Retaining Wall Repair in Ely, IA
Cedar Rapids Retaining Walls works Ely, Iowa. Retaining wall repair, rebuilds, timber wall replacement, boulder and stone walls, drainage correction, terracing, and new wall construction. We work licensed and insured under Iowa rules.
Ely is a small bedroom town on the flatter ground south of the city, a short run down Ely Road. Flat ground does not mean no walls. It means the walls here were made rather than found. Somebody cut a patio into a slight rise, raised a bed to get soil depth, squared off a drive, or built a seat wall around a fire pit. Those walls still hold soil, and soil still pushes.
What changes on a short wall is the margin. A wall under three feet has little reserve in it, so the small things decide whether it lasts. The base is the first of them. Compacted subgrade, then compacted angular gravel about six inches deep and wider than the block by roughly a foot, screeded flat. A base laid on soft or wet ground settles, and a settled base cracks the wall standing on it. The second is the buried course, and the third is stone behind the block instead of clay.
Frost is the reason the third one matters here. Iowa winters cross the freezing line again and again, not once. Clay packed against the back of a wall holds water, that water turns to ice, and the ice pushes. Open drainage stone does not hold the water, so there is nothing back there to freeze.
We build with Keystone Hardscapes units and cap them with adhesive so the top course stays put under a mower and a winter.
Call (319) 555-0129 for a free estimate on retaining wall work in Ely.