DIYHacker

Has anyone had any experience with these mortar free bricks for a retaining wall? As mentioned in my raised patio post, we have this seasonal pond that fills up in the rainy season but as the seasons are going all crazy, we have had far too much rain for this size of pond and as such it over flows. As you can see from the picture, its close to the corner of the house and last year, the water was lapping against the bricks.. So what I want to do is build a retaining wall that is higher than the pond to keep it away from the house and was thinking of using these mortar free bricks to create the wall. As the wall will be higher than the ground level behind it, I am looking to level that space with the new raised patio but rather than having a solid fill (in case water levels get even higher), I will put in a large drain and then fill with decorative stone so that will then drain off to the garden rather than over the patio.. I have a request out to the council's flood team for advice too as the flooding in the garden seems to mainly be run off coming from ditches outside our property which they aren't maintaining..

There is no change of direction, its just one long pipe.. I am putting a grill over both ends so to ensure that its only water that passes through when needed so should be fine.

Cool, thanks for the info. If you shouldn't backfill inside with soil, should i just fill that with more MOT and compact that down?

@Conor Ok thanks, that's a relief on point one! With regards to the protection around the pipe, I used a few of the concrete blocks for the sides with the flag stone on top. The pour of the concrete will be level with that flag stone. Will that still be ok? Digger driver doesn't do half day unfortunately.. I will let that all dry out and hit it with the wacker plate before pouring the concrete.. The soil in the middle will be scraped off to help fill out the trenches once the concrete is down and the 2 high concrete bricks are laid.. Then as you say, will fill up with hardcore to bring it all level..

Ha, brilliant! We are close to Swiss Farm

@saveasteading Sorry, not ditch, I meant trench.. U-shape in front of house where foundation for raised patio is going to go

Hi all So there has been a development.. Yesterday there was a burst mains mater pipe further up the road and this is what I woke up to this morning.. Basically, we live rural and there is a drainage ditch along the road at the top of the property. What we never knew was that it seems this drains through our property into the pond that you can see in the one picture. That pond then has a drain pipe that goes under where the patio is going to be (I have covered it with the paving stones in the pictures to protect from the concrete pour) and out the other side in to another ditch which flows down through my neighbours property and out in to another rural ditch.. Over the past couple of years this pond has over flowed to the extent where our garden looks like a swimming pool and we thought it was ground water running off from the neighbouring field but after yesterday's incident, I now think that the majority of the water is running in from further up the road and can't filter out fast enough from our pond.. But that is something else we now need to figure out.. My question is, if I put down 300mm of concrete in the ditch, when we next have heavy rain and the water comes up from the water table from the pond, will that damage the concrete/patio in some way?! Or is 300mm enough to keep it down?!

Regarding the concrete blocks, how many are there? I just bought a pallet of 72 blocks which cost me £145..

Ok great.. So looks like best practise will be the concrete.. Unfortunately no chance of extra labour/hands so would just be me so probably best to buy the materials loose and slowly mix onsite by myself as the extra cost for the pump really pushes costs up.. Attached a pic of the area.. New patio won't be more than about 20cm above ground due to the fall of the one corner..

Based in Ashbocking, just outside Ipswich.. But originally from South Africa

🤣 well at 12.2k worth of posts, that is an achievement! 🤣

Hi all Looking for a bit of advise on a current project I am doing at home.. When moving in there was a deck out the back that was rotting so I finally decided it was time to replace it before one of us feel through the boards. I didn't want to go through having a deck again and want something more permanent so decided on a raised patio as the land is lower than the bifold door level. I mapped out the area and got a digger/operator in to dig the trench. I decided on using concrete blocks for the retaining wall and because of the lay of the land I need to use a 2 block high wall so the trench had to go down further to accommodate the 2 brick high wall. When chatting with the digger guy, he said I should go about 30cm below my line for the base so that was done.. Now I am looking to fill that space and thought that I had to use concrete but when doing searching a came across a few other posts that said you could just use MOT and compact it down.. So my question is, is that an option? To lay 30cm of compacted MOT down, then a bit of mortar and lay the bricks or does it need to rather be a concrete base? The other thing is when reaching out to a couple concrete supply places, you only get 45min - 1hr offload time and when trying to offload 2.2m3 with one wheelbarrow that won't be enough time and to rent a concrete pump will cost a lot more than what the concrete is on its own.. Whereas I can get the MOT in one loose delivery and can move it at my own pace..

Hi all.. Came across this site while trying to find info on a current patio project that I am undertaking.. Refreshing to see that there are still forums out there that are active. Came across so many that aren't so this is great. We moved to Suffolk from London right before lockdown started, from a 1 bed flat to a 1900's detached house with land. What a luck that was! But as with any house ownership, the list of stuff to do never seems to shrink and only ever seems to grow! Looking forward to getting advise on here from everyone!