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Adam
 
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Default Building a retaining wall next to house wall.

"stuart noble" wrote in message ...
-8- snip -8-

I've seen this done with a series of four sided brick troughs, leaving an
inch or so clearance behind, and random distances between them. A single
structure may be vulnerable to frost expansion, especially if the soil is
heavy. I can't see that you'd need an expansion joint between the house wall
and the footings over a 50cm span, or a fall for that matter. There isn't
going to be surface water running towards the house.
I have a raised bed over a similar length, but only 3 bricks high, so it has
no footings other than a 4th brick underground. Works really well and saves
the old back a bit.


Thanks for the response, Stuart. It sounds like I've totally
over-engineered it from the description of your retaining wall; ours
probably isn't going to be much higher.

In the end (as your response hadn't appeared by the time I started
work) I shuttered the first ~120mm of the trench nearest the house
wall, laid rubble, then gravel, then sand in the bottom (to a depth of
about 150mm), then laid a 150mm deep concrete footing with the rods
from the iron fence supporting it and exposed by about 200mm out of
the top. I plan to fill the 120mm shuttered gap with gravel when the
shuttering comes out. Hopefully that will be plenty strong enough and
will drain well...

Cheers - Adam.