Hey Frank,

Sheet pile requires drive machinery of some sort, either a drop hammer
style pile driver, or the newer hydraulic "shakers". The hydraulics
are favoured for lots of reasons, including ease of use (precise
alignment) and possibly just as an attachment on a back-hoe (rather
than a crawler), and the ability to pull out the sheet piling if
necessary.

The sheet must be forced into virgin material for a fair distance. If
it is not deep enough, the bottom will "kick out" some time in the
future, dependant on lots of weather specifics at location. One
advantage to the interlocking type sheet pile is that it can follow a
segmented curved line.

Take care.

Brian Lawson,
Bothwell, Ontario.
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On Wed, 26 Oct 2005 18:39:57 -0700, Frank J Warner
wrote:

Finishing up my house. Back yard is last thing I have to do. It's got a
hillside that slopes down maybe 20 degrees to the back my house. I need
to put retaining walls to keep this hillside from ending up in my
bedroom during next year's heavy rain.

This evening, while taking my walk, I followed a dry creekbed that had
been shored up in places with heavy guage galvanized corrugated sheet
metal. Looks very much like this stuff:

http://www.cajunmarineconstruction.c...ing_Walls.html

It actually looked pretty good to me, as I tend to go with
non-traditional landscape treatments wherever I can get away with it. I
liked the industrial feel, and it looked like the metal walls had been
in place for at least a couple of decades with little or no corrosion.

The stuff is perfect for my application, but I don't have any
experience with it. Especially whether it's something a handy guy could
install himself, or even where to buy it within a reasonable distance
of my house (California Central Coast).

Anybody ever work with this stuff?

-Frank