garden stone retaining wall

[Lee]

David, i am the poster who told of the aunt who build the rock wall and it is a fact. and you are right about building retaining walls like you say; it has a lot to do with the terrain and the reason for building it. the wall aunt ethyl built, for all its stability would not have held up with the mudslides like in California. even deeply founded walls could not have stood up to that. here in texas a large wall really needs a good footing if it's being build to hold a slough and a good rock base to keep the black clay from tearing it apart from expansion and contraction and needs to be build with a very wide base and leaning toward the bank it is holding. but a low wall in a small garden not in the middle of a slough will usually do fairly well here.

best regards, lee h

[Frogleg]

I agree with David. I mentioned to a friend, experienced in bricklaying and many other construction projects, that I thought it would be nice to have a retaining wall between lawn and sidewalk because of a difficult-to-mow 15" slope -- just a border to the lawn and an 16" wall on on the sidewalk side. He explained to me the weights and pressures involved, and I caught his drift. And have seen many similar structures in the neighborhood gradually bulge and decay. Freestanding, unmortered stone walls last for centuries (don't people replace stones from time to time?), but *not* when there's constant stress/weight on one side -- i.e., "retaining."

[hermine stover]

I forgot to mention cheating. a person could install rebar or other kinds of iron reinforcement, pounding it into the earth, or even setting it in a small underground concrete pour, and THEN pile the stones without mortar against it. you could even throw some wired-in-place horizontal reinforcements in there. I have no idea how much heaving there is, how much earth movement, and even mortared stone walls will lose their integrity and fall down if there is enough earth movement. i was just speaking on behalf of dry stone walls EVERYWHERE, which have persisted for centuries, with and without the occasional repair.

now, if you are using natural stones, do not expect mortar to glue them together when you have heaving, earthquakes, and are building on swampy land.

But that is just ME, i would not abandon an idea just because everyone told me what a terrible idea it is.

hermine

[Bill]

[David J Bockman]

Bill,

Have your guys done work down near Washington, Virginia by chance?

Dave

[Bill]

> We are known ( this area northeastern Pa. USA)for some of the nicest dry

[David J Bockman]

There is a superb, and I do mean superb, stone wall surrounding the headquarters of BET (Black Entertainment) down there, which I drive by from time to time. The work is just unimpeachable, and looked quite similar to a few of your examples. Thanks,

Dave

flagstone

dry