ideas on retaining wall

[toryboy1979]

Hi

I would welcome advice/ideas on a small problem I will encounter when I build the perimeter wall around the house which is currently under construction..

The land has a sugar cane crop on one side and an unmade road on the other side. The land I am building on has been raised by about one and a half metres. The result of raising is that there is now a ditch on one side between the sugar cane land and on the other side the land falls away to the unmade road.

My wife and her family are insistent that the perimeter wall is built right up to the land boundary because they say if we do not do this the land on the sugar cane side and road side of the perimeter wall is lost by default. However whilst having little or no building expertise, I do believe that without some improvement to the land, any perimeter wall built without improvement will collapse when the earth on the outside of both sides is washed away by the rain over time.

I think a retaining wall on both sides would resolve the problem, but having done that what do we fill into the space between the retaining wall and our land - rubble, stones, earth or concrete. Building it up to a height about half a metre below the level of the current surface and then using a cement base upon which to build the perimeter wall. Or am I making it too complicated and there is a simpler way.

All sensible contributions will be most welcomed.

Many thanks

[Torrens54]

Make sure you get all the Written Permission from the Local "Mafia" after you no doubt have to pay an "appropriate fee."

My wife wanted a small retaining wall built along the edge of a small creek at the back of our house. The Creek Bank is overgrown and a real mess, so we had it cleaned up and a small retaining wall built. We filled in the gap between the wall and the creek bank and it looked very nice.

I had strongly suggested to "she who knows all" that we should first get the Official Okay and pay the FEE. She told me we didn't need to worry.

Yep... the "nice" little man from the council came by and told her she couldn't do what she had done, he then promptly sent in a Back-hoe to rip the Retaining Wall down and we got a bill for 20 K.

Sure, we SHOULD have offered to pay a "Late Fee" or something but by this time, wife had her knickers in a twist and didn't want any part of any negotiations.

[FarmerJoe]

How about Earthbags? Cheap and easy.

[casualbiker]

Make sure you get all the Written Permission from the Local "Mafia" after you no doubt have to pay an "appropriate fee."

My wife wanted a small retaining wall built along the edge of a small creek at the back of our house. The Creek Bank is overgrown and a real mess, so we had it cleaned up and a small retaining wall built. We filled in the gap between the wall and the creek bank and it looked very nice.

I had strongly suggested to "she who knows all" that we should first get the Official Okay and pay the FEE. She told me we didn't need to worry.

Yep... the "nice" little man from the council came by and told her she couldn't do what she had done, he then promptly sent in a Back-hoe to rip the Retaining Wall down and we got a bill for 20 K.

Sure, we SHOULD have offered to pay a "Late Fee" or something but by this time, wife had her knickers in a twist and didn't want any part of any negotiations.

So you built on someone else's land?

[cooked]

It's not like that everywhere in Thailand. Take no notice of these doom sayers and talk to your village head if you have doubts about what you want to do. Get the chanotes sorted out if they aren't already.

Your original suggestion is a bit dodgy, I can't see any advantage over building a retaining wall to the required height at the start. You might need an engineer for designing that, you will feed better.

[blackcab]

It's probably cheaper to put some posts in, add cement blocks in between the posts and see what happens. If it falls over in 10 years time set the posts again and reuse the blocks.

Labour and cement are cheap.

[Crossy]

This is our retaining wall, about 2m of fill next to the canal.

http://crossy.co.uk/HouseBuilding/RetainingWall/RetainingWall.html

Since you are dry you likely won't need the long piles, it's worth talking to a local contractor to see what he recommends.

Our wall is still there 5 years later, we filled behind with regular ground fill which dropped somewhat during the 2011 flooding, and even more during the 2015 drought