Browse Forums Building Standards; Getting It Right! 1 Feb 27, 2014 9:42 pm Hi all, First post but more to come So our property that we are building a new house is lower than the property on the left hand side and thus will require a retaining wall which is no more than 600mm. The house on the left is finished and they are concreting around the house up to the boundary (about 1.7m from external brick wall to the boundary). I am planning to use concrete sleepers for the retaining wall, it will go flush with the concrete and so no soil will be exposed. My question is, are the sleepers adequate to hold back the concrete? hope that makes sense. Re: Concrete Slab + Retaining Wall 2Feb 28, 2014 4:55 am The wall Should hold up the concrete, however the problem that will occur is that as you excavate for the wall the soil under the concrete will fallout and it will be hard to replace this. As a result the path will not be fully supported. The Harder You Try - the Luckier You Get ! Web site http://www.anewhouse.com.au Informative, Amusing, and Opinionated Blog - Over 600 posts on all aspects of building a new house. Re: Concrete Slab + Retaining Wall 3Feb 28, 2014 10:49 pm thank you for your reply bashworth. The soil under the concrete is slightly clayish so I'm slightly sure it will hold up. More questions with my plan. 1) Is drainage required behind the retaining wall since it will be sealed on top anyway? 2) When digging the post hole for the H post, it will be flushed with the concrete so I am planning to just dig slightly into the soil behind the retaining wall about 200mm (like the one I drew below). After I concrete the post I'll put the first sleeper and back fill and then the second sleeper and back fill etc. Would I have any problems with this? 3) Silly question but would the concrete slab on top move slightly as temperature vary if so should they leave a gap between the concrete slab and the top of the retaining wall or put some kind of expansion rubber (don't know the exact name) between the slab and the retaining wall? Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ once again hopefully my question makes sense. Apologies if it does not Re: Concrete Slab + Retaining Wall 4Feb 28, 2014 11:04 pm I'm not sure slightly sure is good enough. If it was me I would be moving the retaining wall 3-500mm inside the boundary, especially with the detail you show. The Harder You Try - the Luckier You Get ! Web site http://www.anewhouse.com.au Informative, Amusing, and Opinionated Blog - Over 600 posts on all aspects of building a new house. Thanks for the insights, that makes perfect sense, and yeah, I will be leaning on the experience of the excavator operator entirely. 6 16159 Thank you again Simeon.. I will call my certifier for that. Have a good day 4 5197 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 6917 |