Retaining Wall Repair in Hiawatha, IA
Cedar Rapids Retaining Walls fixes leaning, bulging, and failed retaining walls in Hiawatha, Iowa. We rebuild block and timber walls, correct the drainage behind a sound wall, and build new walls and terraces. We carry Iowa licensing and insurance.
Hiawatha did not grow out of an old hill settlement. A developer platted it after the war as a new subdivision town, and the ground is flat. That shapes the wall work here. Almost every wall in Hiawatha is a builder wall. It holds a step in a graded lot, squares up a driveway edge, or forms the grade beside a walkout basement door.
Those walls are short, and short walls get treated as decoration. They are not. A wall beside a walkout is holding a cut in the hill, and it carries the same load per foot of height as a tall wall does. Set the wall on dirt instead of compacted gravel and it settles. Start the first course at grade instead of below it and the toe kicks out. Skip the drainage stone and the clay behind it freezes and pushes all winter.
Our base goes in first. A trench below grade, compacted subgrade, then about six inches of compacted angular gravel, run wider than the block and leveled with a screed. The bottom course sits buried, roughly an inch for every foot of finished height. Each course after that steps slightly back into the hill, which puts the weight of the wall toward the soil it holds. Allan Block cores fill with stone, so the drain runs through the wall as well as behind it.
Ask what sits above the wall before anyone quotes it. A driveway or a parking pad changes the design and can change the permit.
Call (319) 555-0129 for a free estimate on retaining wall repair in Hiawatha.