Joining the Masons

"I'm not a stonemason, but I play one on TV."

One side effect of converting our mud steps into a mud ramp is that it exposed a previously buried part of our neighbor's construction. As you can see in the photo, our neighbor on the right has a set of concrete steps running alongside our homemade ramp. The property line runs between the two, basically on the left side of the low concrete wall. No, there is no easement.

By digging out our steps and smoothing it into a continuous ramp, we lowered the soil so much that it exposed the unfinished side of that low concrete wall. In fact, we almost undermined it. When their wall was poured, the wooden forms only went down to then-ground level. Now we've lowered that by a foot or so, exposing the bare dirt under their wall. What to do?

We can't leave it as-is, because rain and weather would eventually erode the soil under their stairs. We need a way to shore it up. But spreading concrete vertically is... well, it's impossible.

Back in 2013, I made my own wooden forms and started pouring ready-mix concrete to fill in the spaces under their wall. That worked okay for a while, but I could only pour it about three-quarters of the way up. After that, there wasn't enough room to squeeze new concrete in underneath their existing wall. So I left a gap, albeit a much smaller gap than before.

This week, we made a big push toward a final fix. If I can't pour concrete up the side of their wall, maybe I can brick it in. So we took some unused pavers and started stacking them up and fixing them in place with mortar. With some cutting and fitting, we were able to fill in most of the big remaining areas. We've still got some small gaps to fill, but that's a project for another day.

Anyone have any ideas?