Retaining Walls

Pennsylvania is a beautiful place to live, but any property owner knows that the topography of our region can present it’s share of issues. When you have hills on your property, you will almost certainly have some erosion and runoff issues to contend with. Furthermore, these hills may leave you with very little usable space on your property. Retaining walls can be used to combat these issues.

You have a few options when it comes to retaining wall construction:

• Timber Retaining Wall – This is probably your cheapest option but due to the nature of the material it can rot and deteriorate, and in turn, not a great choice for a long term solution.
• Cinder Block Retaining Wall – Reasonably priced, long lasting, and effective, but not the most visually appealing.
• Natural Stone Retaining Wall – Certainly the priciest option, but also extremely attractive.
• Poured Concrete Retaining Wall – In our opinion this is the best option. It has the durability of the block and comparable in price, but also can be very attractive through the use of concrete stain and stamped concrete.
• Versa-Lok Block Retaining Wall– This is a great middle ground between traditional cinder blocks and poured concrete. You have the affordability that block provides, but with a much more attractive finished product

Depending on the situation, we can either dig into the earth but sometimes makes more sense to build the wall away from the hill and backfill between the wall and the hill. Regardless of where we build the retaining wall, the process we employ is very similar to that of building a footer and foundation (which are essentially a retaining wall that holds up a structure).

1. We need to dig down below the frost line so that our wall doesn’t heave and sink through the seasons.
2. Once below the frost line we will drive rebar, create forms, lay down mesh and pour the footer.
3. We then form up the wall, again add rebar and wire mesh, and pour the wall, and if you are having us build a stamped concrete wall, we would stamp and stain at this point.
4. On the earth side of the wall we will install drainage so that the water can run off the property and minimize erosion issues.
5. We backfill where necessary.

This process ensures that you have an attractive, long lasting, retaining wall that will both protect and improve your property.