With forces like these in play, you should limit your retaining wall efforts to walls under 4 feet tall (3 feet for mortarless stone). Double the wall height to 8 feet, and you would need a wall that’s eight times stronger to do the same job. A 4-foot-high, 15-foot-long wall could be holding back as much as 20 tons of saturated soil. That’s because most residential retaining walls have poor drainage, and many aren’t built to handle the hillside they’re supposed to hold back.Įven small retaining walls have to contain enormous loads. Common Problems: Drainage, Weight of SoilĪlthough retaining walls are simple structures, a casual check around your neighborhood will reveal lots of existing walls that are bulging, cracked, or leaning. We also review the four most common types below: timber, interlocking blocks, stacked stone, brick or block, and concrete. If your property needs a retaining wall, or if the one you have is failing, follow our guide on how to build a retaining wall or hire a pro. These handsome barriers also make inviting spots to sit, and can increase usable yard space by terracing sloped properties, something that is increasingly important as flat home sites become ever more scarce in many regions.Īlong with sloped landscapes where water runoff causes hillside erosion, ideal locations for a retaining wall system include spots downhill from soil fault lines and where the downhill side of a foundation is losing supporting soil or its uphill side is under pressure from sliding soil. They restrain tons of saturated soil that would otherwise slump and slide away from a foundation or damage the surrounding landscape. But in fact, they’re carefully engineered systems that wage an ongoing battle with gravity. Sure, retaining walls look like simple stacked stone, block, or timber.
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