How difficult is it to build a garden wall?
Discussion
I live on a corner plot which has a driveway to the side where I want to block the wall up.
I’ve rang round a few landscapers and builders, all of them apart from one ignore calls/aren’t interested. I managed to get one quote that was £1300 for a bare breeze block wall.
The question is, is it a difficult job to DIY a 3ft high wall, it’s going to be retaining earth behind it so needs to be pretty substantial I imagine. I’ve never worked with bricks and cement before but more than happy to try.
Pic for a guide, will need to be tied in with the existing walls either side.
I’ve rang round a few landscapers and builders, all of them apart from one ignore calls/aren’t interested. I managed to get one quote that was £1300 for a bare breeze block wall.
The question is, is it a difficult job to DIY a 3ft high wall, it’s going to be retaining earth behind it so needs to be pretty substantial I imagine. I’ve never worked with bricks and cement before but more than happy to try.
Pic for a guide, will need to be tied in with the existing walls either side.
Alternatively, dense concrete blocks laid on their sides onto a concrete bed. Adequate for a 3' high wall. For bonus points apply some tanking slurry to the back face and backfill with shingle to aid drainage.
Once you have your wall of concrete blocks (solid or hollow), what are you going to face it off with? They're not the most attractive things.
Once you have your wall of concrete blocks (solid or hollow), what are you going to face it off with? They're not the most attractive things.
Phunk said:
PhilboSE said:
Once you have your wall of concrete blocks (solid or hollow), what are you going to face it off with? They're not the most attractive things.
They’re going to be rendered to match the rest of the wall, I’ve got matching top stones I can fire on the top too.Cliffe60 said:
Not too difficult but hard work. You’ll need quite a bit of concrete , so hire or buy a small mixer. ( ready mix will come in too big a batch to use quickly enough and is pretty expensive.)
If you buy a mixer and have no use fir it afterwards , just stick it on eBay .
Absolutely this. Adds half hour of clear up time but mixing up a load of concrete and then it just getting swallowed into a hole is pretty depressing. A mixer makes it much more manageable. If you buy a mixer and have no use fir it afterwards , just stick it on eBay .
It’s easy (doesn’t need much skill) but hard work, especially if you’re not used to heavy physical work.
What’s the materials cost that they’ve quoted? Couple of tons of sand, 20 bags of cement, blocks, tools and a basic mixer is going to touch £500. If you can actually get someone to do it I’d save my back and lungs and pay someone the extra £800 to do it!
Edit: Just realised it’s that tiny gap you’re blocking up! Yeah, that’s easy and it’s not supporting much weight behind. Make it £300 in materials, but guess it depends how much you value your time.
What’s the materials cost that they’ve quoted? Couple of tons of sand, 20 bags of cement, blocks, tools and a basic mixer is going to touch £500. If you can actually get someone to do it I’d save my back and lungs and pay someone the extra £800 to do it!
Edit: Just realised it’s that tiny gap you’re blocking up! Yeah, that’s easy and it’s not supporting much weight behind. Make it £300 in materials, but guess it depends how much you value your time.
I did mine, first wall I've built although not retaining.
It's not too difficult, keep on top of the levels because it's easy to wander off and be careful to get the mortar mix right. It's frustrating when your carefully buttered mortar slips off just as you're lowering your block into place.
Not sure I'd bother with steel at that height.
It's not too difficult, keep on top of the levels because it's easy to wander off and be careful to get the mortar mix right. It's frustrating when your carefully buttered mortar slips off just as you're lowering your block into place.
Not sure I'd bother with steel at that height.
Digging out decent footings will be a bit of a tedious exercise and probably need a Hippo bag minimum for the waste (allow £150).....then certainly a mixer as suggested above for mixing the concrete (this will be a god send)......the wall itself easy enough, particularly with a mixer for the mortar.
Well worth doing DIY, because then you have a mixer for future jobs and confidence to do more as required?
Well worth doing DIY, because then you have a mixer for future jobs and confidence to do more as required?
Thanks for all the replies, it will become a retaining wall as we have several tonnes of earth that we're going to shove behind it to level the garden out.
Digging out the footings I'm not too afraid of, I've just spent weeks removing several stubborn roots, digging french drains, etc, my main concern is that it doesn't fall over when I fill the earth up behind it.
Good shout on buying the mixer, would something like this do the job? https://www.gumtree.com/p/concrete-mixer/bell-ceme...
Is there a trick to attaching it to the existing wall on either side of the existing gap?
Digging out the footings I'm not too afraid of, I've just spent weeks removing several stubborn roots, digging french drains, etc, my main concern is that it doesn't fall over when I fill the earth up behind it.
Good shout on buying the mixer, would something like this do the job? https://www.gumtree.com/p/concrete-mixer/bell-ceme...
Is there a trick to attaching it to the existing wall on either side of the existing gap?
for the amount of work your looking at doing there you'll get away with a paddle mixer and a large plastic bucket
you'll get one from Screwfix for under £70, just make sure it's got variable speed.
it'll work for mixing the concrete footings and the mortar
this isn't a wind up, I often use one for small jobs (qualified bricklayer, now retired)
when building a wall you should make sure you take your time getting the 1st coarse right and the rest will build itself
if you're using dense blocks then keep the mortar fairly stiff, too wet and the blocks will just sink due to the weight,
re fixing to the existing wall,
to do the job properly you should really remove some of the blocks on the ends of the existing wall (toothing out) so you can tie into them but if you don't want to do that just go with the wall ties shown above.
I don't know what it's like in your area but you might struggle to get cement at the moment
I went for some the other day and struggled to find anyone with stock.
you'll get one from Screwfix for under £70, just make sure it's got variable speed.
it'll work for mixing the concrete footings and the mortar
this isn't a wind up, I often use one for small jobs (qualified bricklayer, now retired)
when building a wall you should make sure you take your time getting the 1st coarse right and the rest will build itself
if you're using dense blocks then keep the mortar fairly stiff, too wet and the blocks will just sink due to the weight,
re fixing to the existing wall,
to do the job properly you should really remove some of the blocks on the ends of the existing wall (toothing out) so you can tie into them but if you don't want to do that just go with the wall ties shown above.
I don't know what it's like in your area but you might struggle to get cement at the moment
I went for some the other day and struggled to find anyone with stock.
Phunk said:
Good shout on buying the mixer, would something like this do the job? https://www.gumtree.com/p/concrete-mixer/bell-ceme...
I've got one of those and it's great. Big enough to do patios, small enough to go in the car, might be a bit overkill for the amount you want to do but there aren't many quality mixers around much smaller. I would build a wall with bricks, and make a cladding in the form of facing bricks, I recently read the article https://wonderfulengineering.com/all-you-need-to-k.... I really liked the idea of doing this. I think I will implement this on my site. If I do, I will later send a photo to this conversation.
As it's going to be in a retaining situation, put a clean stone (i.e. hardcore) margin behind it, say 200/300mm wide. That will encourage drainage and reduce the pressure on the back of the wall. As above dense block laid flat should be fine for that. Hollowcore and rebar is a little over the top... One thing to consider though, if rendering it, is that if you don't introduce some form of damp proofing moisture will leach through and cause the render to fail. You could use a damp proofing lath/mesh to the face, which would be simpler than trying to do something behind.
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