hi I'm Mark fuss I'm the vice president of sales and marketing for Nick a lot paving stones and retaining walls and in this segment we're going to talk about the excavation of the soil for your project before you dig make sure that any utilities are clearly marked so you can work around them and most municipalities offer a toll-free service to help you do this you're going to dig down 7 to 15 inches depending upon whether it's vehicular or a pedestrian application take into account that the finished grade has to slope away from the house or any structures to make sure that the water drains free from the project after you've dug the material out you'll need to compact that soil with a plate compactor and let's move on to the next step which the installation of the base material and the compaction