Needed - Reatining Wall - Please Help?

uzj100

Well-Known Member
Joined
Apr 7, 2005
Location
Raleigh
Needed - Retaining Wall - Please Help?

Hey guys,

Do you or someone you know do retaining walls? We are working on a project in our backyard and need a reatining wall and 10 to 15 truckloads of dirt brought in. I really do not want to start in the phone book. I would rather have a word of mouth recommendation or someone on this board that actually does this type work. Please contact me.

Thank you in advance,
 
I recomend building it yourself... go get some 4x4's and stack them together and run carriage bolts through them to hold them together. About every 6-12ft along the wall bolt a 4x4 running perpendicular to the wall back into the bank 4-6ft. pile dirt in and repeat the process. You can find dirt from a lot of local construction places where they need to have dirt hauled off.

A 15ft wall will cost a fortune to have done for you.
 
I sale retaining wall systems for a living. The 4x4 idea is a sure way to have to redo all of your work over again in a few years, if it doesn't fail before that.

The perp. 4x4's are called "dead men" and unless ran at least as far back as the wall is tall, and incased in #57 stone, that is what you will be if you stand in front of a 15' timber wall, DEAD. Any load or rain will cause that to fail. :confused:

Timber walls are for the extreme poor or dumbasses.

I will pm you to talk further.
 
I was going to say something like that too. Scarface aint shooting you a line. Retaining walls can be dangerous if not properly done.
 
doesn't look like he even said how tall the wall needed to be, he just said 10-15 truckloads of dirt.
 
what makes them more dangerous than these garden stone retaining walls around the edge of shopping center parking lots.

Not trying to start a war but i have seen 4x4 timber walls used successfully in many places. They just used timbers running perpendicular to the wall back into the dirt and covering them with gravel and soil.
 
They're both fawking dangerous if you don't know what you're doing.

4x4" PT lumber is probably too small for anything more than a two-course planting bed. Even 6x6" and 8x8" stuff is at its practical maximum at ~4' high. You can go much higher with concrete block, but it'll need to be engineered.

The biggest problems with timber walls is finding good quality lumber for a decent price. I just paid $32 for a 12' PT 6x6. That's about $6/sf, not counting spikes and screws and such. But concrete block *starts* at $6/sf and goes way, way up from there.

That, and building them with spikes is probably the most labor intensive way to go of anything else out there.
 
Exploderpilot said:
what makes them more dangerous than these garden stone retaining walls around the edge of shopping center parking lots.

Not trying to start a war but i have seen 4x4 timber walls used successfully in many places. They just used timbers running perpendicular to the wall back into the dirt and covering them with gravel and soil.
Click to expand...


Those "garden stone walls" are engineered. This means somebody took into consideration the soil type, moisture content, height, slope above and below, amount of traffic, future planning, subterranian contures, and at least 20 other things that i dont want to confuse you with. They use geotextiles, or "grid" to tie it into the grade behind the walls. This grid is used, usually, every other course, compacted in with a plate tamp. This process is repeated til the wall is at the desired height.

The dead men timber walls you mention break down, decompose after a very short time. No they won't be so soft you can crumble it in your hand, but add thousands and thousands of pounds of pressure and a little bit of rot and that timber wall will blow out with enough force to blow timbers 50ft. We are designing a block wall for replacement a timber wall that did just that.

Then you add in the fact that there are landscapers that trust the timber walls, try to copy what they see, and build it the same way you describe.
With deadmen and screws and "dirt".

THAT WILL KILL PEOPLE.

Anyone can half-ass something to "make it work" even appearing to be "successful" what you are witnessing my friend is a time bomb.

Just trying to keep the public safe,
Shane
 
Wow.. good info here...I had actually toyed with a retaining wall idea around my property because the lot slopes off pretty badly... Guess a DIY is out of the question.. :p

I was actually looking at the big stone wall as you go towards the pickup area at the Southpoint Sears this weekend.. I think I'll go the other way from now on.. ;)
 
Beleive it or not the materials will only run,
with a #57 stone backfill, $8 a sq ft.

Price at Lowes for just the crappy block. $12 sq ft

A few friends, couple of weekends, and some KNOWLEDGE. Priceless
 
thanks for the explanation. I was thinking about the garden son walls the other day when i was at staples in sinston salem... the wall has to be 2 stories tall and all garden block and prolly on a 80* angle. Never could figure how they got that wall to stay standing.
 
Cliff Notes: Buy a flat lot
 
Franklin said:
Cliff Notes: Buy a flat lot
Click to expand...

My lot has a number of advantages that made the tradeoff worthwhile..
 
Here are some rough estimates. The wall will be 4 ft tall. The yard is 40ft long by 30ft wide. To bring the yard up and make it flat we will have to go 40 feet from back steps and 4 feet up. Does this help or hurt the calcualtions? I tried the rise over run and failed miserably. 40ft run, 4 ft rise.

Andrew
 
That works I will get back to you.

Does that same slope continue past the wall area? How Far? Houses, roads, trees above...?
 
Any ideas on how to mark it off? I was going to use string and small marking post. Take some pictures and measurements and send them your way.

There are 3 sides to this wall looking out from my back door, left wall is about 20 ft long, 4 ft tall and has huge slope for another 40 ft to my property line. The back wall is 4 ft tall on the left corner and 2 ft tall on the right corner and has very small slope to my property about 30 ft away. The right wall is 2ft tall on the back corner going to zero feet tall at my property line and is about 20ft long. No slope change. I need to makr it and take pics. The entire back corner slopes off very sharply. We are not doing a wall over there.

Let me take some pics.

Andrew
 
I am getting a quote from a local installer. Is there a certain type of block I should be looking for? Do landscape people make their money off the labor or the product or a little of both. I was thinking me and some friends could dig the footers and hopefully save a buck or two.

Andrew
 
Both. And if you are going to all that trouble i would buy a good level and do the whole thing. The base course is the hardest part.
 
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