Sorry for the long post, not sure how much is relevant.
//www.diynot.com/network/jd1980/albums/3032
As can be seen in the picture, I am in the process of removing an old garden wall/building replacement. The picture shows the old brick wall removed and the retaining wall behind it. You may be able to make out fence posts exposed that were concreted in. Where they are and all the ivy is, marks the ground level for my neighbours house (its a hilly area). Their house is some distance from this point, I would estimate around 12 meters or so. I believe the brick wall was originally part of a garage that used to be where the fence was (even though the wall is on my property), as when I moved in the house the wall had no top stones but I have seen aerial photos of what used to be there.
From point 'B' there were large flags laid on soil that were slightly wider than where the gate is, but not all the way to the wall. Between the flags and the wall were pebbles, and they were obviously sloping upwards towards the wall where there were masses of random concrete and cement (there was yet another fence in front of the wall at some point). Since the brick wall was really badly finished I decided the plan was to remove and replace with concrete stone effect blocks and flag the entire area from house wall to garden wall.
Initially the idea was to remove the brick wall and build on top of the old foundation, filling the dug out soil with hardcore and laying flags on a solid base of mortar. At point 'C' the foundations are almost low enough to meet the hardcore, and then lay flags that meet the flags at point 'B' and are below the house DPC. At point 'A' it is obvious the foundation is too high. I started to cut away at it with an angle grinder, but now I also found the depth of it, it will be only 5cms deep in some points. Before realising the depth, I was going to fill in the areas that are a bit too narrow with some new concrete, but now I know that 5cm isn't deep enough at area 'A'.
So my thoughts now are just to remove all the old concrete foundations and build new ones all along. However, I'm unsure what effect the removal will have on the retaining wall and also what tools to use to best accomplish the job but minimise impact on the retaining wall?
//www.diynot.com/network/jd1980/albums/3032
As can be seen in the picture, I am in the process of removing an old garden wall/building replacement. The picture shows the old brick wall removed and the retaining wall behind it. You may be able to make out fence posts exposed that were concreted in. Where they are and all the ivy is, marks the ground level for my neighbours house (its a hilly area). Their house is some distance from this point, I would estimate around 12 meters or so. I believe the brick wall was originally part of a garage that used to be where the fence was (even though the wall is on my property), as when I moved in the house the wall had no top stones but I have seen aerial photos of what used to be there.
From point 'B' there were large flags laid on soil that were slightly wider than where the gate is, but not all the way to the wall. Between the flags and the wall were pebbles, and they were obviously sloping upwards towards the wall where there were masses of random concrete and cement (there was yet another fence in front of the wall at some point). Since the brick wall was really badly finished I decided the plan was to remove and replace with concrete stone effect blocks and flag the entire area from house wall to garden wall.
Initially the idea was to remove the brick wall and build on top of the old foundation, filling the dug out soil with hardcore and laying flags on a solid base of mortar. At point 'C' the foundations are almost low enough to meet the hardcore, and then lay flags that meet the flags at point 'B' and are below the house DPC. At point 'A' it is obvious the foundation is too high. I started to cut away at it with an angle grinder, but now I also found the depth of it, it will be only 5cms deep in some points. Before realising the depth, I was going to fill in the areas that are a bit too narrow with some new concrete, but now I know that 5cm isn't deep enough at area 'A'.
So my thoughts now are just to remove all the old concrete foundations and build new ones all along. However, I'm unsure what effect the removal will have on the retaining wall and also what tools to use to best accomplish the job but minimise impact on the retaining wall?
