Moving along, I have the patio a about done, waiting for the polymerized sand and dry weather. I have laid a retaining wall between my lawn and the hedge, four courses of 8 by 8 by 5.25 inch cement bricks which have a lip on the back edge to lock to the course below. This wall is 18 feet along one side and a little over 40 feet across the front. The courses are glued together. The faces of the stones are rough cut.
I added two feet to the end of another retaining wall, these use much larger and oddly shaped bricks 8 inches wide, more or less 6 inches high and 13 inches deep. They have a sort of inverted 'V' shape which sits on the course below which has a reciprocal top surface. the wall ends in a peer formed of large squares with a capital plat on top. The wall then turns and comes forward to hold up a part of the neighbours yard. I have quite a bit more retaining wall to build but the weather is catching up with me. We had snow flurries this morning. I ended up having a disagreement with my neighbour, try as I might to avoid it. things got worse and I am interested in the list's collective ideas. I agreed to have a shared contractor to do the work, after all it is hard work and the driveway is 86 feet by something over 33 feet wide. Mostly I thought I would be saving the neighbour money and so far I haven't seen any. The contractor did a wonderful job up to the point of installing the jointing sand. He told me he uses beach sand, I told him not to use any, I would arrange polymerized sand and shake it down myself. I have a compactor and put the sand on order, nearly $1400 dollars worth. When I got home the son of a b**ch not only had packed but sanded it too. Twice I had that conversation with him and he ignored me. I am furious! How do I get that stuff out of the joints now? The weather is closing in too. I had to cancel my order and so on. Now comes time for the bill. With taxes all in I had agreed to 3600 bucks and would have paid that night. I mean the sand is packed in tight to the top I would be hard pressed to get it out with a putty knife and for sure I don't want to go at it with a pressure washer and risk shifting the sub base and there are several thousand bricks. As we go along I find out he didn't but finish grade 7, no wonder he isn't informed about recent developments of the past 20 years. He also lies and lies about his lies. Bragging about the job he did at the house behind us. Well maybe he was working for that contractor but it was done 18 years ago and the man is 34 years old now so I rather doubt it. The other job he sighted had been done a couple of years before I moved here and that was 21 years ago. I neglected to ask who changed his diapers while he was on those jobs. Anyway, he came around tonight I told him to send a bill in the usual way and I would decide how Ai will deal with it. Of course he pressed me by saying I had been willing to pay it the day he finished and that is true. I reminded him that he didn't come around for the check that day neither did he respond to my calls that night expressing my disappointment. OK! I did not have a formal written contract. My temptation is to discount the payment some amount and let him come for the rest through small claims court and see what they do about it. I doubt he would. I did print off an Internet article on Polymerized sand and recommended that he have his wife explain it to him, why I wanted to make his good job an excellent one and now have lost that opportunity. Anyway, I am interested to hear what you guys think would be the fair and right thing to do. Should I just pay up and suck it up? I admit some of it is emotional, the arrogance of a young pup. Us book learnin guys don't know nothing! When I hire a job I expect it done to my specifications particularly when it means superior outcomes but even if I am wrong I expect a debate. then if I am paying do it my way anyway. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
