Retaining wall ideas Needed - steep slope with only top access

PILOON · Jan 12, 2015

"I could take a huge risk and just do stuff and hope no one measures, however the penalties are severe and a neighbor just got fined $70k+ for clearing trees in the buffer area (they take it pretty seriously here). Given that I'm going to go by the letter and be really careful."

My buddy received a hand delivered fine for $60,000. on a Monday just 5 days before going to court for environmental issues relating to land fill issues.
His land fill area is like 500 ft from the river bed.
He went to court on the designated date and the environment guys never showed up so he won the case. (still cost $$ lawyer fees however)
The main claim was that he could affect the fishes in the river should a land slide happen. (A river is polluted and no fishes anyway) (B The existing land slide is on the neighbor property and existing for over 20 years (time stamped aerial photos prove the issue) and further more due to clay deposits ther are many slides in the area.
To add to the issues waterways are a federal jurisdiction and the fines were emanating from the province.
Get this; they demanded engineering reports as to the weight of his buildings and the effects the weight could effect land slides. (they are all shells on re-enforced slabs)
Since they lost he awaits the next attempt of harassment.
(It is because the city simply does not like his business profile,( public storage facility) and they'd prefer a high class hotel/motel or restaurant as the location is prime real estate.)

As to trees, even dead trees must remain as the little birdies like to nest in them. Squirrels also to nest in the hollows . (local bylaw)
Most of us now practice cut, bury, burn and don't tell.

tractchores · Jun 12, 2015

Reviving an old thread to provide an update. I decided that I don't really need a fancy structural wall, just something that lets me level out the flower bed. I ended up doing the work myself (seems like a major pain to get a contractor to even show up around here right now).

I went with a timber wall installed where the hill started to drop off. I ended up being able to get the BH close enough to do the digging and did a combo of lifting soil up and pushing it down, which created a bit of a ledge on the hillside so I'd have a place to stand and place the wall. I installed the wall last week, due to access much of the work had to be done by hand. Thankfully I only hit 2 large rocks, both small enough for the BH to move, but too big to budge by hand.

The basic design was 8' 6"x6" PT timbers with deadmen every 8' and backfilled against the wall with gravel and a drain pipe before topping and levellin with loam. It turned out to be 70' long and 30" tall. I also burried a row and attacked it to the hill by hammering in 2' rebar sections.

I'll try to post some pics shortly

tractchores · Jun 12, 2015

The photo levels it out a bit, but there's a very steep drop on one side and the pool on the other. In the middle the wall needed almost no backfill, on the ends it needed a lot.

Close up of the deadmen. They were 2 - 3 feet with 15 - 20" cross bars.

The whole wall is curved, which made it very challenging to stagger the joints. I ended up trimming with a chainsaw to make it all smooth in the front, though no one will ever see that angle

A good view of the side hill this is on. The soil is very loose, though I got down to a harder base for the wall. I'll need to go back and level out the ledge on the downhill side of the wall so it doesn't hold water and gives me a level area I can trim the brush back on to keep vines from coming over the wall.

The top of the wall and the pool deck should be more or less level with each other, though I didn't go crazy with lining it up. I will grade the soil to be slightly below the level of the pool deck to keep water and debris from running from the flower bed into the pool area.

Final backfill with gravel. It took about 6 tons of gravel on top of a 4" perforated pipe. There should be minimal water retention behind the wall, but I wanted to also try to minimize how much frost moves it.