retaining wall

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Edge215
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Joined: Mon Aug 29, 2016 7:07 pm

retaining wall

Post by Edge215 »

wondering whats the most effective option for blocking water. a berm (mound of dirt) or retaining wall or fence. any other ideas?
Last edited by Edge215 on Sun Jan 23, 2022 9:16 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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JoeRetire
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Re: berm vs retaining wall

Post by JoeRetire »

It depends. Nowhere near enough details provided.

A fence doesn't seem like a great way of blocking water, though.
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cheese_breath
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Re: retaining wall

Post by cheese_breath »

Where do you intend the blocked water to drain to after you block it? It's going to go somewhere.

How much water are we talking about?
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Sandtrap
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Re: retaining wall

Post by Sandtrap »

Edge215 wrote: Sun Jan 23, 2022 7:52 pm wondering whats the most effective option for blocking water. a berm (mound of dirt) or retaining wall or fence. any other ideas?
Many options; swale, keystone, berm, etc, from simple to?

**You said fence. . . does this mean you want to put a fence on your property line as well and divert water coming from another property, neighbor?

Swales and Berms, culverts, etc. redirect water flow. Walls, and that type of structure will have the footings fail.

How high?
How much water?
Where will the water be redirected to? (huge legal issue on how you redirect water onto where?)
What is the length of water redirection?
How often will water be deflected/held? IE: occasional heavy rains once a year? Snow melt? What?
Is your property mostly level or on a hillside?
Speed of the water flow . . .how steep is the grade? 20%? etc.?
How large is the property?
Subdivision with neighbors or rural?
etc.

Without knowing more data, suggestions are vague with assumptions.

*You can insert this data in your original post (especially a photo if you have one), using the "pencil icon".

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sureshoe
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Re: retaining wall

Post by sureshoe »

Like mentioned - need a lot more information. In general, retaining walls are meant to hold back DIRT not water. They can be used for this, but they often aren't the best option.

For example, let's say you have negative grading - you might use a retaining wall to regrade, but you wouldn't want it to be the barrier to the water without also having a drain. Otherwise, you're going to have standing water around the wall, which will create a mess (or worse - damage).

As others wrote - give some better details, and we can give advice. In general, you want gravity to do the work, which means fixing grading. If you can't get the grading far enough away, a good drain can work wonders (and be cheaper).
medic
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Re: retaining wall

Post by medic »

Also, if you put a retaining wall in, you will also need drainage around it. Water will seep through or be graded away from a wall, but is heavy and exerts a significant pressure. For walls, if above a certain height (4 ft around here) you'll need plans reviewed and almost certainly they'll be looking to see proper drainage.
shunkman
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Re: retaining wall

Post by shunkman »

Whichever way you go, make sure that the redirected water does not impact other property owners.
adamthesmythe
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Re: retaining wall

Post by adamthesmythe »

A retaining wall of any significant size should be (1) engineered and (2) provide for drainage through or drainage around the wall.

Water exerts considerable force.
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cheese_breath
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Re: retaining wall

Post by cheese_breath »

Sure would be nice if OP would give some more details. We're up to discussing engineered walls, and for all we know it might be simple leakage into his basement that regrading the yard near the house would cure.
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sureshoe
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Re: retaining wall

Post by sureshoe »

shunkman wrote: Mon Jan 24, 2022 9:38 am Whichever way you go, make sure that the redirected water does not impact other property owners.
Funny story, about 15 years ago there was an absolute war in my old neighborhood. Several houses down a guy built a deck and retaining wall type structure, and if effectively just fed water right into the window wells of his neighbor. First major rain and you can guess what happened. I don't know the legal outcome, but it was something out of a sitcom.
Teague
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Re: retaining wall

Post by Teague »

As mentioned above, besides the wall construction itself do look into state and local laws about what you can and cannot do when changing the flow of unwanted water. In my state, if I recall correctly, one:

1. Can do anything "reasonable" to prevent unwanted water from flowing onto their property, but also-
2. Must not do anything to cause the water to flow onto the property of another without their explicit agreement.

Of course if we're talking about actual streams or seasonal creeks etc., or any threatened species nearby, there can be a whole 'nother level of legal scrutiny.

Where I am there is a particular species of salamander that is supposedly at risk, and so there are various rules about filling in depressions that form seasonal ponds in rainy years. The critters apparently breed in the puddles. As far as being endangered, some years I can hardly walk 10 yards without tripping over one of the darned things.
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texasdiver
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Re: retaining wall

Post by texasdiver »

Some years ago at our previous home we ran into drainage issues between neighbors. The subdivision was built by simply drawing lines on the map and there was no engineering of drainage between lots and the lots were sold and developed at different times, not all at once.

What this meant was that our next door neighbors back yard basically naturally drained into our lot but the previous owners of our home did a lot of landscaping, brought in soil, and installed a pool which blocked the natural drainage of our neighbors lot and turned their backyard into a swamp every time it rained.

I told her I would accommodate anything reasonable and professionally done. She hired an engineering firm that planned out a drainage system for both our yards with French drains, passing through our side yard (because her side yard was her cement driveway) and tying into the storm drain on the curb. I don't know what it cost but we didn't pay a dime, just let the contractors tear up our side yard and install drain pipes. And it all worked out in the end.

As for building retaining walls. The first thing you should be doing with any retaining wall that has drainage issues is building in the drainage in the form of French drains or the equivalent along the base of the retaining wall and making sure the water has someplace to go. This is standard.
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