Leveling the garden.

HELP

I need to level my garden it has a slope on it that is about 4ft higher at top than bottom. above my garden is a footpath. the grass is about 12-14ft in length. I know I will need a retaining wall at the top but how?

Was thinking of raising the bottom and lowering the top if that makes sense



Thanks

 

Hi Blade & Welcome to the forums.

Thats a tricky one as you'll need the wall in place before you excavate, otherwise the footpath could collapse and I doubt your average household insurance would cover you for that.

Ideally, a pile driven steel wall would do the job, but that would be expensive and then you've got access to consider, you'd need to know if there were any underground services. Water, electric, gas & sewers.

You might need to consult with a civil engineering company.

You might get away with digging a sectional trench and shuttering as you go down & then a concrete pour with steel rebar. The footings would need to go below the intended new ground level by about a foot as normally the footings for a retaining wall are wider than the wall itself.

 

thanks, There is a flat bit at the top of about 2 ft or so. Was thinking of leaving that and working in front of that

 

That makes life a bit easier.

You could use the second method there, plus get your footings in a bit better. Just make sure you slice some shuttering in as you go. It only takes a rain storm & it fubar

 

Not sure I quite understand what you are saying here. what do you mean by slicing shuttering in?

 

Sorry, a bit difficult to explain without diagrams.

As you dig down, you need to stop the bank collapsing. So you have to bang in some shuttering ply or timber with a sledge hammer. You'll need to brace that against the other side of the trench with bits of timber too, untill you can get your pored concrete down there.

 

Ball park figure what would you say it would cost to get some one in to do it? I would guess the back needs to come down about 3ft and the front up about the same to be level

 

what you seem to need in my opinion is a couple or three terraces building I am sure you can gain some advice from a tame builder if you try I wish I lived closer to you to explain how to achieve what needs to be done but I would say if you do it yourself it could be a quarter to a third of the cost to that of getting someone in to do it
hope this helps you somewhat:thumb:

 

That's the conclusion I came to yesterday evening when sketching it on the back of an envelope whilst eating dinner.

If the total drop is 1.2m a single wall at the top end would need to be 600mm high plus depth below ground to top of foundation, and that foundation needs to project beyond the wall on at least one side to prevent overturning. It would also require returns at the sides to support adjoining gardens, granular backfill and drainage behind the walls, together with steps down from the upper path, so an engineering solution that would also involve a lot of earth moving. If any of your excavations go deeper than the foundations of any neighbours' buidings within 3m you'll get involved in the Party Wall Etc. Act 1996.

With smaller steps combined with some minor re-grading of levels at perimeters the solution may be achievable with some re-claimed railway sleepers and a lot less shifting of soil.

Googling "railway sleeper retaining wall" will provide loads of info, designs, pics, etc.

There's a whole website devoted to this subject http://www.railwaysleeper.com/Customers ideas, photos and projects.htm

(but they are treated with creosote)