u/SocraticLogic

Hi Landscapers,

My wife and I purchased a house in the woods, which is below a sloped dirt road. The house came with a retaining wall made of wooden timbers that were tarred / treated in some form.

One of my neighbors who has been in the area for some time said he noticed the wall has shifted a bit, and the haphazardly placed metal bars has started to tear/bow. (See pictures).

Naturally, I wouldn’t have built a wall this way. We get a lot of rain. We get a lot of snow. That wall holds in the upper driveway and cars park on it. Building that wall in this climate out of a biodegradable material is the opposite of wise. But as I don’t have the luxury of debating that wisdom now, my goal is to rectify this issue from becoming a larger problem. A collapse of this wall would instantly make me mayor of Sadsville.

My primary question is time. How dodgy does this look to yall? I mean it’s obviously “not a stellar solution,” but do you think a structural failure is potentially imminent if it’s shifting a bit? (I’m inclined to think no, but I don’t know what I don’t know). Do I have a year? Five? Ten? Thoughts are greatly appreciated.

At the moment, here’s my current plan: I went to my steel shop and picked up 140’ of 2x4” steel channel (5/16”) cut into 7’ sections which I am planning on mounting vertically every few feet with 5” exterior 1/4 legs screwed into the timbers. This will prevent bowing or shifting. It’s very beefy channel. That will be the stopgap. My plan after is to weld horizontal channel bar over that vertical channel bar to create a cage, build a rebar mesh on top of that, pour a nice and wide footing around the base (30x60”), which would be anchored with two dozen galvanized steel fence poles driven down five feet or so into the soil (which I can’t excavate without compromising the integrity of the wall). Once cured, I’d then pour a sloped wall on top of the footing base that’s tapered - 2’ at the top, 4’ at the bottom). Yes, I know this will be quite a few cubic meters of concrete. But the thing about steel reinforced concrete is it keeps its promises and it need that promise kept. 😅

I don’t like Reddit. I think the only thing I dislike more than Reddit is traffic. Yet the only thing I dislike more than both at once is being wrong. Which I was, spectacularly, when I posted this yesterday: https://www.reddit.com/r/Bellingham/comments/1v1yfx9/psa\_merge\_when\_you\_know\_you\_have\_to\_dont\_use\_the/

So, if I5 is closed and one lane is closed, and there’s a line of people single file - miles ahead of you - pass them, and merge at the end. They’re doing it wrong.

Teachable moment as this is, especially to yours truly, it might be a good thing to have signs up there so the people doing the counter-intuitive thing (at least to those inclined to not cut queues) can be informed that the correct protocol is to use all lanes. My next question would have been “so the folks in the left lane are just suckers, eh?” Well, apparently the answer is yes. Damn.

And no, I have no intention of deleting the prior post. If I’m wrong I’m wrong and I’ll leave it up as a testament to what happens when you place too much confidence in misplaced belief.

I stand corrected.