Browse Forums Landscape & Garden Design 1 Jan 13, 2010 3:04 pm Hi All, I am a complete novice looking for some advice on retaining walls. I am about to take my long service leave to construct two significant sized retaining walls on our our new property. The slope of the block is left to right. On the high side I have a 20m length with heights ranging from 600mm to 1000mm. On the low side is a 20m length with 1200mm all along. I have spoken to a range of mates but find myself more confused. It appears that the council regulations are that if a wall is above 600mm it needs to be engineered which is what I do not fully understand. Does this mean I need to get an engineer on board or I just need to buy an engineered solution and follow the instructions to make sure that it will be passed by council? I was looking at concrete sleepers (ozlogs) there seems to be some technical specs there - is this enough? Any other suggestions greatly appreciated Cheers BB Re: Retaining wall question - dealing with council 2Jan 13, 2010 4:53 pm hey bb! Welcome to the forum I'm not 100% sure exactly what the legality of retaining walls is.... But I know lots of people who've done their own retaining walls, and some have had far bigger walls that the fall you're talking about. If I were you, there is no way I would get engineered walls of that size. It's an absolute rip off- the cost is astonishing. The rule my family has always gone by with our retaining walls (and between us, we've built a few- my dad's a champ!) is that however high you have your wall, you make sure the posts/H beams are down in the ground that depth. So if your wall is 1m, you have a 1m hole, with 1m poking out the top. Like I said, not sure what's legal, I only know what works Re: Retaining wall question - dealing with council 3Jan 13, 2010 8:41 pm This is my first post. Must say what a fantastic resource this forum is, spent the first week of finding it reading back posts (only in this section though, the whole thing is massive!) Mr Manchu has given me a lot of insight into gardening - that's for sure. Anyway, onto the wall question. I built a retaining wall a couple of years ago. Used natural limestone blocks. I dont know where you live, browneburrow, but I am in Geraldton, WA. The council here is very pedantic. From my experience, there is no such thing as 'passed by council' in a practical sense, what I was required to do was submit a plan of the proposed wall following the council drawing guidelines, addressing the requirements of their retaining wall guidelines. This included an engineering drawing of the typical proposed spec, available from a civil / structural engineer. I am a surveyor so I was able to do the survey and prepare the plans, including proposed wall myself, and got the engineering drawing from a civil engineer I knew for nothing. The plans had to then get passed by council, a fee paid and then you get approval to construct your wall. It is up to council then to inspect to ensure compliance if they want to. Before starting have a word to the council building surveyor, get as much info off them as you can as regards to what you will need to provide, that is what they are there for. There also may be a council publication stipulating retaining wall requirements. As I had never built anything like this before, drawing (CAD) the wall was a great assistance to me as to how I would build it, in fact I drew evey block in each course as the wall has a series of pillars extending above the retained courses and 3 x 90deg bends and 2 x 45 deg bends (truncated driveway entrance). By drawing every block and printing out each course seperately I was able to anticipate all my cuts and orientate my blocks for pillars etc straight of the drawings as I had nutted out all the tricky bits by drawing them. Getting a bit off track here but I guess what I am saying is do as much preparation as you can beforehand as you dont want to be trying to resolve design issues while you have hired tools, compactors or even bobcats sitting around burning up your cash while you figure it all out. You can't be too prepared. Hope this helps. Thank you again Simeon.. I will call my certifier for that. Have a good day 4 5142 Thanks for the insights, that makes perfect sense, and yeah, I will be leaning on the experience of the excavator operator entirely. 6 16106 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 |