Brick retaining walls in garden

[Samrennie]

Hi

We have just moved into a new home, lovely house but garden a bit of a problem. Husband agreed that garden can be first on the list to get sorted but as you can imagine, budget is small. The garden is tiered over a total of 4 layers with 3 retaining walls, none of which are over about 0.5-1M high. However, they don't appear to have any drainage in and are bowing a bit with some the wall now very loose if given a shake. We plan to get a landscaper in to help put the drainage in, move a patio, take a tree down and start the work to put a pond in - we (me probably!) will have to do most of the other dirty work.

Am wondering how feasible it is that I will be able to rebuild the retaining walls myself - I haven't done any brickwork before but not scared of hard work. I am hoping to use the existing bricks (they look in reasonable condition and aware I will need to knock off the existing mortar which is mostly crumbling off anyway). I am assuming, probably wrongly, that putting the walls up it will not matter quite so much if they are not completely level as they would need to be for a building. The walls are already double width and will be the same once rebuilt, we are not planning to move the walls, the land drain will go in behind where the walls are now.

Any advice gratefully received!

Fran

 

[Bonni]

There's a lot to retaining walls. Here's a design.

http://www.pavingexpert.com/featur03.htm#retain

Don't forget frost heaving and the 45 degree rule with the foundations and if you're using coping stones, don't forget to add SBR to the mortar.

Walls are only as good as the foundations, freezing earth heaves and when defrosts, the foundations don't go fully back. Over time, walls tilt. So the deeper you can go, the better.

The load on a foundations spreads out at 45 degrees. So a wall further up the garden can add further load to a wall further down the garden depending on where the latter wall is in relation to the former wall.

Walls lean, bow, crack etc.. because of these various considerations not taken into account. Often because they're done on a budget.