Foundation and a retaiining wall at bottom of garden...

[simonwar]

Hi,

Appreciate any help.

My Garden slopes away at about 1:20 and leads into the rear neighbours house which is dropped down by about 12 feet. The garden is approx 5m wide.

There is no retaining wall and earth and house rubble has just been dumped and piled high leading down to their garden from mine.

I want to build a retaining wall at the divide between mine and my neighbours garden and then level out my garden with rubble and earth removed and excavated from this area.

The wall will form a U-Shape, a bit like a pier. 5m wide with sides approx 3m.

I am reclaiming lots of breeze blocks during this work and wanted to use them for the wall lying down along their large face.

Q1. What sort of foundation is most suitable. Depth, thickness, what sort of mix?

Q2. How deep down with respect to my neighbours garden should I go with a foundation?

Q3. Is the breezeblock idea OK.

Q4. If I tie the wall in at the sides is this adequate of a 5m width?

Other things:
I will leave gaps in the block for drainage mid-level down the back.

Thanks, Simon.

[thedoctor]

1 & 2 see our foundations project. The foundations need to be as shown in here.

3 & 4 Laying the blocks flat is the best way but at 5 m long, and changing direction also, you will need to put a pier in the middle. The pier should be built to double the thickness of the wall over an 18 inch length, ie an extra block laid at the back of the wall. The pier is tied to the wall either by bonding each course with the corresponding course in the wall. See our bookstore for a book on how to do this, or by laying some expanded metal lathing in the bed joint of each course. Two strips of 150mm EML required per course.

[simonwar]

Thanks, wall all complete now.
Apologies for not getting back to you, but all worked a treat.

Appreciated the advice. S.

[TheDoctor4]

For up to 5 FREE quotes from trusted, vetted and insured tradesmen in your area visit the DIY Doctor Find a Tradesman page: http://www.diydoctor.org.uk/find_tradesmen/