Building rockery walls

[snoboy]

Does anyone have experience doing this and if so any words of wisdom.
My project is a 4 foot wall apx. 40' in length. I have a Branson backhoe with thumb.

 

[wfish]

Having just placed some 20 ton of stone around our place, I can add some thoughts.

1: Make sure to use appropriate sized stone. In our case, I used what is called "dry stack" ie. bed depths over 12 inches. It's essential to use substantial sizes to provide enough support. You'll have to use your backhoe and thumb to handle this material.

2: Scatter all your stone across a open space so you can quickly find the right rock to fit the next section of the wall. You don't want to just whatever stone is next in the stack.

3: Bed the base layers in several inches of sand and pack firmly around the stone. Backfill behind the stone as you build the wall up. I think four feet is about the height limit to building rock walls in the manner.

Hope that helps. Some pictures will follow.

 

[wfish]

4 foot high wall in driveway island

 

[wfish]

2'-3' walls around flower beds

 

[wfish]

Stone slabs steps and 2' wall around entry

 

[russG]

Great looking place. When can i more in?

 

[EddieWalker]

I've done a little work with rock years ago, but not allot.

I found that I could get twice the material out of some rocks by scoring them with a masonay blade in my circular saw and breaking them in half.

I also liked to put mortor in the back of some of the rocks that wobbled or didn't fit real tight on their own. Some rocks just have an awkward bulge on them that don't line up well with others. Just put some morter in the back and it's nice and solid, but you don't see the ugly mortor from the viewing side.

Eddie

 

[Highbeam]

I have built plenty 4 foot rockeries. 4' is the limit of when you need a building permit in my area. I use half man quarry rock which weigh 50-100 lbs. Mine were dark basalt. It cost a penny a pound and I used truckloads.

-Use a 6:1 batter meaning a 6' wall needs to be sloped back into the bank one foot.

-A rock wall is for erosion control, not a retaining wall, so be sure that the ground is stable.

-I keyed the bottom row half a rock deep and then worked in rows. After each row was done I would backfill the wall to the top of that row.

-Your fingers will hurt. You will lift each rock 5 times before you're done. You will notice your rock placement improves about half way through the job from skill and then gets worse as you run out of good square rocks.

-Using a machine is cheating. But if you do, bigger rock goes in faster but looks less cool.

-Keep the kids off the wall. They'll knock the top rows loose.

 

[snoboy]

Thanks for the replys guys.
Highbeam thats outstanding advice! It all makes sense what your telling me. Yes, the area is stable and established. Its just washing and sluffing so I need to control it and add some aesthetics as well. If a 1/2 man is 50-100 lbs how much does a 1 man weigh? Is 1/2 man about right for a 4' wall regarding appearence?

snoboy

 

[dmccarty]

Snoboy,

Make sure you check your local building codes.

Four feet is kinda tall for me. I would be concerned with how much earth is behind the wall? How much water is going to move through the wall? Does the wall need deadmen/tiebacks?

I drystacked riprap to make raised beds at our old house. The tallest wall was maybe two feet tall. I just drystacked and then filled with dirt. It worked fine. Since the wall was not holding back a hill I did not bury the first course or two in a trench. I think the rip rap I used was $13/$15 a ton. I hand loaded it in the truck at the quarry and unloaded by hand as well. I would pick a mixture of rock shapes that I learned by experience would lock togather. Square rocks are good but so are trianguler ones. I would get realy big heavy rocks. Rocks I could not move today as well as smaller rocks.

This was cheap to do but it took time.

I build a retaining wall foundation for our barn. This took more time to get the trench done and the first row of blocks placed. But one the first row was in it goes very quickly. This takes more money than rip rap. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

What kills retain wall is water which causes the earth and thus the wall to move. If you look at the retainng wall block mfg websites they had pretty good info one how to handle the water and earth movement. The stuff I used specified the use of geotextile fabric to hold the wall in place.

Later,
Dan