Installing Gabions

This is the second part of the video that I shot last Monday. I was unable to post any new video because I could not hold my Internet connection long enough. However, Dexter our Wifi guru was here last Thursday and my Internet has improved. In addition my old Sony computer finally appears to have crashed and I am now becoming friends with my new Toshiba laptop. I do wish my nephew Leo was with me to guide me through this laptop transition as he is my personal computer guru. Guess I will be on the phone to him soon. One thing is definitely immediately noticeable with both this Wifi connection and the Toshiba.........speed. I loaded this video in about 20 minutes and with my Wild Blue satellite at home and the old Sony it would have taken up to several hours. This is a good ting mon.

I think some information on gabions would be in order. Gabion is from the Italian (gabbione) meaning "big cage". They are cages, cylinders or boxes filled with soil, rip rap or rocks used in civil engineering, road building, damns, foundations and construction. The fill material depends on the application.

Leonardo da Vinci designed a type of gabion for the foundations at the San Marco Castle in Milan. This technique is the foundation for some of Europes most prized buildings.

Gabion baskets have advantage over other more rigid forms of erosion control and foundations because of their modularity and ability to be stacked in various shapes. They are also resistant to being washed away by moving water. They have further advantages because they can conform to ground movement, dissipate energy from flowing water and drain freely.

As silt and vegetation fill the intestinal voids they reinforce the structure. Many steep hills and roadsides are gabion reinforced throughout the world. Back home gabions were installed as retaining walls around the new damn at Nevada Mills (previous blog entry). No wonder Ladera has embraced this tried and true technology to secure this precious resort.