Gardening & Landscaping
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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Questions about DIY retaining walls
DH & I are in the middle of a major disagreement about this and I would love some outside info. Our plans have a mildly curved retaining wall (26" at highest) for the front yard.
If you built a retaining wall yourself:
What was the size?
What materials did you use? (blocks, sandstone, brick, rock, etc)
How long did it take?
Did you have a structural engineer take a look at it?
Re: Questions about DIY retaining walls
What was the size? 20 inches high, 6 ft long to precen erosion onto a patio from a sloped flowerbed.
What materials did you use? (blocks, sandstone, brick, rock, etc) Retaining wall blocks from Lowe's, gravel for the base and behind the blocks.
How long did it take? I did the work over a couple of days, it probably took me 5-6 hours total.
Did you have a structural engineer take a look at it? Nope, but I did get the thumbs up from a mechanical engineer that I know. I wouldn't build a retaining wall for a bigger project, but in my situation, the erosion was annoying, not dangerous and the wall was short.
Check the building codes in your area. In our area, your need a permit to buld retaining walls over a certain height, which also means you need to pass an inspection.
What was the size?
Rockwall 3' tall by 40' long tapering down to match the slope of the land. Paver wall 1.5-2' tall and makes half of an 8' diameter circle.
What materials did you use? (blocks, sandstone, brick, rock, etc)Rockwall - rocks & Paver wall - pavers (it was an extension of our paver edging)
How long did it take?
Rockwall - 4 weekends but we ran out of rocks so we had to stop and get more from a friend who is a farmer (hint: farmers always have big rock piles you can dig through for free)
Paver wall - 1 weekend
Did you have a structural engineer take a look at it?
No but I'm a mechanical engineer if that helps.
Make sure to check with your local building code.
Thanks to both of you. I bought stripstone for borders and 2 small retaining walls (no more than 2' tall) for our front yard that will disappear back into the hill. I expect to be working on this all summer - even with the boys' help.
DH kind-of freaked out that I had planned this without getting a structural engineer (he's a mech eng) to help with the wall. He also thinks there is no way we could do it ourselves, even over several months.
Of course, I drew up these plans *a year* ago and showed him and he was OK with it then. I think seeing the piles of rock was what did him in.
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I do this to DH all the time. I'll be really supportive of something he's going to do (like buy a car) and then all of a sudden, when he's actually doing it, I freak out.
Just do it.