Hi, on the plot of our relatively newly acquired vacation home, there is a steep slope right next to the back of the house. The previous owner quite recently built a retaining wall there using concrete blocks. Behind the retaining wall, he has created a flower bed. Now, after two winters, we see that cracks have appeared, indicating that the wall can't handle the pressure from the soil. This worries us greatly since it is built not much more than a meter from the house. :wow: I don't know how the wall is constructed or if it is anchored in any way. But does anyone have any tips on how we could support the wall? My own thoughts are to drill holes horizontally through the wall and pass several reinforcing bars through with 2-meter spacing, bent 90 degrees on the front side of the wall. On the back (flower bed side), holes are dug 1.5 meters in from the retaining wall where the reinforcing bars are concreted with a concrete block as a ground anchor. What do you think of that idea? Any other suggestions?
How do I minimize the crack that has appeared?
See pictures.
Best regards,
Albin
What are the masses closest to the wall? It must be draining material, otherwise the wall will frost heave. You wrote that there is a flower bed=soil closest to the wall. If you have that, it's step one to secure the wall. Then whether it can be saved or not is hard to say. If I were to speculate, it is: Do it again, do it right! Not the answer you want, but probably the only one that works in the long run.
Closest to the wall is some sort of plastic sheeting that you can see in the picture, then comes garden soil about 75 cm wide, followed by moraine (sand and stone). According to the previous owner, the wall stands on lecakulor. There is also drainage laid down.
We could really use some advice here and are a bit nervous about your responses. We are reluctant to have the entire back of the house full of stone, soil, and gravel all summer. Is this something that should preferably be left to a professional? And would the insurance company cover this?
Hidden defect you can probably forget, and the insurance doesn't cover anything either. But I think you can relax. It's not a massive wall and it's unlikely to give way just because it has cracked a bit. But if you want to do a temporary fix, you can reinforce with some flat iron, large plugs and screws or something.
One should never have soil behind a wall. The soil retains moisture that freezes in winter. Frozen soil takes up more space than unfrozen, causing it to "burst" the wall. Remove the soil and replace it with draining materials.
Has the wall moved or is it leaning towards the house? If the wall is stable and hasn't started leaning, it's probably not an immediate danger. The crack in picture 1 goes across several blocks and not in the joints. It looks more like something has settled. Picture 2, to my inexperienced eyes, looks like a bad seam, but the fact that it cracks right there might be due to the masses behind pushing the wall closest to the house.
What is under the flower bed soil? If it's just 2-3 decimeters of soil and then reasonably drained, I wouldn't worry. Otherwise, I would try to improve the drainage right behind the wall so it doesn't freeze and crack just as Bubblaren says.
From what I see in the pictures, I wouldn't worry. If the wall has moved or started leaning towards the house, unfortunately, it might need to be redone better, but not this year...
