like, "Oh, I'm hacking. Hacking the system." Hang on. You're that bear wizard that said boot.dev is the best way to learn to code because it makes it fun and helps you build real projects. What's your name again? I go by many names. Boots, that's right. Boots Storm Cow. Well, you sure ain't getting in here cuz the council booted you right out. Ain't that right? I honestly. So, no, you won't be scurrying around in your funny hat whispering to the townsfolk, "Oh, did you know you can click the link in the description and use code LTT to get 25% off your [music] first month of year with boot.dev?" No. Get off. They are the They are the worst. It doesn't look like much, but we did we did make a ton of progress today. Uh if you liked this video, check out other TechRax videos. This series kind of a pain so far but it's something different and I'm actually really enjoying it.