Dangerous wall question

[Big G]

There is a wall on the boundary of our property and this wall is in a dangerous condition.

I believe that we are responsible for the upkeep of the wall (our house was built in 1934 and the eight houses alongside the side of the house are 1940’s).

The wall varies in height from about 3 feet high at the rear of the back garden to 7 feet at the back of the front garden to a pile of rubble behind a hedge at the very front of the front garden.

I noticed this morning that part of the 7 foot high section had fallen over and landed where we normally keep the car (Fortunately we can’t get the car all the way up the drive because of a skip). This means that the urgency for replacing the wall has now increased somewhat.

I was going to replace the wall with a fence. This is where the problem is. Two of the eight gardens have compost heaps leaning against the wall – hopefully a friendly visit will sort this. One of the other gardens has been built up over the last 60 odd years though so that the whole garden slopes up to the wall. The wall is retaining about 4 foot height of garden. As mentioned though, this slopes UP to the wall over about a sixty foot length. It’s a bit strange as the gardens either side are level with my garden.

So, what to do? I don’t feel that I can approach this neighbour and ask him/her to level their garden. A retaining wall seems the only option (to retain 4 foot height of soil sloping UP to the wall – presumably this means that there will be less pressure on the wall).

If I build (or get built) a wall, it can either be visible or behind a fence. I saw on some house programme a retaining wall built of breezeblock laid flat with the length of the block going front to back. This was used for quite a height (about 10 or 15 feet). Is this a possible way of retaining a pile of soil?

Another option is to build a raised border in front of this particular bit of wall. I’ll come back to this though.


Cheers

G

 

[JohnD]

As regards the compost heaps - if you are going to build a fence with slotted concrete posts (which I strongly recommend) then you can get concrete gravel boards, which stop the wooden parts touching the ground and going rotten.

Where you (or your neiighbour) has a compost heap, you can put several of these gravel boards in, up to the height of the heap. I expect your neighbours will mostly have the sense not to make your fence rot by piling compost against it, but you never know

You can paint the concrete parts with dark brown masonry paint to tone with the fence stain, it blends in well and I think it looks quite attactive.

"here's one I did earlier"

The concrete gravel boards will hold back a modest amount of soil but are not as strong as a wall

 

[Static]

4ft retained is quite large for a brick wall, but not by no means impossible. It will require additional brickwork below ground and a larger footing.