Our First Retaining Wall

Over the Easter weekend in 2008, Tom and I took it upon ourselves to demolish the chainwire fence separating us from our Northern neighbours and replace it with a 1-metre-high timber retaining wall.

Here's the existing fence, along with our higher dog-mesh addition to prevent puppy escapage.

The reason this was necessary (besides the fact that the existing fence was rusty and old and ugly), was because our block fell by 1.5 metres from front left corner to back right corner, meaning that it needed to be levelled for a concrete slab to be poured. Therefore, the high side on the left (South) had to be cut away, and all of that extra dirt used to 'fill' the right (North), creating a level dirt platform. So, to prevent all of that dirt on the right spilling into our neighbours' yard, a retaining wall was needed!

So, we got to work.

First step, obtain timber.

Next, hire a digger to dig the holes to support the vertical posts. Bearing in mind that this wall would hold the entire responsibility for retaining our block (and house) on the North side, it was extremely important to dig these holes deep, and allow the posts to have a significant portion of their height submerged.

The view of the house from the retaining wall in progress, with a little happy helper from over the back fence

Allie scrutinising our placement of the holes closely

Next step, concrete in the vertical posts!

And then, of course, the sleepers are bolted to the vertical posts, and later the vertical posts are cut down to the correct height.

And so it was complete

See here for our next retaining wall project.