Concrete walls and retaining walls in Vancouver, WA

Retaining walls and garden walls

Retaining walls turn a slope into flat, usable yard. Shorter walls frame planting beds and keep soil and bark off your driveway, walkway or patio. A poured wall can run straight or follow a curve, and it won’t shift or bulge the way stacked block or timber can.

Drainage behind the wall

Water is the biggest enemy of a retaining wall. Rain soaks into the soil behind it and pushes. A good wall has drain rock behind it and a way for water to get out, so the pressure never builds up. With the rain we get in Clark County, this part can’t be skipped.

Taller walls

Walls over about 4 feet tall, or walls holding up a driveway or a building, usually need an engineered design and a permit. If your project needs that, we’ll tell you at the estimate.

How a poured wall is built

A poured wall starts with a footing dug below it. Steel goes into the footing and up into the wall, then the forms are set and braced so they stay straight while the concrete goes in. Once the wall has cured and the forms come off, drain rock and a drain pipe go in behind it before the soil is backfilled, like the wall in our photos.

Walls with driveways and patios

A low wall along a driveway keeps bark and soil in the bed and gives the edge of the concrete a clean line. Next to a patio, a wall at the right height doubles as extra seating. Pouring the wall and the slab as one project lets them line up and drain together.