Retaining Wall Inspection By Neighbours Structural engineer... Questions.

[saveasteading]

3 minutes ago, farang said:

I was going to record it.

Ouch. That would be very off-putting to the professional. 

They could reasonably refuse to allow it, and you shouldn't without permission: it could count against you even..

They would certainly  decline to tell you their initial thoughts, lest it come back to haunt them.

 

A witness is anybody. Partner, neighbour, friend. The best is someone who is a good listener and rememberer, who won't be distracted by the emotion of it.

If they send you an email of what they saw and heard then that is a good, dated record. You can do your version to them while it is fresh.

[scottishjohn]

I agree with all thats has been said  and talking nicely is the way forward 

but surely first thing everyone needs to know is  

 

how was it constructed 

and by whom

the general rule is the ground pressure exerted by a retaining wall or indeed any wall will load the gorund at a 45degree angle from the bottom of the wall 

so if if 45angle hits gound at a level which you have dug down too ,then it might have an effect 

 

by same token if it was constructed correctly there should be no load on ground outside their ownership

 

  eg bottom of wall is at least twice as thick as the top 

 

 EG. if 2m high then bottom should be at least 1m  then down to 0.5m  and with drainage at bottom of wall 

 

 if more then base needs to be even thicker 

 

 how high is the wall do they have a drain behind it to stop retained soil turning into mud 

 

 

 lots of questions with retaining walls 

 

 some of which can only be answered by knowing how it was construucted in the first instance

 

 and what sort of ground was it constructed on 

 how high and how thick is it and what is it made from

 to give you an idea look at a gabion basket site and see hoow they are constructed and remeber gabions do not have driange problems --and do not retain water 

 

not so with  solid walls

Edited Saturday at 16:01 by scottishjohn

[farang]

The wall is about 1.3m high, its dry stone & very old I doubt any foundations to speak of. Its sound apart from where the bushes & small tree are growing.

[scottishjohn]

2 hours ago, farang said:

The wall is about 1.3m high, its dry stone & very old I doubt any foundations to speak of. Its sound apart from where the bushes & small tree are growing.

so it should be at least 2ft thick

sounds like old age 

dry stone dykes fall down with age when they are not used as a retaining wall

 

If it were me  and its not 

i would tell him to just dig it out his side and get a dry stone dyker  to rebuild  it

  a days hire with a mini digger and couple of days for a dyker to rebuld it 

  ly would no way class as a retaining wall  in the true sense just relying on weight of stone to do the job  

 and iam guessing its not leaning back tohelp the stone stay in situ

 should be at least a 6degree lean in at top if it was built as a retaining wall

 

Edited Saturday at 20:48 by scottishjohn

[farang]

Iv'e already suggested that they need to dig out & rebuild it, they wont touch it.

[joe90]

23 minutes ago, farang said:

Iv'e already suggested that they need to dig out & rebuild it, they wont touch it.

Well all our talking here won’t solve the problem, let the guy do his inspection and give a qualified opinion 🤷‍♂️