Terracing ideas for back yard

BigClay

BigClay

Knower of useless ZJ things
Joined
Sep 24, 2008
Location
Winston-Salem
So a portion of my backyard has a pretty steep grade (you can easily walk up it, so not that steep). Grass used to grow on it just fine, but now as our dogs have gotten bigger and running harder on the bank, it has killed all the grass and all the soil is washing to the bottom. I am thinking about making some small terraces to help with this. Any pictures of what you guys have done? Looking for some ideas and advice.
 
BigClay said:
So a portion of my backyard has a pretty steep grade (you can easily walk up it, so not that steep). Grass used to grow on it just fine, but now as our dogs have gotten bigger and running harder on the bank, it has killed all the grass and all the soil is washing to the bottom. I am thinking about making some small terraces to help with this. Any pictures of what you guys have done? Looking for some ideas and advice.
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I would lay out a couple of retaining walls and use what you cut out to level up the slope. You will need to figure out how much of a drop in elevation you have over how long to figure out how many you need. I think you can go up to about 3 feet tall without having an engineered drawing for it, but don't hold me to that. Bear in mind, a 3 foot tall retaining wall is holding back a LOT of dirt, so it needs to be strong.
 
I had a friend who had the same issue in his old home. He did a little grading, just to tidy up the levels, and laid landscaping plastic down, then laid rock on top of it. He also cut some steps into the banks and made some steps with the flat rock. It looked really good
 
rockcity said:
Make sure to install tiebacks or the wall can fall over after time, even on short walls.
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Showing my ignorance, can you explain more of what tiebacks are?
 
BigClay said:
Showing my ignorance, can you explain more of what tiebacks are?
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For the purposes of a short residential wall, the tieback doesnt necessarily need to be complex.

I've built a few 4' and less walls with railroad ties and treated 8x8s; we just installed an 8' long timber perpendicular to the wall and buried it in the bank. That is usually sufficient and always has been for the walls I e worked on. We placed more and at staggered intervals depending on length of wall, height, soil type, and if the wall will see any abnormal hydraulic pressures, etc.
 
I usually call them deadmen like @rockcity just showed. I have typically used concrete as my deadmen but it sounds like his method works just fine. I would try and find some railroad ties to build it out of as they are already treated and have good dimensions. Got a picture of your backyard for reference?
 
Here are a few examples illustrating what I was talking about.

Depending on your materials of construction, your setup may differ some.

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At a yard level or a megawall like at some Wallmart next to the hiway we saw coming back from either Golden Mountain, or AOP this year (My GOD that was straight up and like 60ft high) a retaining wall (done correctly) is expensive as HELL!! Sometimes the grading on a project nearly matches the building $/SqFt pricing
 
Thanks guys. I don't have a picture of the back yard but I think two 1.5' - 2' walls will probably do the trick. I am thinking about going with a garden wall type block (see below). Would I still need a deadman if I pounded some rebar down the holes and filled them in with gravel?

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The gravel just helps with drainage. And I'd use some filter fabric between the souls and the gravel.

I'm not so sure how well rebar through the holes alone will help with keeping the wall from pushing out due to the soil weight. Your picture isn't showing up so I'm not really sure what product you are thinking about.

A short 1.5-2' wall isn't real high and the force is somewhat limited.

I'm no engineer so I'm not really able to say for sure you would be ok or not without a tieback. Every wall is different.
 
BigClay said:
Thanks guys. I don't have a picture of the back yard but I think two 1.5' - 2' walls will probably do the trick. I am thinking about going with a garden wall type block (see below). Would I still need a deadman if I pounded some rebar down the holes and filled them in with gravel?

6c7c4253-97cf-41fa-bda3-72982fd049e4_1000.jpg


204502327
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They make a geo grid for use with these kinds of blocks. I'd also dig down one course of block below grade of the yard below then come up

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The blocks pictured in posts above look like they have a lip on the bottom rear edge to catch the course below it.
I used to build versalok retaining walls, the big ones with blocks around 8" tall. 2 nylon pins drop thru the block into the course below.
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I seem to remember it was every 4 courses we would use the mesh.
Very expensive though, we didn't work on "normal" people's houses. I looked into it for around our pool, and found it was cheaper to pay some possibly undocumented workers to make brick retaining wall than for me even to buy versalok materials.
 
Yeah, after some more looking I think the solid blocks with the lip will work for my little project.
 
Mine isn't real bad, but I think the problem was compounded by the fact that the dirt around the lowside of pool is no longer top soil, its whatever dirt came from the pool excavation. Grass never grew, now a few years of erosion have taken its toll, and I'm finally thinking about doing something. 50 feet of 3-4ft wall would work well in my yard, just gotta motivate.
 
rockcity said:
For the purposes of a short residential wall, the tieback doesnt necessarily need to be complex.

I've built a few 4' and less walls with railroad ties and treated 8x8s; we just installed an 8' long timber perpendicular to the wall and buried it in the bank. That is usually sufficient and always has been for the walls I e worked on. We placed more and at staggered intervals depending on length of wall, height, soil type, and if the wall will see any abnormal hydraulic pressures, etc.
Click to expand...
I've built railroad tie retaining walls 5' using the same concept as this and had no issues they still holding 8 years later! One thing if any higher than 5' I've found the perpendicular cross tie needs to be as close to level as possible my first wall in 2003 came toppling over bc I had the tie ends dropped down pushing the wall forward after a year!
 
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