Damaged Retaining Wall and Fence - What do you think?

Thanks for your opinions and information.

IMO its not up to the machine operator to understand how the wall has been designed.

Its up to the wall designer to understand what the possible loading may be and that includes machinery on the soil when the soil level is at the top of the wall.

I have to agree with Bashworth - from what I can see in the photos, IMHO the wall has not been engineered correctly to retain the given load.

This might be a basic physics thing but the posts, they hold the weight.
So with outward pressure that would mean the wall need to push against the post, not away from it as in this case.
That wall is only as strong as the fixings holding the wall to the posts!
How long they can do that will depend on quality of timber and quality and strength of the fixing.
Surprised the wall hasn't come away from the posts already.

Its pretty straight up and down too for a wall that height.


Its built back to front in other words.

Hate to be a stick in the mud - no pun intended - but to me that retaining wall looks under-rated for the purpose. The sheer volume of the surrounding soil and even pressure that would be applied to the wall over time with normal rainfall would have found that wall to bow in a relatively short time.

I also agree with Fu - the wall is backwards - the posts should have been on the other side.

As you constructed the retaining wall, I would say the onus may fall on you.

Did you seek engineering advice prior to retaining wall construction? Perhaps you have recourse there?

I also agree the posts are on the wrong side... We built raised garden beds 3 sleepers high and the posts were on the outside of the beds, not the inside...

I understand what you are all saying and thanks for your advice. My point was more that the rest of the wall was and is still intact, except for the part where he has compacted the fresh soil as he continually drove over it near the wall. Rather than driving to the front, laying the soil and then going back to get more to take to the front instead of the other way around he put it at the back and then continually drove over it. I know retaining walls are done the other way around as a rule, there were reasons for it to be done this way and we had an engineer with us at the time to help us build it. He didn't see it being a problem.

As mentioned previously, our issue is with the way the soil was moved, and the fact that even though the driver was told by the SS to stop work, he seeked out our opinion and then just went on and did what it was he wanted, with no regard to the damage that was being done. As you can see by some of the other pictures, the rest of the wall is fine with the volume of soil as it was not constantly being driven over. Had the driver stopped when asked, by both the SS and us (when the damage was noticable) then we wouldn't have had this problem.

Is there anyone out there that drives bobcats that would be able to give their opinion on the way the soil was spread? We are trying to find out as much as we can before we meet the SS on Tuesday and discuss it. If it is our issue, then we will take responsibility, but if it is because of the way the driver spread the soil and also the fact that he continued on after strict instructions from the SS to stop, then we think he should be held accountable.

Thanks for reading.

You are probably right in that the fill compaction against the wall has caused the premeture failure, but it has only sped up the already short life expectancy of the wall.
The responsibility of the wall backfilling, belongs to the person who constructed it, not the bobcat operator, whoever built it should have been there to supervise the filling.
You mentioned in your first post the wall was constructed "as per standard practice", I would be interested in seeing that standard.
Where did the backfill come from? Looks like it doesn't belong within 100m of a retaining wall.
What form of drainage did you use?
If it were me I would eat some humble pie and have the entire wall replaced, before you proceed with any landscaping, as it will be cheaper and less disruptive now than in 5 years time.

Was there pictures to this post? Where did they go??

Yes, there were.. It's a shame the OP took them down, as even though he/she may not have agreed with the responses it was a good lesson for all prospective wall builders.

I'm happy to put them back up for people to see. The reason I took the post away was that people were getting bogged down with all the other information that I had provided rather than answering the question I had asked. We are aware that the wall is on the opposite way to what it normally would be. We built it with an engineer and have also had 2 landscape gardeners take a look and all agreed that the way the planks are facing is not the problem and make no difference to the weight the wall can take.

We have had a meeting with the builder and he will be speaking to the bobcat driver when he gets back from his holiday. I will let you know the outcome and put some pics back up when I get time.

Thanks again for your suggestions.

I'm still a little confused, I'm assuming the builder had nothing to do with the wall construction, so why is he becoming involved ?
You say the wall was built with an engineer, did they not specify backfill requirements and was someone (the wall builder) there to supervise the backfilling ?