Cracks in garden wall - should I add cladding or does the wall need fixing

ronanosul

Hi,

We have a low wall at the side of the house that has shown signs of cracking in 2 places. I’ve attached some pics here for reference.

The wall is retaining soil for a hedge.

We have been living here for 8 years now however I dont know how much longer than that the wall has been in place. Also I don’t recall if it’s getting any worse in that time.

if anyone has experience in this please let me know what action I should take with the wall / cracks before adding the cladding.

Thanks,

Ronan

con747

I may be wrong but the trees and hedging roots are most likely the problem but others with more knowledge should be able to let you know the best remedy. Maybe post pictures of the other side as well?

10-10-20

What height is the soil on the far side? It's 35cms on the near side.

Lumen

That wall is doomed. It's probably the tree roots.

Bad idea having a mortared retaining wall there to begin with, so close to the trees.

Are they Lleylandi? It'd be a shame if they died somehow.

ronanosul

on the far side it tapers right down to ground level. The raised portion which is the height of the tall is only really a few feet wide and contains the hedging

ronanosul

I’d say about 8 ft back from the wall is a row of leylandii yes, they are the Neighbors.

I don’t know if the roots are causing the issue there or not.

Any idea what I could do with it if I took the wall out of it?

ronanosul

I might just do it up a bit with some wooden lats to take the rough look off the bricks. Cheap and cheerful and wait to see if nature takes its course and the whole thing comes down in a few years.

looksee

Surely the laurel are planted in the raised soil. If you take out the wall the whole hedge will fall down in the first storm. The wall has had its day though.

ronanosul

yep the laurel are planted in the raised soil.

ronanosul

I guess if the wall stays and I want a long term fix, the question is what is the long term fix here?

Some sort of a repair job or tear down and start from scratch etc

looksee

You could possibly build up buttresses against the wall, its not very high, it shouldn't need that much support.

Esel

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123231899#Comment_123231899

If yoy don't like how it looks, just paint it!

mrslancaster

We had a similar problem about 7 years ago. Wall got damaged when neighbours cut down old hedging and had the roots dug up. The wall cracked in two places. The builder built new pillars on both sides of the damaged section, attached to the good part if that makes sense. No idea how he did it and it’s still ok today. It was a lot less expensive than a new wall.

ronanosul

yep sounds like that buttress option on another comment. That could be a runner also give it some extra support

monseiur

In fairness the wall is pretty good condition considering that it's block on edge without support pillars or expansion joints and it's under considerable pressure from weight of top soil and ever expanding tree & hedge roots.

One cheap option is to knock off a few blocks both sides of the cracks to ground level and rebuild it with support pillars integrated in the wall.
I would not advise cladding the wall as it will just add more pressure especially on top where as picture 2 shows one section of the cracked wall is already pushed out almost a inch. If budget allows I would recommend to leave wall as is and build a thick dry stone wall up against it using big stones/boulders, dressed to suit. The dry stone wall will expand and contract with the movement of wall and earth behind it. But a storm similar to Eowyn is the biggest treat in the long run.

ronanosul

Thanks for the response, some good information in there! Fair point about the condition of the wall currently :)

Lumen

If I was starting from scratch I'd do a dry stone wall but the problem is that they're quite thick and need footings protruding from the front of the wall so you'd be losing at least a foot of driveway.

Keep the hedge trimmed as it's possible it's wind load causing the whole hedge and roots to act like a big lever.

You could poke around with a bar and see if there are some particularly thick tree roots hitting the wall. Trees will generally survive the loss of a couple of anchoring roots but the problem is that by weakening your side you're risking them coming down on your house in a storm.

Honestly I'd be talking to the neighbour about taking the trees down in favour of the hedge.

looksee

I would think its the hedge that is doing damage to the wall rather than the trees.