My house has a concrete retaining wall along the length of my driveway that is about 40 inches high and roughly 30 feet long. I believe it is made of cinder blocks. The problem is that the wall has developed a horizontal crack roughly six inches from the bottom. The wall above the crack appears to be shifting very slightly (say 1 to 1.5 inches tops in one section) but the wall is still level and not in any immediate danger of falling over.
My question is whether or not it's worth spending $970 to have a mason do the following: " wire lath and cement plaster the whole wall, and 2" limestone cap end to end". I'm just wondering if this will do anything whatsoever toward prolonging the life of the wall, or if this is going to just be purely cosmetic work.
My understanding is that the mason is only going to do this work on the front of the wall, and not do anything to the side with the backfill.
By the way, the wall has weep-holes but they got clogged with dirt, so, I don't believe the wall currently has the proper granular backfill (although it MAY have had that at one time and my theory is that the filters originally installed behind the weep-holes deteriorated, and the backfill gradually seeped out of the weep holes 'til they got clogged with dirt)
Do you recommend I have the mason wire lath and cement the wall, or is this just a waste of my money in terms of prolonging the wall's life? Any other recommendations toward repairing the existing wall?
Thanks.
Jeff