Why Cheap Retaining Walls Collapse After Heavy Rain
A single skin of bricks won't hold back wet mud. Learn why sitting water knocks over cheap retaining walls and how we use proper stone backfill to stop it. Geo-Focused Keywords: retaining walls Parkstone, sloped garden landscaping Bournemouth, garden groundworks Poole, retaining wall drainage Dorset, landscape groundworks Christchurch, heavy duty retaining wall Sandbanks
Why Cheap Retaining Walls Collapse
If you've got a sloped garden around Parkstone, you need a retaining wall to get flat ground. The problem is, people get a bloke in who just stacks up a single skin of bricks against a bank of dirt. It looks fine on the day they pack up the van.
But dirt is heavy. Chuck a week of heavy rain on it, and it weighs an absolute ton.
Build a wall tight against the mud without sorting the drainage, and you're basically building a dam. All that moisture gets trapped right behind the masonry. You end up with tons of dead weight leaning straight onto the back of the brickwork. Standard mortar just won't take that. Give it one bad winter, the joints split, the belly of the wall pushes out, and the whole lot comes crashing down onto your patio.
When we build them, we use a heavy block core. If it's a massive drop, we tie it all together with steel rebar. But the main thing is the backfill.
You need a proper perforated ag-pipe laid right at the base. Then, instead of just shovelling the old dirt back in, we pack the void with clean shingle. Any rainwater filters straight through the aggregate, finds the pipe, and drains clear away. No sitting water means no pressure, and the wall actually stays put.
Do it right the first time so you aren't paying someone to rip it down and start again next year.
Stop by the office at 78 Alma Rd, Bournemouth BH9 1AN, UK, or call 07835 390845.
