When you install a retaining wall in your Macomb County landscape, it’s there for a purpose. Since most retaining walls are intended to support a slope or to hold back dirt from entering a specific part of your landscape, your retaining wall must last a long time without much effort. We use tricks to help your retaining wall last as long as possible. These tricks are especially important if your retaining wall uses a prefabricated modular block. Because these blocks do not use mortar to hold them together, installing them correctly is essential to a long-lasting wall.

What Damages Retaining Walls?

The number one enemy of your retaining walls is water. When water pools behind your retaining wall, it can make the soil heavy and push it against the wall. When you use modular blocks, the weight and movement of soil can cause the blocks to shift and become disconnected. This will eventually cause the wall to fail. If you have a retaining wall installed, it’s essential to ensure that measures are taken to keep water from pooling behind your wall, causing substantial damage.

Soil Amendments

Soil amendments are a good solution for moving water away from a retaining wall, especially when working with a smaller space. If the natural soils around your yard are draining poorly, it may help to add soil amendments to help water move through the soil. This may include adding peat or sand to the soil and tilling it, or, bringing in all new soil to fill in behind your retaining wall.

Grading

Grading is one of the most common and effective ways of moving water away from your retaining walls. It is also the most cost-friendly. Grading involves moving the soil behind the wall so that water runs away from the wall instead of towards it. This might mean sloping soil toward the ends of the walls so water runs parallel to it. If possible, the soil might be graded to slope away from the wall altogether. In some cases, the most effective way to keep water from pooling behind a retaining wall, especially if you are not planning on planting a garden or further disturbing the soil, is to create a small trench that would collect the water and divert it away from the wall to a more acceptable place in your yard.

Drains

Drains are also a very effective way of moving water away from your retaining wall and can be the costliest. Drains are probably the most effective of all the methods to keep water from pooling behind your retaining wall. A drain behind your retaining wall involves installing a layer of landscaping fabric behind the wall and then filling the area with a highly porous material like pea gravel. At the bottom of the wall, we install a sock with PVC pipes that either come out of the wall itself or are installed at the ends of the wall. This sock and pipe collect the water from the pea gravel and divert it around or through the wall without causing damage. If done correctly, drains are discrete and do not impact the visual aesthetics of the wall.

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