Retaining walls refer to structures that hold soil behind these and prevent both soil movement and erosion, especially when placed on sloping ground.
Retaining walls offer homeowners several aesthetic and practical benefits including boosting property value, offering structural slope retention, saving space, preventing water run-off, minimising disruption to an area's natural vegetation, and adding beauty to a property.
Although there are different types of retaining walls, professional landscape artists typically narrow down a homeowner's choices to five types, namely: gravity walls, cantilever retaining walls, sheet pile retaining walls, anchored retaining walls and counterfort retaining walls.
Before recommending a particular type of retaining wall to use in a property, the landscaping firm needs to assess a few important factors including the slope requirements, ground pressure and the appropriate height, width, size and depth of the wall in order to attain both balance and stabilisation.
Here's a brief description of the five most common types of retention walls used in the residential setting.
Gravity walls
Gravity walls are typically used to hold smaller slopes and rarely exceed the height of 1.21m. This retaining wall resists pressure by relying on its weight. They are built with their base thicker than the uppermost part and lean backwards against the slope.
Cantilever retaining walls
For tall slopes, one option that you can choose would be cantilever retaining walls. These retaining walls are built to have uniform thickness and the base is connected to
the slab.
Landscaping firms use steel reinforcement for the base of the wall's surface, allowing the retaining wall to support a substantial amount of earth. During the construction of the wall, careful attention should be given to the construction of the base in order to enable it to resist outward pressure.
Sheet pile retaining walls
Sheet pile or piling retaining walls are typically preferred when the use of wide barriers is not possible due to space constraints. Landscaping firms typically use vinyl, wood or steel planks to push and hold the soil.
When sheet pile retaining walls are installed, about 2/3 of the material is initially buried into the soil and adjusted accordingly depending on the conditions on the property. When taller retaining walls are required, the landscaping firm may use a tieback anchor which is placed behind the surface of the wall. The tieback anchor and the wall are held together by a cable.
Anchored retaining walls
Like sheet pile retaining walls, anchored retaining walls use cables to strengthen them. The cables are attached to the top and bottom of the surface and help ease pressure off the wall by providing stability.
Counterfort retaining walls
Counterfort retaining walls utilise thin vertical concrete webs, also called counterforts, which are installed at regular intervals at the back side of the wall. The main purpose of counterforts is to connect the top of the wall to the base in order to lessen shear forces and bending which is a common issue in cantilever walls.