Retaining Wall Failure

[Muhammad]

No, not my wall! But rather a new large housing development up on a hill just finished this retaining wall a few months ago... then the biggest rainfall we've seen in years in San Diego came. Could have been worse, I guess but then again this is a pretty big failure in my eyes.

The wall I installed right around the corner handled the rain with no issues. But then again it has 30 yards of crushed rock in it.

 

[MinnesotaEric]

They'll do it nice because they'll do it twice!

 

[Buppies]

Remember the low bidder put the wall in sometimes wonder what they left out. Could be poor engineering or maybe just Mother Nature. Thanks for posting

 

[Tomtint]

If it gets much worse, the wall behind it will be compromised as well.

 

[groundcover]

Had me worried there for a moment, thought it was going to be your project !

 

[Hay Dude]

Looks like a failure of erosion/water control from up above, too. Also, it kinda looks like the wall is still under construction, or needed completed drain tile and backfilling? Maybe it would have survived if either of those were completed?
Kind of hard to tell, but the huge amount of erosion and washout under the silt fence says a lot.

 

[erikjohn67]

Those walls require the soil or rock ballast behind them with force on the back of the blocks to keep them in place in locked together. If that is removed the wall will fall over backwards, which is what you see there.

Major rainfall clearly washed out the dirt behind the wall and that is what contributed to the failure and it was not an issue with the ones backfilled with rock.

 

[dodge man]

There are all sorts of products to tie retaining walls into to the dirt behind them. I can’t tell if any were used or if they just stacked the blocks. There should also be some drainage rock behind the wall. You can get by stacking blocks like that a few high and hold the dirt back been you start getting that high it takes a lot more work.

 

[Muhammad]

Looks like a failure of erosion/water control from up above, too. Also, it kinda looks like the wall is still under construction, or needed completed drain tile and backfilling? Maybe it would have survived if either of those were completed?
Kind of hard to tell, but the huge amount of erosion and washout under the silt fence says a lot.

Building code here would have required mesh to be installed on multiple rows as the wall was built and backfilled plus crushed rock and irrigation pipe. Had that been done and the irrigation ultimately terminated into the street storm drain flow, I don't know why it would have failed like this. I guess at a certain point enough water will erode just about anything.

 

[Hay Dude]

How did they get away without inspections or codes being enforced? Pretty “out in the open” visible project.
If theres code enforcement issues, you would think they wold have stopped work on it?