Retaining wall novices. Any tips?

[Lydia]

Hi,

We're tempted to sign for a plot of land 450m2 but it's very steep and rocky. Plot one. How much should we budget for a retaining wall? What options are available to us? Has anyone got personal experience of this? Do you have any advice or tips?

Thanks for your time. 

[ProDave]

That is one challenging plot. Perhaps made easier by the fact it is on solid rock?

 

That will surely be very expensive to build on, and even when you do, what garden are you going to have?  We looked a a plot with only half that slope and walked away as it would definitely end up costing more to build than the house would be worth.

[Jeremy Harris]

I can give a guide, based on our experience, but that was digging out clay, not solid rock.  Three are photos of our groundworks in our blog, in these sections:

 

http://www.mayfly.eu/2013/07/part-six-there-we-were-digging-this-hole/

 

http://www.mayfly.eu/2013/07/part-seven-pouring-concrete/

 

http://www.mayfly.eu/2013/07/part-eight-the-wall/

 

All told, the that retaining wall cost around £35k by the time it was finished.  It's about 34m along the North face and another 10m along the East face, with the finished wall, less the height of the boundary wall on top, being around 2.5m high in the corner and tapering away to about 1.4m at the end of the North face and away to nothing at the end of the East face.

 

Muckaway cost alone came to around £10k, IIRC, to remove around 900 tonnes of spoil.

 

 

 

[Alexphd1]

Nice. It looks like somewhere in the alps??? if it is the are way ahead of us on shuttering and poured concrete.

[lizzie]

We have retaining wall circa 3m high above ground and about 50m in length (part of it forms garage wall) its a big cavity wall loads of steel and concrete to SE spec. It is brick on the neighbours side and a mix of  block/brick on our side.

 

We are on clay.  I think overall wall cost us in excess of 55k and we didnt muck away we put neighbouring farmers field.

 

Anything of this nature is very expensive, you cant afford to cut corners on something as important as this. Our site was flat but we had to drop our ground levels by more than 2m to comply with planning not wanting the house to be seen on the horizon just the roof peeps over the wall.

 

[Russell griffiths]

Would this not be easier if the developers put in the retaining structure

surely there needs to be some symmetry between all the walls in the other gardens. 

Also looks like he already has kit on site and must have consulted somebody before he chopped the side out of that hill.