Retaining walls, can be found at both residential and commercial properties but somehow remain unnoticed. These walls, can serve as a valuable extension to your outdoor living spaces. Retaining walls provide support to other architectural features like sidewalks and patios. In this post, we discuss everything that you need to know about retaining walls.
What Are the Benefits of Retaining Walls?
The warm spring season is the perfect time when you can invest in hardscaping or landscaping projects. If you want to add a focal point to your home, you might want to have a retaining wall first. Here are some key benefits of having a retaining wall on your property.
Provides Support
If your property has slopes or is situated in a hilly area, the best thing you can do it to have a retaining wall. The best thing about having a retaining wall is that is keeps the soil in its place and keeps it from entering your home. During a rainstorm, the soil can easily landslide into your home, causing a mess and more clean-up that you shouldn’t have to worry about.
Ads to the Aesthetics
Apart from being an excellent support system, a retaining wall adds to the aesthetics of your property. It enhances the overall look of your property. Its visual appeal depends heavily upon the material it has been built with. A retaining wall can serve as a focal point of your exterior living space and allows you to add other features around it.
Extra Space
By adding a retaining wall to your landscape you can add more features, and also make room for fun activities on your property. Another interesting feature of using a retaining wall is its ability to turn a slope into a flat surface. Flat pieces of land can be used as perfect gardening sites where plants can be grown. A retaining wall can be used for a beautiful summer garden where exotic and colorful flowers can be cultivated with lush green grass. Not only does a retaining wall beautify your space but also increase its functionality.
How to Build a Retaining Wall?
When it comes to the construction of a retaining wall, the contractor must first lay the base material in order to build a surface over it. To construct a retaining wall that is long lasting and strong, around 10% of the wall will have to stay beneath the ground. In order to avoid erosion, the drainage stone needs to be installed around 4 feet behind the retaining wall. The excavated slope should be as stable as possible, so as to ensure a longer life for the retaining wall. In order to keep the property safe, the backfill must have the proper wall materials.
How Many Kinds of Retaining Walls Are There?
Following are three of the most common types of retaining walls.
Natural Stone
This material works best with smaller walls and provides your walls with a natural look.
Segmented Retaining Walls/ Brick Retaining Walls
These walls are made up of building blocks that interlock with one another and fortify the structure of the wall.
Wood Timbers
This material too provides natural aesthetics and works well with smaller walls. However, unlike stone this wood will rot overtime.
If you want to extend and beautify you exterior living space with a retaining wall, call JJW Brick today! We can be reached at 1-800-BRICK-PAVERS and would love to answer any questions about adding or replacing a retaining wall at your home this summer!
