The hill in my backyard is on a serious grade, so I’ve had to get creative about bringing the downhill side up to level with the uphill side.

I’ve elected to tamp gravel into holes (to provide a foundation minimizing movement over time, and draining well, not that we get huge amounts of rain in Bend, but old habits die hard…), and then set prefab cinderblocks with galvanized 4×4 holders. Then, I’m using 4×4 pressure treat to bring the whole bottom side up to level with the uphill side. To do this, I measured from the top of a 4×4 sitting in one of the cinderblocks to the bottom of the cinderblock, and added that to the height I read off pavers Veen and I installed and leveled a few days back. This gave me a datum of 49 7/8″ that I needed all of the cinderblocks to rest on.

Using a laser level, it was pretty darn easy to get them all to the same height. And, the beams are even looking pretty darn level! Level enough to get shimmed the rest of the way into place, at least!

Checking the level from the house down to the creek:

THIS IS FINE

This is a very messy worksite.