As in garden / retaining wall etc use?
If so how were they to work with?
Any tips or advice?
Did you line the front with pretty stone?
Where did you buy yours from?
Any pictures to inspire?

I’m considering them for holding back a 2-3′ clay bank with a concrete raft slab set behind / level with the gabion top.

Cheers.

see any episode of grand designs… they use them left, right and centre.

Stoner will be along in a moment…….

I have seen them used once on GD but any real world advice would be welcome.

They look a bit like a local authority car park or sea defence and catch all manner of windblown detritus.

I quite like them; in a semi industrial kind of way.

They remind me of stacked lobster pots… I think you should tuck a fake lobster into at least one of them as a point of interest 🙂

Dave

Really easy to use to be fair. We tend to use gabion stone to fill, which is basically 70-100 mm clean limestone. Dress the front face in a dry stone wall type of way and fill the rest anyhow. Even now most places will send you a little diagram on how to construct. I’d also order the heli-coils for building them with, speeds things up a lot and don’t be tempted to not put in the “thirds” ties or the baskets bulge and look ****!

Can I recommend Enviromesh as they are a sister company to the one I work for. Have no connections otherwise and no idea of prices but at least it’s somewhere to start looking.

just stick to a few principals and you’ll be reet’.

Typically the base is about 0.5H
If they are decorative (ie not doing any structural work) cut the clay bank back to a safe angle then fill behind the wall with free draining material.
The wall will need a foundation.
Don’t forget drainage in front of the wall.
Dont forget to tie them all togeather.

You could consider a small crib wall too.

read this: http://www.hy-tengabions.co.uk/technical_publications/design_guide.pdf

They don’t need a concrete foundation btw. Stoned up area on firm ground is fine!

ooohh, me, me , me memememe mememem!!!

Flat field being turned into garden needed some relief. We had a lot of clay spoil from the land drains so I thought Id pile it behind some gabions that provide a bit of privacy and wind break from accross the common.

Straightforward to make, although you need hefty thumbs to do the wiring. These have 8 cross wires through the heart of each cage to prevent bulging. Higher grade (civls I imagine) are more substantial but pricey.

Filled with a local Gabion grade mudstone. For fancy finish, one normally builds a wall at the front of the inside of the cage with facing stone then back fill with crap.

The bank behind is now a wild area with some birch trees planted and a load of wild flowers and grasses.

Isn’t gambion a funny word.

I have nothing else useful to add to this, apart from the fact that my bro uses them a lot – he has a landscape gardening business – residential and civil. He uses a crimping thingy to crimp the stainless steel thingies when making/closing them.

As was said, face with good stuff, fill the middle with brick-bat, hardcore, chopped up bodies, fat bikes, single speeds… Basically any useless sh*te.

I don’t like them.

use weldmesh baskets rather than the twisted ‘chicken wire’ ones. They are architecurally nicer and don’t bulge etc as they are more rigid. Use dressed stone for the fronts, tilt them back slightly etc etc.

We use the twisted style lots on railway embankments/cuttings etc and also for roads etc. But they are designed properly as a geotechnical retaining wall design rather than just Bill Bish Bash Bosh Bloggs Landscping.

I misread the title and thought this thread was about keeping monkeys in a basket in your house. 😯

Try googling weldmesh baskets – I got my last batch from an outfit in Sheffield who were quite a bit cheaper then enviromesh – 2mm galv wire should be ok. Base can be compacted type 1 approx 6 – 8″ thick – if its retaining any depth you need to incline the baskets at approx 8 degrees off the vertical.

Ive used all sorts for fill – gabion stone, 6″ stone IMO they’re nicer faced up with a walling stone to mimick a dry stone wall or similar. the rest of the basket can be filled with anything ‘clean’ ie no fines in it that will wash out.

ideally you need to incorperate a land drain at the rear of the baskets – although free draining material would suffice.

As above – don’t be shy with the cross ties – nowt more ‘wrong’ then a bulging basket 😉 strong thumbs do help

I’m a civil engineer me

Nice work Stoner

How close is your raft/slab to the crest of your bank and what you parking / building on it ? Gabions may not be best solution

The raft slab will be butted up to the gabions and will have a single skin flat roof garage on it (well that’s the plan).

The way you describe the arrangement, the building (superstructure and / or any vehicles parked within it) may well impose load onto retaining structure. Furthermore, any movement of the gabion baskets and / or foundations could result in loss of support from beneath part of your slab. Given the relatively modest retained height, you are unlikely to get any catasrophic any failures, but cracking of floor / uneven stresses on the garage floor may occur. – Based on what you have advised, I”lld be looking at a more ‘traditional’ retaining solution.

HESCO Bike shed anyone 😀

Pfftt!!!! I’ve put em in at 2.5 m and then used them to retain a concrete yard with fully loaded 40 ft artics swinging round up there!! Just make sure you backfill with a self compacting material such as 10/20 mm clean limestone and you’ll be fine! I would install with a slight lean back as suggested above!

Cheers WS I can relax now. The slab will be overkilled with metal to give piece of mind.

1 layer of a393 will be plenty. Just make sure you take your time on backfilling behind the wall. Allow the gravel to settle in layers and you’ll end up with no voids. Some good advice up there and I’d definitely consider a little bit of land drainage behind the wall. One other thing that may help is if you keep the front of the foundation lower than the existing ground, then when you reinstate the ground to the front, a 150 mm or so, will be nipped in the ground. And one last one, get the helicoils (as I mentioned above) to build them up. They make a much better job, speed things up and save the skin on your fingers!

helicoils definitely!

Last summer we built a carpark on a river bank where max retained height was 2700mm

As long as backfill is properly compacted and baskets are filled to spec you won’t have any issues with 3′

As with WS – bury the bottom 4 – 6″ of the leading edge of the baskets in virgin ground

cheers all

burying the bottom into soil is a given as its probably only around 700mm of height that i need out of 1000mm gabion height, its a 7m length so will use three 2m and one 1m. Just wondering if i’ll get away with 500mm depth as opposed to 1000mm. I guess the mass is in the width to prevent movement. I will be tilting them around 6 degrees.

I’d honestly stick with the metre ones, won’t be much quicker to install 500’s and you’ll get piece of mind with being a little overkill. Happy to help and Happy construction!! 😀