RETAINING WALLS IN COLORADO
Retaining walls are practical and beautiful elements to include in a landscape. They can help solve a variety of problems and offer unique planting opportunities as well. Get back to nature with an outdoor space that is both inviting and stylish. Our retaining wall systems are built to be extremely durable and resilient under even the most adverse environmental conditions.
What are retaining walls?
Retaining walls in Colorado are structures designed to restrain soil to unnatural slopes. They are used to bound soils between two different elevations often in areas of terrain possessing undesirable slopes or in areas where the landscape needs to be shaped severely and engineered for more specific purposes like hillside farming or roadway overpasses. Retaining walls prevent downslope movement or erosion and provide support for vertical or near-vertical grade changes. Retaining walls are generally made of masonry, stone, brick, concrete, vinyl, steel, or timber.
The most important consideration in proper design and installation of retaining walls is that the retained material is attempting to move forward and down slope due to gravity. This creates a lateral earth pressure behind the wall which depends on the angle of internal friction (phi) and the cohesive strength (c) of the retained material, as well as, the direction and magnitude of movement and retaining structure undergoes. Lateral earth pressures are typically smallest at the top of the wall and increase toward the bottom. Earth’s pressures will push the wall forward or overturn it if it is not properly addressed. Also, any groundwater behind the wall that is not dissipated by a drainage system causes an additional horizontal hydrostatic pressure on the walls.
The StoneMakers Retaining Wall Process:
Our technique for building retaining walls has been carefully developed over years of experience with concrete. The finished product is durable, affordabe, and customizable to any yard. It is unlike any other method available and we are ready to share our knowledge with you.