Retaining Wall Discussion

[UCGal]

For our granny flat project we had significant hillside work – 2 seriously engineered cmu walls, and some smaller gravity walls. Here are my thoughts.

You have a footing of some kind with all of them – including the stacked block… it has to be dug out and the first course started below grade or it can shift/slip etc. Saving you on all three walls is that the wall is only 3 feet high – so not a huge footing for any of them. (We had some seriously huge footings on our project…. but they’re holding up a building slab.)

Keeping the dirt onsite is a huge saver. There is an entire sub-industry in construction buying/selling/moving fill dirt. As consumers, you pay to remove dirt and we pay to import dirt. If you can make the dirt net out even by not exporting/importing that’s a good thing.

Our super engineered CMU walls have a stucco coat. They’re ok looking… They work with the setting. We had some issues with the stucco coming off – but the contractor addressed that.

We used a Keystone Legacy block for our smaller walls… I don’t think they’re ugly, but that’s a personal taste/preference. We planted stuff that kind of laps over the top and it looks nice.

[AK]

Your city engineering/building department should have standard plans for concrete and CMU retaining walls. Pick up a set of those to get a better idea of costs.

I’d lean toward the Keystone-type block wall myself. Both the concrete and CMU walls will start to look shabby with time due to the effects of water (mold/algae, efflorescence, etc.) Weep holes get plugged, superficial cracks freak out potential buyers and neighbors, etc. And my geotechnical engineering profs spoke highly of Keystone-type walls for various other techical reasons. (Of course in those days a big pile of precast blocks was also handy for fighting off cave bears and marauding Neanderthals.)

[AK]

Your city engineering/building department should have standard plans for concrete and CMU retaining walls. Pick up a set of those to get a better idea of costs.

I’d lean toward the Keystone-type block wall myself. Both the concrete and CMU walls will start to look shabby with time due to the effects of water (mold/algae, efflorescence, etc.) Weep holes get plugged, superficial cracks freak out potential buyers and neighbors, etc. And my geotechnical engineering profs spoke highly of Keystone-type walls for various other techical reasons. (Of course in those days a big pile of precast blocks was also handy for fighting off cave bears and marauding Neanderthals.)

[AK]

Your city engineering/building department should have standard plans for concrete and CMU retaining walls. Pick up a set of those to get a better idea of costs.

I’d lean toward the Keystone-type block wall myself. Both the concrete and CMU walls will start to look shabby with time due to the effects of water (mold/algae, efflorescence, etc.) Weep holes get plugged, superficial cracks freak out potential buyers and neighbors, etc. And my geotechnical engineering profs spoke highly of Keystone-type walls for various other techical reasons. (Of course in those days a big pile of precast blocks was also handy for fighting off cave bears and marauding Neanderthals.)

[AK]

Your city engineering/building department should have standard plans for concrete and CMU retaining walls. Pick up a set of those to get a better idea of costs.

I’d lean toward the Keystone-type block wall myself. Both the concrete and CMU walls will start to look shabby with time due to the effects of water (mold/algae, efflorescence, etc.) Weep holes get plugged, superficial cracks freak out potential buyers and neighbors, etc. And my geotechnical engineering profs spoke highly of Keystone-type walls for various other techical reasons. (Of course in those days a big pile of precast blocks was also handy for fighting off cave bears and marauding Neanderthals.)

[AK]

Your city engineering/building department should have standard plans for concrete and CMU retaining walls. Pick up a set of those to get a better idea of costs.

I’d lean toward the Keystone-type block wall myself. Both the concrete and CMU walls will start to look shabby with time due to the effects of water (mold/algae, efflorescence, etc.) Weep holes get plugged, superficial cracks freak out potential buyers and neighbors, etc. And my geotechnical engineering profs spoke highly of Keystone-type walls for various other techical reasons. (Of course in those days a big pile of precast blocks was also handy for fighting off cave bears and marauding Neanderthals.)

[svelte]

At my prior home in San Marcos, I built a retaining wall 30-36 inches high and 60 ft long. I built it with cinderblock faced with El Dorado Stone and with concrete caps. We regularly got compliments on that wall and it looked fantastic even after 10 years.

We started with a concrete foundation with embedded rebar sticking up in the foundation. I ran the rebar up through the cinderblocks and filled the cinderblocks with concrete. That wall isn’t going anywhere, and good luck to whoever decides to remove it in the future!

I can’t remember the costs, but cinderblocks/concrete/stone facing are all things that are easy to price out. One word of caution: the concrete caps were the most expensive part by a mile! Don’t forget to price that out too.

Finally, the one mistake I made was to rely on weep holes I put in at the bottom between the cinderblocks for water drainage. While it worked well, it meant the bottom of the wall was usually wet along the entire length. If I were to build it again, I would run perforated black plastic pipe behind the wall, exiting through the wall everything 20 to 30 feet, surrounded by crushed rock.

[svelte]

At my prior home in San Marcos, I built a retaining wall 30-36 inches high and 60 ft long. I built it with cinderblock faced with El Dorado Stone and with concrete caps. We regularly got compliments on that wall and it looked fantastic even after 10 years.

We started with a concrete foundation with embedded rebar sticking up in the foundation. I ran the rebar up through the cinderblocks and filled the cinderblocks with concrete. That wall isn’t going anywhere, and good luck to whoever decides to remove it in the future!

I can’t remember the costs, but cinderblocks/concrete/stone facing are all things that are easy to price out. One word of caution: the concrete caps were the most expensive part by a mile! Don’t forget to price that out too.

Finally, the one mistake I made was to rely on weep holes I put in at the bottom between the cinderblocks for water drainage. While it worked well, it meant the bottom of the wall was usually wet along the entire length. If I were to build it again, I would run perforated black plastic pipe behind the wall, exiting through the wall everything 20 to 30 feet, surrounded by crushed rock.

[svelte]

At my prior home in San Marcos, I built a retaining wall 30-36 inches high and 60 ft long. I built it with cinderblock faced with El Dorado Stone and with concrete caps. We regularly got compliments on that wall and it looked fantastic even after 10 years.

We started with a concrete foundation with embedded rebar sticking up in the foundation. I ran the rebar up through the cinderblocks and filled the cinderblocks with concrete. That wall isn’t going anywhere, and good luck to whoever decides to remove it in the future!

I can’t remember the costs, but cinderblocks/concrete/stone facing are all things that are easy to price out. One word of caution: the concrete caps were the most expensive part by a mile! Don’t forget to price that out too.

Finally, the one mistake I made was to rely on weep holes I put in at the bottom between the cinderblocks for water drainage. While it worked well, it meant the bottom of the wall was usually wet along the entire length. If I were to build it again, I would run perforated black plastic pipe behind the wall, exiting through the wall everything 20 to 30 feet, surrounded by crushed rock.

[svelte]

At my prior home in San Marcos, I built a retaining wall 30-36 inches high and 60 ft long. I built it with cinderblock faced with El Dorado Stone and with concrete caps. We regularly got compliments on that wall and it looked fantastic even after 10 years.

We started with a concrete foundation with embedded rebar sticking up in the foundation. I ran the rebar up through the cinderblocks and filled the cinderblocks with concrete. That wall isn’t going anywhere, and good luck to whoever decides to remove it in the future!

I can’t remember the costs, but cinderblocks/concrete/stone facing are all things that are easy to price out. One word of caution: the concrete caps were the most expensive part by a mile! Don’t forget to price that out too.

Finally, the one mistake I made was to rely on weep holes I put in at the bottom between the cinderblocks for water drainage. While it worked well, it meant the bottom of the wall was usually wet along the entire length. If I were to build it again, I would run perforated black plastic pipe behind the wall, exiting through the wall everything 20 to 30 feet, surrounded by crushed rock.

[svelte]

At my prior home in San Marcos, I built a retaining wall 30-36 inches high and 60 ft long. I built it with cinderblock faced with El Dorado Stone and with concrete caps. We regularly got compliments on that wall and it looked fantastic even after 10 years.

We started with a concrete foundation with embedded rebar sticking up in the foundation. I ran the rebar up through the cinderblocks and filled the cinderblocks with concrete. That wall isn’t going anywhere, and good luck to whoever decides to remove it in the future!

I can’t remember the costs, but cinderblocks/concrete/stone facing are all things that are easy to price out. One word of caution: the concrete caps were the most expensive part by a mile! Don’t forget to price that out too.

Finally, the one mistake I made was to rely on weep holes I put in at the bottom between the cinderblocks for water drainage. While it worked well, it meant the bottom of the wall was usually wet along the entire length. If I were to build it again, I would run perforated black plastic pipe behind the wall, exiting through the wall everything 20 to 30 feet, surrounded by crushed rock.

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