How retaining walls keep your home safe in any building location

When it comes to building in the natural landscape, there are various tools that you’ll need to implement to ensure the safety of your construction. A retaining wall is one of these elements that should be in your toolbelt. In today’s short article, we’re going to take a look at retaining walls and how they help to keep your home construction safe well into the future.

What Are Retaining Walls?

Before we get into the specifics of choosing the right retaining wall for your property, we need to first define what these are. Retaining walls are essentially rigid walls that are utilized to support soil in a vertical fashion. Let’s say you have a very sloped property. You want to build a house into the side of the hill. This will produce two different levels of soil. One at the height of your home and the other at the natural height of the land. A retaining wall will ensure that the soil located at the natural height is restrained from eroding.

The Four Types Of Retaining Walls

In general, there are four basic types of retaining walls that you can utilize at your home. These include gravity, cantilevered, sheet piling, and anchored retaining walls. The most popular, gravity retaining walls simply use the weight of the wall material to hold the soil in place. Cantilevered retaining walls use steel products and existing concrete slabs to create a ‘T’ shaped structure. Sheet piling is used when there’s not a whole lot of space. They’re dug straight into the soil and are very thin. Lastly, the anchored retaining wall is specifically designed with anchors behind them to hold the support of the wall.

Retaining Walls Make Land Usable

Traditionally, trying to utilize land that was on a slope proved quite difficult. However, retaining walls have made it possible to turn that same land into a usable area. It creates a way to provide support for the soil around a specific structure. It provides a water runoff route that is perfect for the individual landscape. It can even provide a necessary flare of design to a property.

Land Factors To Consider

Before you get started installing your retaining wall, you need to consider a few land factors. First, will the wall encompass the whole area that needs to be protected vertically? Second, you need to understand where your underground facilities are at. Many lines run underground that you don’t want to cover up with a retaining wall.

Retaining walls are a great way to keep your home safe from soil eroding and shifting. When deciding on the right one to build, you need to first determine what’s necessary for the area and what your specific preferences are. It’s always a good idea to consult an expert to ensure that your home’s new retaining wall is build correctly.