Retaining-wall-track-world

My softwood sleeper wall has exactly met its expected 7 year life expectancy and I should probably set up a camera as one upright has failed and the next one is now supporting double the load. I was hoping for 10 years but you live and learn!

I’ve been looking for a more permanent replacement retaining wall but the internet seems clogged with trendy Pinterest creations and advert-ridden multi-page clickfests…so if anyone would like to chip in with their own solutions that would be great 🙂 Extra points for photos of said walls with your bike.

In its prime:

So the wall is currently 1.25m tall and 10 metres long, with a big set of steps let into it. There is about 2 tons of gravel and geotextile behind it for drainage, about half of the depth behind is solid chalk so it shouldn’t actually need to retain that much mass.

The first choice was gabions, but as per the first time I dug into the hillside, I have reminded myself of the realities of a 1×1 and 0.5×0.5m stacked wall of gabions, and the 22 tons of stone needed to fill it. (there is no where to tip a large load and it all has to be hand barrowed up a steep drive and around my house) I’d also have to dig out another 10 square metres of chalk and soil to make space.

The max depth of the wall without some serious digging action can be up to 600mm at the base, and I could reduce the height of the wall to 950-1000mm if it reduces the ‘engineering requirements’.

Pretty open to ideas, I remember seeing lots of mortarless interlocking concrete walls when cycling in France and I have got space to step it back at an angle, in fact it would be quite nice to be able to build in a step for sitting on or planting up. I think my wife would draw the line solidly the wrong side of a ‘eco-tastic rammed earth car tyre wall’ unfortunately 🙂

I am price sensitive and it probably needs to be DIY-able!

Seven years ago:

Have a look at flex mse.  Really easy to install and can be greened up so it disappears.

https://www.flexmse.com/#

I built a 10m long wall during snow fall at a local bmx track for access from pens to the start hill. Great stuff. Looking to install some in the garden now.

I would opt for no wall at all. If you feel it needs a retaining wall then concrete block will be fine.The active earth pressure acting on the wall is almost entirely from your granular drainage behind the wall, not the chalk or residual soil.

https://www.buildingshop.co.uk/product/dense-hollow-concrete-blocks/?utm_source=Google%20Shopping&utm_campaign=NewFeed2020&utm_medium=cpc&utm_term=1066&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIsaDC-MaR6wIVGLd3Ch3_EQ43EAQYAyABEgI1RfD_BwE

That Flex MSE looks really cool, it says I would need 200 units/bags. Nice that you can plant it up with wildflowers and stuff…I like the idea I can have a near vertical wall in one area and then step it back or create some curved terraced bits in others! I might even be able to retain the bottom part of some of the wall to create a seat… Any ideas on cost as it looks like I will need to call one of the companies for a quote.

Coconut, although the second pic looks like it could self support, there is a big flower bed along the top of the wall so we didn’t need to put a fence or rail on the edge of the lawn. There is a patio directly below so it needs steps to access the lawn and something to hold the garden up.

Hmm, roughly 7 years ago I was felling a lot of oversize, low quality trees that were bought up by a sawmill for garden sleepers.

Anyway, as for what to do with the retaining wall. Where are the uprights failing and did you cement them in? Same as fences, softwood posts tend to fail at ground level, more so if encased in impermeable concrete. Uprights could be replaced with hardwood packed in with big rocks, same as hand dug strainers and gateposts in agri fencing.

Gravitas are the UK supplier. Roughly £10 a bag IIRC, but you won’t be redoing it in 7years time.

Really simple to build and within 6months it had disappeared into the landscape, which was handy…

How about gabions. No need to worry about mixing loads of cement just face front with stone and fill the rest with rubble bricks blocks what ever you have available. No need to worry about foundation either. Looks like your ground is well compacted. They come in all shapes and sizes. I used 1m height x 2m length x 0.5m depth.

We do alot of the design work for Gravitas*. Its cool stuff very DIY able and as you say really flexible for slackening it off.

Ten quid a bag i *think* is for a bag to be filled and placed rather than a unit cost. This includes a plate that sits between layers to lock them in place.

*Not me personally but our geotec team.

The cheap, easy and normal option used in Germany is the concrete Planzensteine (Plant-stones!)

Examples… https://bauhaus.2much.info/ehl-pflanzstein-rund-hangflor-grau/

At 4 euros each! Not sure if anywhere in the UK sells them though. I actually made my own retaining wall on the same principle using old tyres. Cost was zero! Make a row of tyres, pack them with earth, lay another row above, staggered and set back by 1/4 a tyre width, and so on to the top. Admittedly this is behind a farm building so doesn’t have to look pretty, but it has not moved in 20 years, I can drive over the lower tyres or bounce off it if I get too close, and the vegetation has grown out of the earth filled centres and completely hidden the actual tyres so it looks like a ill-kept steep grass bank

so if anyone would like to chip in with their own solutions that would be great 🙂 Extra points for photos

I built one once, i’d never so much as laid a brick prior, my first lay was an 8″ hollow concrete block! I gained info from Google and made it shonky by adding my own interpretation…

Ensure you have access to cheap labour:

IMAG0547 by martinddd[/url], on Flickr

IMAG0234 by martinddd[/url], on Flickr

IMAG0253 by martinddd[/url], on Flickr

IMAG0282 by martinddd[/url], on Flickr

IMAG0387 by martinddd[/url], on Flickr

IMAG0442 by martinddd[/url], on Flickr

IMAG0461 by martinddd[/url], on Flickr

IMAG0771 by martinddd[/url], on Flickr

It’s not fallen down. Yet. 🤞

Gabions+1
They are easy to DIY, good to put old crap in, allow drainage, cool looking, you can make seats out them and cheap.
Caveat- get nice stuff to face- make an effort.

Wow, has it been 6 months?! I’ve been keeping an eye on the wall between riding, its moved a fair bit and another section is on the move.

I’ve been mulling over the options, every option so far involves digging out many tons of solid chalk, carting raw materials up a steep drive, or both. Plus getting rid of a considerable quantity of sleepers.

Comments welcome on this mornings idea, inspired by minimal effort, minimal cost, and minimal conflict with riding bikes.

Concrete in some H profile RSJ’s (127mmx76mmx1500mm) and slot the existing sleepers into the new uprights.

Positives from what I can see…
1) £300-500 plus concrete and some top coat
2) Just 8 holes to dig and concrete
3) Option to install the uprights in front of the existing wall before taking the sleepers out of the old one (or just do it section by section) so I don’t need to move tons of topsoil and gravel onto the lawn
4) Fairly easy to replace any sleepers that rot in future (cut out the bad one and let the sleepers above drop down
5) I’ve got a section of block wall that I think is also on the move behind my garage, and this would fix that too)

Anyone got any reasons I shouldn’t do this? I’ll dig down and assess the condition of the sleepers first, but the main horizontal ones appear good from the front, its only the uprights, and the top ones in full sun that seem to have given up)

It’s what we’ve got at the bottom of our garden and seemed the most cost effective and least labour intensive option, it’s 20m across by 1200 high. A tip is to use a little bit of rapid set postcrete to locate the rsj before chucking in a load of proper concrete

Your H section RSJs will work. I’d look for wider flanges if you can, to give a bit more construction tolerance and allow for them going slightly off vertical over time – see if you can get 152 x 152 universal columns rather than RSJs. How are you going to stop them rusting? Hot dip galvanised would be good, if your steel supplier can arrange it.

Otherwise, I’d consider a geogrid tied wall. The geogrid is a robust plastic mesh that you bury in layers behind the wall, the friction of the soil holds it and you attach the face of the wall. It would need quite a bit of digging, but nothing to cart away; do it in sections so that you backfill with what you dig out 2m away.

Bm

I’d go either Brockworth and faced with material of you choice or a Tobermore system

“Tobermore Secura Retaining Walls – Technical Guidance For Specifiers” https://www.tobermore.co.uk/professional/secura-retaining-walls/?gclid=CjwKCAiAjp6BBhAIEiwAkO9WuumC5wu16C4mZYvoxwFDRPLnrQDp20-Eo1sM3prfgbWNonnd_6yOAxoCJt8QAvD_BwE

At my previous house I used universal column sections as the uprights with sleepers dropped in. Was still there when I left, fairly easy to do and looked good.

thanks 🙂

Tobermore might be useful for the steps as sleepers and slabs leave a slippery edge I’ve found.

Excellent advice to go for the universal columns, now its been mentioned, the tolerance on 76mm wide RSJs is pretty tight for a sleeper on both sides!