Comment by Rick Procasky on January 24, 2014 at 8:52pm

Mike, This is great! What did you use for the stairs?  Is this a verticle mix?

Looks great. Thanks

Comment by Mike Bresnan on January 25, 2014 at 9:35am

Thank you.  The stairs and walls are all shotcreted for shape and the scratch coat.  I used a quikrete stucco mix for the sculpting coat.    It worked pretty good.  

Comment by Rick Procasky on January 25, 2014 at 9:45am

Great thanks.  Did you build them out with rebar?  I have a fairly steep hill to a lake, that I would like to try this on.

The soil here in southern Illinois is clay. I was thinking I can dig the shapes of the stairs out in clay first.

But what do I use to hold the mix? Do I need a rebar step, with lath, for each step? Or is that overkill?

I totally understand the clay could move so I need re-enforcement. 

Comment by Mike Bresnan on January 25, 2014 at 12:03pm

We ran the rebar straight down the hill.  The shape of the steps is all in the shotcrete.  We made a jig and shaped the steps in the wet shotcrete.  If the hill is too steep you might want to do some sort of  tie back to the hill.  You can also dig in a key way at the top of the hill and run your rebar and shotcrete into it to help lock the stairs into the hillside. I would recommend using a shotcrete or gunite mix for your base layer.   I hope this helps. 

Comment by Rick Procasky on January 25, 2014 at 2:44pm

Thank you- that helps.

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