Stone (or Concrete Block) Retaining Walls - Any tips would be great.

[razorcat]

I am in the process of moving a huge amount of dirt in place around the foundation of my house. I have had a spontaneous desire to put in a stone retaining wall in the front facing the street. About 12-18 inches high I think. It will meander slightly

Comments

[manintheboat]

My husband and I are currently in the process of doing this.
They offer free afternoon classes on how to do this at home Depot, but it's not very hard.
What sort of questions do you have?

[razorcat]

Everything I've read only mentions using crushed rock, then sand, then bricks. I have the sand, not the crushed rock and am wondering if anyone's tried it without crushed rocks and their experience with that.

How big is your wall, and how long have you been working on it?

What materials are you using?

[manintheboat]

We're doing this:

[razorcat]

Both of these look very heavy. They also look great. It occurs to me after this little dirt moving adventure, that landscaping is far more work then gardening!

[rainarana]

It's probably best to go to the library and check out some books on the topic, as there's a lot to it that one wouldn't think of, such as if you need to add drainage, whether or not it should be cemented in place and so on. Also, check with codes because depending on the local regulations and depending on how close to the street you are you may have to have them okay it. We poured a cement retaining wall and it had to be a certain distance and couldn't be over a certain height due to possibly obstructing the view of traffic. I've made a number of dry-stack raised beds, mostly backing up to something, a wall or steps, which aren't too hard once you get the hang of it. It's heavy work as you want to use good sized rocks and depending on whether you have access to free local rocks, I did, or buy them as they may not all be easily stacked, so you'll need to break parts off, do a lot of puzzling. There are tricks, like digging some in deeper on the bottom level, using smaller stones in back and underneath to make them fit. And be

[razorcat]

What I've read in books/online shows black drainage pipe....but I don't understand how that fits in, where exactly does the water drain off too?

I intend to build a dry stack concrete block wall.

[rainarana]

We didn't add any drainage. One of our walls is about 18 inches high and the other about 12. The 18 inch one is closest to the street but only about 25 feet wide. I think it all depends on various factors, like type of soil and size. We've also heavily amended ours as the walls were added to level out a steep slope. And we have plants and walkways as opposed to lawn, so a lot more natural drainage. With the dry stacked beds there are plenty of places between rocks for water to drain so that isn't an issue at all.

[razorcat]

Well, that's good news ab out drainage. What do you mean by "heavily amended?"

[low_delta]

Have you decided what sort of stones you'll use, or are you just thinking about the idea?

[razorcat]

I think the price will determine the materials, but I'd be happy with the concrete blocks that fit tight together. I wish I had a picture here.

[ayse]

I've done several loose-laid stone and concrete walls. There's some good basic information on the web with a minimal search. Anything under 20" should be fine to do yourself, though I will tell you from experience, hauling those stones or concrete blocks any kind of distance is a real workout. And your average car can't carry many of them. Retaining walls over 20" are starting to get precarious and anything over 36" will require an engineer's drawings in most US states, as well as in Canada I would expect. You want the shape to approximate a pyramid, so the wall is stable

[razorcat]

If it was in my budget I would use real stone :) How do you end the wall if you're wrapping it around a corner? What do you do with the drainage?

[ayse]

I hear you on the budget. :)

When I go around the corner I like to do a rounded curve, just turning the blocks 20-30 degrees so the corner is made up of 2-3 blocks, making a curve. You could also just set one block at 45 degrees, and some block systems have corner pieces available. I use the corners as a place for planting and pull the upper layers of blocks back to make larger planting areas where I can hide the corner with a bushy perennial. Last year I took out the corner I had that was most corner-like. I just didn't like how obvious it was.

I don't have a problem with drainage; a short wall backed by well-amended soil should drain properly on its own at that depth. I'm in coastal California and my soil is pure sand, so drainage is hardly ever an issue for me. I suppose in Canada you'd have an issue with frost heaves, but I sure would not want to dig the wall foundation down below the frost line for only 12-18 inches above the surface.

[rainarana]

We were fortunate that we knew some people doing large community gardens and they dug up huge piles of stones, some that took the two of us to move. They let us have as many as we wanted so all of that was free.

[razorcat]

Here's the house before adding the dirt: