Gabion Retaining Wall

Hi All,

First time poster . . .

I have a large, unlevel garden and have been reading a lot of posts here lately. So far, I've built a deck outside the rear of my house. Now I have the task of levelling the remainder of the garden and retaining the earth.

I've been reading here a lot, and had pretty much decided on building a retaining wall around the garden using railway sleepers (seen a lot of posts from Thermo - thanks !).

However, a suggestion was made yesterday whether I'd considered using Gabions i.e. the metal wire baskets that you fill with rocks. I have a few questions:

1) has anyone built retaining walls using gabions ?
2) where did you get them - how much did they cost ? Does this work out cheaper / more expensive than a sleeper wall ?
3) where do you get the bulk amount of stone / rock to fill them ?

Many thanks for any help,

Chris

Hi
Can't help with the structural bits but as for bulk buying of stone try somewhere like this

http://www.ced.ltd.uk/index.htm who are commercial stone merchants. Check the branches out to see how far away they are but they will deliver

Go to products and you will find the various boulders etc you can buy

Hi,

Thanks for that - will contact them to see what they recommend.

B&Q stock these:

http://www.metpost.co.uk/q_products.html

So I'm thinking of perhaps finding a cheaper source and using them ?

Anyone used these before ?

Cheers,
Chris

most decent builders merchants can source them. very easy to build with. they can be filled with cheap hardcore to the rear and faced up with decent stone to the front.

Thanks Thermo,

Would you recommend them instead of building a sleeper wall ?

What would you say are the pro's and con's of the different approaches ?

Thanks,
Chris

Hi ElBlanco
I have been on a similar journey to you it sounds. Am hoping to level my down-sloping lawn into two levels with retaining wall separating the two.

Want to do this myself (!) as have been quoted £6k by a landscaper. Have been through many many google "retaining wall" searches and considered the following...

- block wall with rendering. Cheap option but don't trust my wall building abilities

- wooden sleepers. Seems easier than building a wall but worry about how long wood will last and also the expense

- gabions. Feels like I've struck gold here in that they seem relatively cheap, easy to install etc.

Would love to hear how you got on with them!

Hi there,

In the end I went with a sleeper retaining wall and I'm very pleased with it. I used brand new pressure treated sleepers, so I'm hoping it will last a good ten years. I ordered a hundred sleepers via Ebay so got a good rate too.

If you're interested to see the end result, hopefully this link will work:

https://picasaweb.google.com/106771937189795881019/GardenProject

Cheers,

Chris