precautions for a 2 foot soil retaining wall ?

Hi-

I'm looking for some advice as to building a garden retaining wall. It's ti me to work on the garden. My garden is very overgrown, but 2/3 down there i s a 2' drop with an old brick wall across the garden maintaining the differ ential.

The wall is unmortared and falling apart - it has completely collapsed in p arts. I want to create a new mortared retaining wall across the garden, but am worried about how to prevent the wall from being collapsed by the 24 in ches of soil pushing against it.

I've got enough bricks I think for a double thickness wall (ie full brick w idth), but am not sure about how much foundations I will need for this wall .

Any suggestions (or links to relevant material) greatly appreciated.

Thanks

T
Reply to
tomm26asus
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Hi-

I'm looking for some advice as to building a garden retaining wall. It's ti me to work on the garden. My garden is very overgrown, but 2/3 down there i s a 2' drop with an old brick wall across the garden maintaining the differ ential.

The wall is unmortared and falling apart - it has completely collapsed in p arts. I want to create a new mortared retaining wall across the garden, but am worried about how to prevent the wall from being collapsed by the 24 in ches of soil pushing against it.

I've got enough bricks I think for a double thickness wall (ie full brick w idth), but am not sure about how much foundations I will need for this wall .

Any suggestions (or links to relevant material) greatly appreciated.

Thanks

T
Reply to
tomm26asus

to work on the garden. My garden is very overgrown, but 2/3 down there is a 2' drop with an old brick wall across the garden maintaining the differential.

parts. I want to create a new mortared retaining wall across the garden, but am worried about how to prevent the wall from being collapsed by the 24 inches of soil pushing against it.

width), but am not sure about how much foundations I will need for this wall. use concrete blocks underground instead. 'Show' face with brick. Tie all blocks together and tie to brick face as well. leave half brick sized drainage holes at base every 6ft or so. maybe backfill behind with gravel to take a bit of heave, If long and straight may need some sort of tie back to stop bowing.

Full McCoy here

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Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

The important thing is to set in pipes to let water escape.

Reply to
charles

I built a 6ft high 50 yard long brick retaining wall in 1985 and it's been OK. The foundations were concrete 8" thick and 26" wide. The wall was two bricks thick at the bottom, one and a half bricks thick higher up, and one brick thick at the top where it showed. The wall was tied together with lengths of rebar. The wall leaned back at 1:30. Behind it was a gap of about a foot which I filled with 3" limestone. I put weepholes every 3 metres at the base of the wall. They were made from square section fallpipe. The wall was made entirely from concrete blocks except for the bits that showed, which were face bricks.

I used more bricks on that job than any other DIY job I've ever done. Also more sweat.

Bill

Reply to
Bill Wright

well down my street they have a wall built like a dam. IE it is curved into the soil, so the harder the soil pushes the stronger the wall iss. You do need some serious pillars at the ends of course!

Brian

Reply to
Brian Gaff

That's the point, really. However you design this, it's only as strong as its foundations. I see people building beautiful walls on foundations only a few inches deep. Inevitably, they fail pretty quickly. I would think in terms of foundations half a metre deep. That way, you won't be rebuilding it again in five or ten years time.

Reply to
GB

Yes. I built a 2' retaining wall out of single-skin brickwork on 10 or 20cm foundations. The tricks were:

  1. Each row was brick + 1/2-brick-void + brick + 1/2-brick-void .... (with the next row offset by 1/4 brick)
  2. The wall sloped back at about 1 in 5 or 1 in 4.
Reply to
Martin Bonner

You'd seriously put a 19" deep concrete foundation under a 24" wall? Are you building on the beach?

Bill

Reply to
Bill Wright

Well, I must admit that the only one I did was retaining 4 feet, and we went down to 30" - as advised by my surveyor friend. Possibly overkill, but the wall is still perfect over 20 years later. Would it be perfect if the foundations had been 25"? Probably. This was on clay, btw.

Our neighbours got a builder in to do theirs, and he dug around 10" foundations. That failed a couple of years after he got paid.

Reply to
GB

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