Everything You Need To Learn About A Retaining Wall
A retaining wall is a structure designed and built to resist lateral pressure of soil when there is a change in ground elevation. You’ll find mainly four different types of retaining walls: a gravity wall, sheet piling wall, cantilevered wall and an anchored wall. Gravity walls depend on their weight to resist pressure from behind and so are usually made out of concrete, stone or other heavy material. It is important to use a very strong material since it will need to withstand a high amount of force from the soil. A gravity wall will often have a small setback to enhance stability. Sheet pile retaining walls are usually used in soft soil and tight spaces. They’re usually made from metal, wood boards or vinyl and are pushed into the soil. Cantilevered walls use much less material than that of gravity walls: they’re built in the form of an upside down T and are usually made from an internal stem of steel-reinforced, cast-in-place cement or mortared masonry. They are used to cantilever loads to a large, structural footing, transforming horizontal pressures from behind the wall to vertical pressures on the surface below. An anchored wall is similar to all three the above mentioned walls and can be constructed in any way similar to the abovementioned walls. However, an anchored wall needs additional strength in order to withstand the necessary forces. The extra strength will be achieved by adding cables that will stay anchored in the rock or soil behind the wall. This wall is very useful where high loads are expected, or where the wall itself has to be slender and would otherwise be too weak.
So you just purchased your dream home: everything is exactly the way you wanted it. The location is ideal for raising children, the house is large enough and the repayments aren’t too bad either. There’s just one small problem: your backyard is a complete mess. There are no trees or plants in sight; you can’t even see if there have ever been plant beds and some areas have a natural sloping, which makes it a much bigger challenge to create your ideal backyard. How will you fix this mess? Well, other than making use of a landscaper, you can install a retaining wall in the areas where the level of the terrain changes. This can create useful flat areas for you to use, as well as prevent erosion.
Constructing a retaining wall can be quite a challenge. You have to select the right height, thickness and material to ensure that it will be able to resist the forces caused by soil elevation. Building a retaining wall as a DIY project may not be wise. You have to consider frost heave, pressure from wet soil and the impact of heavy objects near the wall. When wet soil freezes in cold weather, the ground can push the wall upward and cause it to split. The soil above your wall may become waterlogged after heavy rain, which will cause it to sink or slip away. This can be prevented by the installation of drainage pipes within the wall. Placing heavy objects close to the wall may cause it to collapse, because of the added pressure on the soil.
Every one of these factors need to be considered before even thinking about building a wall yourself. If I could give you advice, rather get a specialist to build it, or at least ask them to guide you in the right direction.
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