Stacked Rock Retaining Wall Design

Sketches of the retaining wall forces should be considered to properly distinguish the different forces acting on our retaining wall as tackled in the previous article retaining wall.

Stacked rock retaining wall design.

Another advantage of dry stacked stone walls is that you can create planting pockets for small rock garden plants such as sedums. The exact depth of the. Excavate to a depth of 6 inches along the entire base of the stone retaining wall using the string marker as a guide. How to build a dry stack retaining wall plan out the wall s height and base thickness.

Prepare a solid foundation or base. The easiest way to build a stone retaining wall is to use the dry stack method that requires no mortar between stones and does not need a concrete footing like mortared walls do. For every every one foot in height you ll want to lay the base a foot in from the wall s face. Higher walls should be engineered for stability.

It s a matter of physics and good engineering that. For this 18 inch high wall the footing should be at least 18 inches wide. Use a hand or power tamper to level the base. Dry stack walls also drain well allowing water to pass through the wall itself.

For a stacked block retaining wall that s no higher than four feet a trench filled with three inches of crushed rock will help keep the wall from shifting and settling. A stacked stone retaining wall relies on its own weight its setback leverage and the wall s mass to stand up. Based on our example in figure a 1 we have the forces due to soil pressure due to water and surcharge load to consider. The spaces between stones in the retaining wall allow water to drain through relieving pressure.

For dry stack walls the base should be as wide as the wall is tall. While all stone walls are stacked in some fashion here we re referring to walls consisting of smaller flat stones that marry up nicely with each other. Even if you don t plan to sit on your wall 3 feet is about as high as i would recommend building any dry stacked wall. The ideal height for a dry stacked retaining wall is 18 to 22 inches so you can sit on it when your gardening chores are done.