Building a Timber Retaining Wall

To construct a timber retaining wall, start by digging a trench across the type of where your wall is going to be. The trench ought to be roughly the depth and width from the timbers you'll be using to construct the wall. If you want space to operate around the back side from the wall, search that space out before beginning building the wall. Make use of a line level to level the floor in which the timbers will lay.

Put the first row of timbers flat within the trench. After the first row of timbers is laid across the trench begin stacking your next row of timbers. Stagger the finishes from the timbers to make sure a powerful wall. Attach each layer of timbers towards the layer below it with spikes (8 inch lengthy 60D nails). Timber retaining walls are made upright - not slanted like stone walls - so keep an amount or plumb handy while you stack them.

Timber Tie-Backs

In case your wall is going to be greater than about 18 inches use tie-back timbers every eight or ten ft on various levels to secure your wall upright and make certain it won't fall forward because of the continual pressure exerted upon it from behind (top failure). To include a tie-back timber, simply lay one timber verticle with respect to another timbers however with its length stretching in to the area that'll be back filled. Once the area has returned filled this timber will behave as an anchor to carry the wall in position and be sure your timber retaining wall can last.

Timbers U . s . into One Structure

Taking care of of my retaining wall design that is a quite different from others you might see is the fact that I favor to unite the whole timber retaining wall membrane with re-bar driven up and down through all of the timbers and in to the ground using a hole that's drilled through all of the retaining wall timbers once they are totally stacked. The re-bar should fit tightly in to the drilled hole.

This task may be an overkill however i like strong items that lasts a very long time. An alternate but similar technique is they are driving re-bar with the bottom 2 or 3 layers once the wall is all about half-built after which connect the underside timbers to the peak layers when the top layers are added (see pictures).

Use Correctly Treated Quality Timbers

Some books and sites will recommend that you employ "garden timbers" (individuals cheap ones with two round sides and 2 flat edges) to construct a retaining wall however i strongly advise against that practice because "garden timbers" are usually produced from the least expensive bits of wood leftover from producing other lumber or plywood and contain mostly heartwood which doesn't accept pressure remedies. They'll most likely be heavily rotted inside a couple of many will rapidly fail.

Creating a timber retaining wall is effort so use timbers which will last. You may even think about using timbers having a vinyl or polymer coating. American Pole and Timber is really a trustworthy company that ships quality timbers countrywide while offering a couple of kinds of vinyl films which will make wood last virtually forever.