If you're currently attempting to discern whether you could benefit from building a retaining wall, try answering the following questions:
1. Do you own a home or property situated on or near sloped, uneven ground?
2. Do you live in a particularly wet climate where flooding and soil erosion are prevalent?
3. Are you looking to add a touch of uniqueness and beauty to your yard and/or property?
If you have answered "yes" to any among the questions above, it's time to consider installing one.
Some great benefits of a Retaining Wall
Retaining walls have a number of uses along with offer many practical advantages to the homeowner. Generally, the main purpose is to avoid the erosion of sloped earth that could threaten to shift and slide; thereby, potentially damaging or destroying your home or property. Also, they are particularly effective tools in climates with heavy precipitation, e.g., the Pacific Northwest. Not merely will a highly effective one properly support sloping earth, but it will also act as an effective means of draining water runoff and reducing hydrostatic pressure. Furthermore, they provide numerous agricultural benefits. For warmer, dryer climates, a wall can delay seepage of water from land, and for wetter climates, properly drained walls can divert water from areas prone to flooding.
Besides practical purposes, these structures maintain a particular aesthetic value as well. As such, adding one may raise the resale value of your house, while also enhancing your own enjoyment of one's property. For instance, a wall can be constructed in some steps or levels, granting you unrestricted creativity to include lots of plantings, flowers, or other elements which will add texture, color, and new lease of life to each successive level. Not forgetting, stepped retaining walls have proven to be a more effective form of erosion control.
Retaining Wall Options
Since these structures provide support for vertical grade changes, a highly effective one should be constructed so concerning accommodate and redistribute the lateral pressure caused by sloping. Therefore, they vary in proportions and type, and frequently include materials like stone, brick, concrete, vinyl, steel, and pressure treated timber.
If you are brainstorming ideas for a retaining wall, listed below are commonly used types.
Gravity retaining walls depend on their mass to attend pressure. Often Look at more info are made of large bits of stone, concrete, or other heavy materials which are often a composite of elements including steel, rock, timber, soil, and concrete.
Sheet pile retaining walls are used for soft earth and limited space. These walls are typically made of thin sheets of steel, vinyl, or wood which are driven into the ground.
Cantilevered retaining walls were popular prior to the introduction of gravity walls. These walls are typically taller and fashioned from thin stems of steel-reinforced concrete often cast in the form of inverted T. In effect, they'll "cantilever" loads, diverting pressure downward toward the strong base rather than forward. The advantage to this particular type of wall is that it uses less material than most others.
Anchored retaining walls employ using anchors placed behind the wall (in to the earth) for support. The decoration of anchors vary, and a number of different methods are used to place them. They're typically used when either high loads are anticipated or the wall itself must be thin, rendering it too weak to stand alone.
Finally, soil nailing is really a technique actually used to reinforce the wall. Usually, many relatively slender elements, like steel bars, are installed through the wall at a downward angle. This enables them to be easily modified through the construction process and, typically, built from the very best down.