Retaining wall installation in Mansfield, MA

A retaining wall holds back the weight of wet soil, so it's the one hardscape where the hidden work is almost all of the job. A wall is only as good as its base course, its drainage and what's behind it. Get those right and the face is the easy part.

A retaining wall is a simple machine: it takes the push of wet soil and sends it down into the ground instead of letting it tip the face. That is why the base course is buried and compacted before anything else, and why the drainage behind the wall matters as much as the stone you see. A wall built without them looks fine for a season and then starts to lean.

Height drives everything else. A short garden wall can be stacked on a good base and set back as it rises. As the wall gets taller, or holds up a driveway or a surcharge, the loads climb quickly and the design questions grow with them. We will tell you plainly when a wall belongs with an engineer rather than guess at it.

The finish is where a wall stops feeling like a barrier and starts feeling like part of the yard. Caps, steps and seat walls built into the same run turn a retaining wall into a place to sit, and tying the stone to the house means the yard reads as one design instead of a patch of work against a wall.

• A level, compacted base course the rest of the wall sits on
• Drainage stone and a path for water behind the wall, not against it
• Geogrid or batter as the height and soil load call for
• Caps, steps and seat walls detailed to match the house