Browse Forums Landscape & Garden Design Re: DIY retaining wall advice 8Jan 08, 2010 11:21 pm Where you are coming from is where you are going to... Re: DIY retaining wall advice 10Jan 12, 2010 8:07 pm Hey DD... i spoke to Wayne today about the sleepers, he is just wonderful. I faxed him a rough copy of what i want to do, he marked it all out and drew it to scale and sent it back to me with a quote... What a dream I never thought it would be that easy... 2 week turn around cause i need 175 sleepers, but i guess well worth the wait... not to choose a colour... Just a question... did you use steel or gal posts??? Re: DIY retaining wall advice 11Jan 12, 2010 8:23 pm Dirtyard Darren Sleepers were ordered today, so will be 7 days till delivery. Plain concrete sleepers are fairly common around here so no problems of getting a photo of a wall, even if its not of my own A few houses nearby have them. I'm not a fan of the concrete sleeper look either and I was dead against it when we first decided to build a wall, but it is going down the side of the house that will be rarely seen by anyone else other than me and the other half and I plan on painting it when finished to colour it up a bit. Even thought about using slate crazy paving once the wall has settled to clad it so it looked like a rock wall but at $10 for a 400x400 tile it was going to costly as well. The other reason for not using timber is that there are white ants in the area, and I only want to build the wall once, so nothing that would rot or be susceptible to white ant damage. Will get a couple of pics tomorrow if I remember. Cheers. Hey DD, can we see pics now??? please Re: DIY retaining wall advice 12Jan 13, 2010 6:35 pm Scrappin - I used black steel posts (ungalvanised). It was heaps cheaper than the galvanised stuff. I painted the posts with a priming oil (Penetrol) before painting with a coat of Septone chassis black paint. The posts will have another coat of paint after the sleepers are in. Here are some pics of walls in our area, and funnily enough, the first pic is almost the exact same profile as the one I am building, didn't realise that until I took the photo, and this was the wall that put me off concrete sleepers to start with Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ 2nd is of coloured concrete sleepers Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ and another plain concrete wall Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ And now some of mine - Black steel posts, before and after rust treating (sorry pic is sideways ) I have welded in a 3mm steel plate at the right height for the sleepers to sit on, you can see it halfway down the black post. Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Stuff used for rust treating - Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Construction has started, 4 posts are in Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Re: DIY retaining wall advice 13Jan 13, 2010 6:47 pm DD, looking good. Did you use rapid set concrete to hold them in?? I got my quote back yesterday, now just have to start saving...LOL Re: DIY retaining wall advice 14Jan 13, 2010 8:14 pm scrappinfreak DD, looking good. Did you use rapid set concrete to hold them in?? NOT rapid set concrete (I heard it wasn't suitable for structual applications such as retaining walls, don't know how true it is), but went and bought aggregate, sand and cement to mix my own. I'm lucky enough to know a few people with a cement mixer so I could borrow one at no cost and its easy to do. Re: DIY retaining wall advice 15Jan 13, 2010 8:19 pm I didnt think you could. I got a quote on a truck bringing some, it was about $700! I almost fainted!!! Re: DIY retaining wall advice 18Jan 14, 2010 8:29 pm hunts01 just another thing those plain concrete sleepers, can you render them??? Not sure if you can, I've heard walls move a little bit due to settling and maybe expand/contract with the heat the same as any other concrete would. I'd think if I was going to do something like rendering I would "bag" it instead. A bit cheaper and the finish isn't as straight and neat as rendering so any small cracks that appear wouldn't be as obvious. I may even spray my sleepers with a paving paint yet to colour it up. Will see what it would cost and what colours I can get. If you really wanted to reder the wall, you may want to think about ordering concrete slabs to fit between the posts rather than individual sleepers. I saw this yesterday when wandering around the neighbourhood, never seen slabs used before in place of sleepers but I imagine it would be more costly. Will keep posting pics as I progress, but will be slow as I'm only concreting in 1 per day after work ( and its 40+ degrees, way too hot to do anymore than concrete 1 post in and dig out the hole for the next one ) Hoping this weekend I can at least 6 more or so in. Cheers. Versaloc is a mortarless besser block system that still needs a properly engineered footing. If you just do a 400x200 footing it will fail in time. At 17m long you need it… 1 15632 Hi All, I engaged a tradie to install concrete retaining wall 600-800mm high over 32 meters in Victoria. Sleepers are 200*75*2000 mm installed over 17 steel posts. I… 0 6889 Can anyone recommend a good/affordable retaining wall and fence builder that I can get a quote from located in Sydney? 8 45705 |