Many residential and commercial properties have retaining walls. These walls may have slightly different specific purposes depending on where and how they're used, but overall, they're there to support soil laterally to be retained at different levels. Regardless, when building a property, you might be asking yourself whether you need a retaining wall. Unfortunately, the answer to that will depend on many factors, meaning that you may or may not need retaining walls.
That said, we won't leave you here without an answer. As such, we want to talk about when a retaining wall can be used:
There are many scenarios that retaining walls are used, mostly depending on where the home is located.
If a home is located on top of the land, such as a hill, a common use for retaining walls is to "extend" the land you have to work with. Think of it like a house on a hill, where you might be limited on the land you can use for gardening because of a slope. Retaining walls here can help you turn the hill into sort of a terrace, maximizing the flat surfaces you can work with for gardening.
On the other hand, if a home is located at the bottom of the land, such as the foot of a hill, the retaining wall will be treated more as a way to prevent flooding. Since the home is already on a flat surface, there is essentially no need to extend the land for gardening purposes with retaining walls. Instead, the retaining wall is built onto the hill to ensure that things like landslides or flooding do not come to harm your property.
Apart from the above two uses, there are a few other reasons to implement retaining walls. For instance, if you are looking to build an under-the-house garage or a walkout basement, retaining walls can be installed on either side to ensure that the land remains intact and protects the entrance. In other words, this specific use of retaining walls ensures that the pathway to the exit or entrance built into the dirt remains clear of any obstructions or risk of things like flooding.
Another way to use retaining walls is to level a land completely for construction purposes, such as building a swimming pool. Pools require a large flat surface area to work with, and retaining walls allow that to happen by holding enough dirt to keep the soil level at all times.
Simply put, if you are looking for a solution to add more flat surfaces to the land your property sits on or is trying to prevent issues like flooding and erosion from occurring, consider retaining walls. As the name implies, these walls are built to maintain soils, protecting your property from all sorts of risks, and even providing you with enough surface to work on for many of your building projects. That being said, if you're still wondering whether you need retaining walls, reach out to professionals for more insight. Construction contractors can quickly survey the land for you, giving you advice on whether or not a retaining wall will be required. This way, you can sit back and rest easy, knowing that your money is being put into good use to ensure your property meets your needs and expectations.
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