Link Blocks mortarless walls
Today there are firms that specialize in building mortar-less retaining walls. So, not all concrete walls require fresh cement to build them, since these concrete blocks are made to be laid, like the one in this photo and many others, check with the link in this section, if you want.
Link Block Mortar-less Walls
Link Block Mortar-less Retaining Wall Blocks
This is a different type of retaining walls
made with dry blocks, the mortar is not required, it is a low wall easy to
build, so, most people can do it themselves. Now let me tell you this, on the
internet I have found this local supplier who has placed a few short videos how
to build these walls; the videos are at the bottom of the page, please use the
link here-under, I reckon it is worth to watch them, if you want to build any
retaining walls. As I have said this is only a local supplier in Brisbane
Australia, therefore, the same materials may not be available where you are
living, but by watching these videos you are going to learn something useful
anyhow.
No need for Mortar
So, I hope you have used the link above and
you have been able to see the videos. Anyhow, whatever you have learned can be
helpful one day.
And now I want to explain a certain situation
that I have come across while I was writing this hub.
Let me
explain the situation.
Dear readers this article was supposed to be about retaining
walls, but as it happens I was forced to change that name because it was
already taken in Hub Pages, so do not aspect that all the retaining walls
described here are suitable to do it yourself, because we have named our article,
DIY Retaining walls, because the retaining walls that we are going to describe
hereunder are not easy to build, so, they are jobs for trades people, but if you
feel that you can do it then have a go, sometimes a bit of challenge is good
for you. Now that we have explained the situation let me continue to describe
how to build a garden rock retaining wall.
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Building a garden rock retaining wall.
To build a garden rock wall as shown in the picture is a lot
harder than you think, and you need to know how to go about it, you see, you
need to have a good eye to see how the rocks that you have can fit together to
make a wall. There are a few ways how to do this depending how tall the wall is
going to be and lots of other things.
You see, if you have only a very low wall you can just lay
one single rock one after another, or two rocks one on top of another making
sure that you choose the best face to show at the top and at the front, the
other part of the rock can be hidden in the ground, or at the back since you
are backfilling behind the wall; in this case it is not necessary to use any
concrete, as the stones can be laid dry, but if you want you can use concrete.
Before you start the wall, you must dig all the grass and
loose soil, even if your wall is going to be low. If the wall is going to be in
a place where the ground is slopping down, make sure that you dig at least a
few inches into the solid natural ground, so that the wall you are building can
sit on firm natural ground, so, your wall is not going to slope down the first
heavy rain you have after building.
Now, in this example, we are building a low stone wall and
we are not going to use anything to bind the wall together, so, there is no
cement or anything else between the stones, in this case because there is
nothing to stop the rainwater to run between the stones you don’t need to worry
about drainage. You see, one of the greatest problems with retaining walls is
the water that can build behind them, the water and wet soil puts pressure on
the wall and if the water cannot get out the wall is going to fail.
Now it is helpful to have a look at some stone retaining
wall, and for this reason in mind I have found this link in the Internet; so,
have a look at the pictures in this link; www.australianrockwalls.com.au/ there are several types of stone
walls, now you can start thinking how and why they have been built that way.
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Deciding to
build your own rock wall.
You needed more space, because you wanted to build a car
port, and put a trampoline for the kids. So, you have been digging in the
backyard, and finally you are satisfied that they can fit them in the space you
have made. But now you have this bank that stands almost vertical in the
backyard, it looks ugly, and you know that when the first heavy rain comes it
is going to start washing it down, and worse still it may collapse. So, you
think of building a retaining wall to hold the soil up.
For this reason, you have had a couple of quotes and had a
good talk to the contractors as you did not want to spend more money that was
strictly necessary, they did their best but still you cannot afford to pay the
full price, beside you did that, you found that if you lay a dry stone wall, ether you
have to use stones that have been cut at the quarry and they cost a lot, or you
have to have a rock wall with a wider base and this is going to take away some
of the space you created when you dug, so really you need to think about it.
So, you have decided to build the stone retaining wall
yourself, what you have decided is that you are going to build an hybrid stone
wall, which you believe can do the job without costing too much; therefore, you
have looked for a rock supplier and ask for prices of the different materials
you may need, because you think that you can afford it, if you do the job
yourself.
By pure chance you have learned from the blokes that have
given you the prices, how many cubic meters of rocks you need and other things
that you were not sure before; well done sometimes in the building game things
work out this way, you learn a bit from here a bit from there and then you can
decide what to do with the information you have collected. There is nothing
wrong for doing this, unless you do it purposely to learn something, but if it
does not work out, then it is okay to use what you have learned from them.
I have to say that it has been done to me many times and
that I have done this myself; not only on quoting but also in buying something
new, if I have to buy something that I have never used before, I go to at least
three places and inquiry about it, by asking the right questions not only I
learn how much it is going to cost me, but I have learned how to use whatever I
was going to buy in the first place, of course, I end up buying from one of
them what I wanted to buy in the first place; sometimes I call this let me go
first to spy and then to buy, I know that some of these people are going to
feel a bit hurt, for using their time for nothing, but so what, sometimes you
win and sometimes you lose, as I have said it has been done to me as well and I
have felt a bit hurt, when I had to spend some time working out a price to
build something, and at the end I did not get the job, so, I spent all that
time for nothing, but that is life and we should accept the outcome whichever
way it goes. Anyhow, now let us go back to building the rock wall.
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Building the
hybrid rock wall.
This hybrid wall that we are going to build is a big job, it
starts at the same level, as we have dug the ground approximately level, but
because we are building the wall only to the height of the natural ground
level, it is going to start from almost nothing and at the highest point will
be 1.8 meter, it is really two walls that meet and forms a square at the
highest point.
Here we must say that today some people think that this
should not be done, as this is neither a rock wall nor a concrete masonry wall,
as it mixes about everything, but so what, if it is convenient, why not do it?
I must say that in my life time I have built walls like this with whatever was
available on the site; and I mean everything in fact I was using stones that
were laying in this small creek bed and pieces of concrete that we had broken
to do some alterations and old bricks, some concrete and some mortar, this has
happened a few year ago and last time I have seen the owner he said that the
wall is still there. So, most things can be done if you know that it has got a
good chance to last a long time.
Let us go back to build our hybrid rock wall. Now, to build
this wall you need a few cubic meter of rocks, because you want the wall to
look as a rock wall, you don’t need very big rocks or special size rocks,
because you can use the cement wherever necessary to fill the gaps and this is
good, since the cement is less costly, you need a mixer, you need some gravel,
sand and cement; and of course, you must have the tools to do the job.
You got all this on site, and you can start to build. First
of all, drive a couple of pegs in the ground, exactly where you want the face
of the wall to be, tie and stretch a line on these pegs and see any adjustment
that you need to do before you start laying the first stone. What you are
looking for here is that the bank you are going to build the wall against has
been dug straight, it is almost vertical or a few degrees sloping, you have dug
a shallow foundation, because you want the wall to be strong and last for a
long time, so, you are satisfied that the foundation is going to be solid
enough, since it is well below the original natural ground, therefore, it can
hold a lot of weight and pressure, because the ground is very compact.
You have done all this, you have set the pegs again so that
your wall is set to be at least 10” thick overall, you have chosen this
thickness because most of the large rocks seem to be that thick, so now you are
ready to lay the first course of stones, mix a few batches of concrete and lay
it in the foundation and then before this concrete sets lay the first course of
stones on this concrete making sure that the bottom of the stones are below
ground level, so that the entire stone wall seems to start from below the
ground; once you have done that you can fill the back of the stone with
concrete a bit above ground level but below the full height of the stones,
because you want to leave enough room to lay next course of stone easily. Now
the wall is all set to go, but we need to reset how we must continue and
complete the hybrid rock wall, the right way with the right lean against the
bank. You need to lean the wall against the bank, so that the weight of your
wall by itself adds strength to the wall.
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Completing
the hybrid rock wall.
So, before we build this retaining wall, we must work out
how much lean against the bank we want, here we must keep in mind, how tall and
how thick is the wall, we don’t want the wall to lean too much and rely only on
the dirt behind it to hold it back, but at the same time we want to lean it
against the bank so that the weight of the wall is used to hold the dirt back.
Here we must go back to look at what happens if you lean a
monolithic object to the point it is going to fall; what happens here is that
the monolithic object is going to fall, only after its centre of gravity falls
outside the area of the base. Now we don’t want to go this far, and we don’t
want to use the centre of gravity to decide that, but we are going to lean the
wall about two third of the thickness, so that the very top layer is still
vertically one third of its thickness above the base; we believe that it is
very safe to go this far and the wall would stand up even if we don’t backfill
it. Anyhow, in our case we are not going to backfill it, because we have cut
the bank exactly as the wall is going to be, you see we are going to use the
bank as a template, so, we believe that most of the wall does not need to be backfill it at all.
Now that we know how much we are going to lean the wall; we
are setting a leaning profile on every corner leaning approximately 10 to 12
centimetres per metre and we are ready to resume building our hybrid rock wall.
But there is still another important thing to work out; we need to make sure
that when it rains the water that seeps behind the wall can run out, so, we must
leave a way to drain this water out and at this level is the right place to do
that, so, we choose a few spots about a meter apart and mark them, then when
you lay next course of stones make sure that you leave a space between the
stones that the water can run out, you must also leave the back free of
abstractions for a course or two around this space, so, in this space after
laying the front stone, just lay some smaller stones dry against the bank to
stop the concrete blocking the drain, then you can resume to concrete the lot. Alternatively,
you can lay a few short pieces of pipe across the wall for drainage, but you
have still to make sure that they are clear of any obstruction at the back near
the bank.
So, now you can go back to mix some cement to lay your
stones, you can mix a batch of river sand four to one that you can lay between
the rocks to give them a bit of grip, you are laying the rocks in a straight
line that you have tied on the profiles, when you do that make sure that this
cement does not come too far forward, because you still want the rock wall to
look like a rock wall, at the same time do not forget that you have to leave
these spaces with no cement at all for the seepage where you have marked, after
you have used the batch of river sand and cement and laid say a course of
rocks, you can mix one or two batch of concrete to fill the back of the stones,
then you repeat this procedure until you build the entire wall.
At the top of the wall, because the wall in not going to be
level, you may have to do some adjustment to follow the height of the ground,
here you have to use common sense the best way you can, if you happen to have
enough wide and long rocks that can be used for a coping, use them to finish
your wall, if not, just use your common sense and use anything that is
available, even if it is going to be a strip of concrete in the back of the
wall, so that all the wall is tied up.
I hope I have explained well enough for you to follow my way of building this hybrid rock wall. Here I want to add that this is just one way out of several other ways that can be used. A lot depends how the bank has been cut and if it follows very closely the shape of the wall, so, you can use it as if it is formwork, but if there is going to be some back filling to be done, you may have to consider some temporary formwork that can be easily removed before you backfill. All these things can vary from job to job, and if you see that it is hard to build your hybrid rock wall, then you must consider other ways to build your retaining wall.
This blog is becoming too long, so we will write another blog retaining walls and why we need these retaining walls. So, see you soon. to see more klick on this link, DIY Retaining walls..
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