Probably the best way of getting an idea of how to do the job right is to
visit the web sites of a few manufacturers of special blocks engineered for
retaining walls and see what is involved and then realized that your stone
wall has to be designed even better since it is not using engineered blocks.
Celtic and Anchor are 2 popular blocks. Or get a book on retaining walls
and hire an engineer. You will be surprised by how much is involved in
doing it right. The drainage gravel needs to be wrapped in special fabric
to keep dirt out. I also wrap the pipe too. And you will need horizontal
anchors (possible fabric) to keep the wall from coming down. Also when
considering wall height, the underground portion is counted so your wall
will be probably 4 feet high.




wrote in message
ups.com...
My goal is to remove the slope that ends about a foot from the side of
my barn which will allow for easier access around that side of the barn
as well as drainage. My plan is to excavate the dirt up to 8ft from the
barn wall and install a rock wall with drainage behind it. The wall
will vary in height - at most 36" and allow the rain water to run into
the drain and out to my ditch. The total length of the wall will be
roughly 60ft. I was planning on excavating to level (if not slightly
higher at the barn wall) and then dig down tocreating a 12" deep trench
12" wide against the earth wall. In the trench, I will lay down a
couple inches of drainrock and then lay in the perfpipe (planning on
4"-6" pvc) fill with some more drain rock a few inches higher then lay
down some mesh to keep dirt out of the pipe holes, then backfill with
more drainrock. At this point, I would lay the first course of basalt
quarry rock (2 man small's) just in front of the trench and backfill
with mixed 5/8 minus. i would then repeat this setting the next course
back somewhat towards the slope. More backfill and so on until the 36"
height is met.

My questions are how does this plan sound overall, is there anything
you would do differently or add? Should I add any sort of landscape
cloth behind the rocks or plastic to keep the water from seeping out or
would that create too much pressure? On a wall of this height should I
place any rocks perpendicular that would sit back to the ground
formation and backfill over them? I guess this should add more strength
to the wall..

Thanks for any feedback,
bigballer