Advice on wall building please. A single leaf, 40 year old wall has been vandalised. What to replace it with?

[Mike Barnard]

Hi all.

I am writing on behalf of a friend who lives in an ex council area. She lives in a terraced house that backs on to a garage compound, which in turn backs on to a main road.

The wall for this compound was built 40+ years ago, is six feet high and is only single leaf with the occasional, very thin, pillar for support. The local night life scum like to trave through this compound and over the wall. A tree was resting on it until last year when the Highway cut it down as it could have caused damage.

A few weeks ago a section about 10 feet long was demolished. The residents cleaned it up, bought barriers out of their own money and have had builders in giving quotes. But last night the rest of the wall was demolished. That's about another 40 feet of it.

There will be lot's of arguments about ownership (I'm looking into Land registry already) responsabilities and the like, but my question is about what to replace it with.

Is there a way of reinforcing a single leaf wall to resist this sort of abuse? Can it have inserts like concrete has rebar? Would a better cement mix help? Depending on who ends up paying it may be worth putting a barbed wire top on it, or similar.

A double leaf would be better but it's unlikely that anyone will be able to afford the extra costs.

Has anyone got any tips please?

Mike.

[dennis]

You can certainly and reinforcing mesh and even rebar if you have holes through the bricks. It may not stop them demolishing the wall if they really want to.

Look at one of the modern wire fences (not chain link), cheaper than walls and harder to climb but need more maintenance. You can also see through them so its harder to hide.

[Owain]

Any brick wall will probably be demolished or stolen quicker than it gets built.

Metal palisade fencing with spiky outward overhang should go up in an afternoon. Anti-climb paint on the spikes. Plant a hedge of something dense and thorny on the inside for privacy.

You haven't mentioned the police but this sounds like an ongoing problem which needs to be escalated for attention.

Owain

[Tim Downie]

Concrete panel wall/fence?

(Warning! Video of idiot youth getting his comeuppance for vandalising a wall. Not for the squeamish)

Tim

[The Natural Philosopher]

Double skin of concrete blocks with a bow tie at and across every block. Yes, its demiloshable, but it will take more than a night without mechanical aid.

Block is cheap - its the labour innit?

[PeterC]

Beautiful - pity that he wasn't head-butting it, would have been even funnier.

[NT]

make the wall thick, eg 13", use heavy concrete blocks, strongest mortar possible with EVA added, and add, in order of increasing effectiveness, barbed wire or EML in the mortar courses or rebar in the middle of the wall, filling with concrete.

Another possible is rendered gabions, if a very thick wall is ok.

Other options exist, but you really want the wall to at least look like something intended for peacetime.

NT

[Tim S]

NT coughed up some electrons that declared:

What about using bricks with the 3 holes through them (those might be engineering bricks - I'm not a brick expert) and drop rebar through occasionally as the bricklaying progresses? Nice brick wall and chavs with broken ankles...

It might only be necessary to rebar to top 2-3 foot of wall given the weight will make it very difficult to demolish from below.

Tim

[js.b1]

First - photograph of vandalism to police & all councillors Second - sell bricks to reclaimation yard, replace with chain-link & posts

Bricks are out re cost...

- 1 brick requires 1kg of mortar - all adds up

- 1 leaf is a pointless expensive exercise

- 2 leaf requires a lot of money re bricks / mortar / foundations

Bricks are out re scrote NWNF lawyer...

- If they pull the wall on themselves they sue

- Any failure of the wall top and it is weaker

- Weathering of walls is severe unlike houses

Most councils have tried fences (easily broken & blow down re wind loading), wooden posts (rot), vertical railings (stolen to dented), vertical iron railings (work at a high price unless DIY), and now settled on chain link. It is see-through, long-lived, not affected by wind loading, clear physical barrier, unlikely to get stolen, easily repaired in part if vandalised at low cost. It can be bought powder coated green which softens the area yet looks "maintained" and thus they tend to go elsewhere.

If the wall is traffic'd it needs to be double-leaf engineering brick with wall-ties - or weather and scrotes combine to make it "look good today, expensive to maintain & wreckable soon after". The biggest problem is the top - coping to bricks dislodge and it comes under scrote & weather attack.

Mortar must be weaker than the bricks, but the bricks need to be engineering for longevity. Typical porous house bricks will blow-off over time and then once the wall & mortar get saturated they disintegrate like sand. If foundations are not good on a long run any movement will see the wall crack and you've then got an expensive rebuild.

If possible consider lighting - high pressure sodium or PIRs from any overlooking houses. You can't stop them, but you can make them go elsewhere along with the police adding it to their rounds (if they do any).

Good luck.

[Andrew Gabriel]

Brilliant. A shame it didn't keep rolling to see how he got out of that!

[Tim S]

Andrew Gabriel coughed up some electrons that declared:

Angle grinder?

[Mike Barnard]

Thanks for your ideas all. Yes, the police are involved as are the council, but apart from a promise of more patrols we don't expect much.

Still waiting on land registry results, but the consensus is (if we can get planning) to put up a steel fence with a climbing, thorny plant on it. Any reccomendations for this plant? Something exotic and lethal?

The clip of the yob getting caught is superb. I had seen it before but I may send a copy to them now.

[js.b1]

Pyrethrum.

- Extremely dense, impenetrable, strong, interwoven web.

- Covered in long conical spines that are robust, sharp, vicious.

- Foliage continual all round, dark green, IIRC red berries.

- Grows quickly, easily forms an impenetrable 3-5-9ft hedge.

Whizz along it with a hedge trimmer & recovers even if savaged. Needs no care, favoured where "problem entries" run alongside gardens.

Indeed forget the fence, just create a hedge of pyrethrum. Attractive, inoffensive, but mess with it and it becomes razor wire that grows.

There is one worse, but that requires multiple rows to get a dense hedge. Ask a good garden centre, shop around carefully.

[Terry Fields]

ITYM pyracantha.

That's the one. There is a bush variety that grows about 3' high with orange berries, and another than can grow 12' or more with red berries. The latter needs to be kept under control, e.g. a bit of a hedge trim every couple of weeks in the growing season.

I'd suggest putting the fence up anyway, then going for the pyracantha to protect the fence. Otherwise I fully agree.

Pay for the largest plants you can get, smaller ones can easily be ripped up. Feed and water in the growing season.

I have the same situation as the OP, a single-skin garden wall that after 40 years is showing signs of distress, crumbling mortar, cracks, etc. If it goes while I'm still here, I'll put up a chicken-wire fence and let the 30-year-established pyracatha bushes form into a continuous hedge.

[js.b1]

That is it :-)

It might be possible to get away with a stub chain-link fence.

Once the hedge is established the fence becomes secondary, at that point it could be rolled up and dispensed with. Perhaps simply wooden posts bolted into concreted-in ground-anchors with chain-link rolled over. Just proper fasteners rather than staples to avoid "vandal peel".

Indeed. The quicker it is established the better.

Very effective, walls are not always the solution they seem.

Security is often for vandals: In a local town all the small businesses/shops have "7ft brick walls". They are double brick, but a shambles of crumbling brickwork. Whilst sat in the neighbouring carpark children flip their hoods up & climb over, shortly followed by the sound of back doors being kicked in or a brick pounded against top bricks to remove them. Once one brick has gone, the wall has no integrity from future attack by vandal or weather erosion. Three times I have had to call 999, the businesses have a life of misery with sky high business rates as it is.

Favourite ploy of councils: Wall gets damaged, council sends letter demanding it be fixed in 28 days or they will do it for you and sue for nulabour rates. Replacement cost can be horrific, true engineering bricks cost - cheap frost-resistant stuff looks worse after 1yr than others 55yrs old. Rebar must be galvanised because mortar provides little resistance from water penetration - rebar is situated at too low a depth.

Some councils try to apply same to foliage: Beware foliage growing "1-inch" over a pavement - some councils will write threatening to cut whatever down & charge. So ensure any planting is on your ground and keep the plants under control. The good thing about the plant is a hedge trimmer will rapidly bring it back into line without effort, ie, you do not need a farmer's trimmer for a long hedge. It is a bit of a dinosaur plant in that respect, it will withstand pretty much anything.

Councils do not like press attention to their "cretin with a keyboard and power and anti-terror legislation", so any trouble and an article in the local rag or online can really send them scurrying back under the stone.

A final note - plant some spare plants so if any suffer damage they can easily be transplanted at a moments notice.

[JTM]

[snip]

Chaenomeles (Japanese quince) Long thorns and lots of them. Attractive flowers, fruit can be used to make a jelly or added to apple pie. Prune with care (or angle grinder)

John

[The Natural Philosopher]

not all of them are large, and not all are spiny, and they need pretty good sun to grow - here anyway.

Pyracantha is definitely top bunny.

[PeterC]

Is it fireproof?

[js.b1]

Yes, in the practical sense unless one wants to get into UL tests. Sustaining fire can only occur with considerable application of accelerant.

Unlike the million miles of wooden fencing in the UK which will combust. Unlike a PVC door against which sofa, wheely bin can be set alight. A garden brick wall will spall readily with applied heat and can require extensive repair - it's the now steam contained within it which causes significant damage. Unlike a parked stolen car with 20L of petrol, foam, rubber, paint, upholstery, PVC.

Accelerants generally have low flash points, so whilst the moron is lighting the bush the vapour flash and engulfs them in a fireball. The most readily available, and dangerous, is petrol whose vapour hugs the ground and unseen & unsmelt spreads around them. They might be lucky and be on higher ground, but hopefully not.

[Andrew Gabriel]

The fence probably already broke though the hard bits...