Learning about landscaping tricks can help your backyard or lawn counter soil erosion, especially if you live in hilly terrain. One of the most common tricks to turn steep slopes into terraced backdrops and reduce soil erosion is constructing retaining walls. The practical solution to almost all the problems caused by uneven, hilly terrains is building retaining walls.
Though retaining walls appear to be a straightforward structure, these walls require a good deal of proper planning to enhance the structure’s longevity. Not to discourage you from building retaining walls, but, sometimes, the consultation of retaining wall design experts in Wellington becomes crucial to successfully executing the task. If you want to test your basic construction skills, you may like to start with building shorter retaining walls. If you are interested in such projects to enhance the beauty of your backyard with a retaining wall, this might be the right guide for you. Listed below are some major do’s and don’t when it comes to constructing retaining walls.
Don’t miss out on checking with your local authorities
If you construct a retaining wall on a correct spot, this might affect the natural flow of water in that area, impacting your neighbors. So, the industry suggests checking out such construction guidelines before making a construction attempt. Some communities may even require people to take permission from local authorities before building retaining walls. For this, you may have to submit your plans for creating such barriers beforehand and help the authorities to schedule a property inspection at your property.
Do work with simple materials
If you talk about building retaining walls from scratch, there are various materials available in the market. Such materials include poured concrete, large timbers, natural stones, or even bricks. For a DIY project, you should try considering pre-manufactured blocks that are specially designed for constructing retaining walls. If you intend to build it with pre-manufactured blocks, it would be too much of a complicated task for you.
Don’t start with a weak foundation
Always remember that the strength of your retaining wall will only be as muscular as its foundation layers. If you don’t want to make your foundation weak, then try to follow this thumb rule; You should dig a trench that will have a depth of one-eighth of the height of all plus three inches. For example, if you want to construct a retaining wall of size thirty-six inches from the ground, you need to dig a trench that has a depth of eight inches from the ground surface.
Do use a slight backward slope while stacking
If you can construct the retaining wall leaning into the soil, then there is little or no chance that the soil pressure will push your wall outwards. Try to design and construct your wall with a slope of at least one inch for every foot of wall height. Moreover, if you are working with specially designed retaining wall blocks, it would be easy for you to do this kind of sloped construction.
Don’t forget to consider drainage of groundwater
Groundwater is considered to be the natural enemy of retaining walls. When it comes to clay-type soils, they swell up due to the groundwater putting extreme pressure on the wall. To avoid these kinds of construction mistakes, you need to make sure that a proper drainage system is in place before you go about building the retaining wall.
