I've allways liked the appearance of Linkwall retaining walls so I decided to have a go at it rather than pay a Landscaper. It was alot of work but I'm pretty happy with the result so I thought I'd share it on the forum. I found that it's not too difficult for a do-it-yourselfer as long as you follow the instructions and don't create too big a wall that requires engineering.
Not saying that this is the way it should be done but this is how I did it..
I chose Austral Balmoral in Bluestone which are a stone look block that can be used for up to 900mm walls and is suitable for curves. The main reason I chose these was because the larger rectangular face blocks that many people use require top caps and if you want curves when using these you need to cut the caps with a brick saw which I don't have access to. I also decided that the chamfered sides might be a little more forgiving if the job wasn't perfect.
First step was to dig a trench about 200mm deep after marking out where the wall was to go. This was easier said than done as the ground is quite hard and there was a good 12 metres or so to dig. To try and make the trench as level as possible I used brickies string as a level and measured to the bottom of the trench as I was going. One problem was that the builder had only laid the water main about 2 inches under ground so we had to pull it up and dig the trench for it deeper to clear the wall.
After this I ordered 2 metres of road base and 1 metre of Scoria. The road base went down first and then by using the string line I roughed it out level using a depth of about 80mm. Once it was about level I then went along with a piece of straight timber and a level to make it as perfect as possible.
When puting down the blocks the back edge of the block has a step to fit over the edge of the block underneath so the bottom course needs to have this step knocked off with a bolster and hammer. I decided that if the wall was going to look anything decent every block had to be perfectly level not only side to side but front to back. They also had to be level in relation to each other. This is by far the hardest part of the job as every block that goes down needs to be lifted up again to move the roadbase around to get it just right. I also used a block of wood and a hammer to compact it down as much as possible. Getting the first course right was a full days work.
Next step was to lay the aggricultural pipe in behind the blocks. To get a decent fall I put more roadbase in behind the blocks with a fall towards one end. At that end I ran the pipe into a silt pit and covered it with scoria. At each course of blocks I hadded another layer of scoria and backfilled the dirt leaving about 100mm of scoria in behind the wall so that water can drain down to the aggi pipe. I ended up doing 2 seperate walls and used about 270 blocks.
The total cost of the job was about $1600. I'm not saying the way I did it was right or as professional as a landscaper would do it but I'm quite pleased with the result. It has turned out quite level and solid and after a few days of heavy rain the drainage appears to be working.
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