Thread: Retaining wall job incomplete

Some pic's would be helpful.

How high is the wall? I ask because I have seen some very dodgy retaining walls holding up more than 1M in height of soil that really needed an engineers input, because whoever built it had no idea what they were doing.

Regarding your situation, what did you get in writing, did you get a quote defining the work e.g. materials to be used, length & height of wall, thickness of wall, depth/type of foundations (piles or concrete cantilever)

Was it a fixed price to do the works or was it open to extras due to unforeseen ground conditions.

Paying any contractor in full before completion is never a good idea, you now have no financial hold over them and will have to pay out more to get the job completed by someone else.

Trying to get the job finished by your contractor will be the bast option, because getting another contractor to finish someone else's work is open to all sorts of issues e.g. will they warrant the work and if so will they first want to make good work they consider substandard before any warranty can be given.

Thanks for replying Camelot.
I have just uploaded some photos of the retaining wall.
Hopefully it is self explanatory when I use the term incomplete.

i just saw the photos. I have no idea why they came out upside down. Technology bashes me up everyday.
I don't expect anyone to stand on their heads to look at them so I will try to put them up again the right way.

Thanks for replying Camelot.
I have just uploaded some photos of the retaining wall.
Hopefully it is self explanatory when I use the term incomplete.

If you crop the image slightly, then for some reason the pic's will appear the right way up

So looking at the pic's your only 3 blocks high and you have used a decorative concrete dry joint block (no mortar joints required) I have used these before (pic attached) but went higher and used rebar and filled the core with concrete, but even at 3 high I would be looking to core fill those with concrete. I cast starter bars at set centres into the cantilever slab and place the blocks over them, this makes the foundation an integral part of the retaining wall once core filled with concrete.

Looking at the pics the top of the foundation should have been lower (under finished ground level) so you only see decorative blocks once back filled and those returns needed to be longer so again once backfilled you don't see any parts of the internal blockwork only the face. The French Drain should be covered in pea gravel and allowed to discharge at the end, but in that length of wall weep holes through the face are good practice, you don't want any hydrostatic water pressure building up.

Retaining Wall.jpg

The blocks do have reobar and concrete inside so I am not cocerned with the integrity of the wall.

Originally I requested and was quoted for a concrete sleeper wall. The fellas removed what was remaining on the original brick wall that was sitting on a concrete foundation.
Whilst they were doing that the contractor and his offsider came to me and said that the concrete foundation is in really good shape and won't be moving anywhere and suggested to me that a block wall on top of the existing concrete foundation would be a far better result and would look much better than a concrete sleeper wall. So with their knowledge and advice I went along with their suggestion. There was no alteration to the price.
When the wall was near completion I cited 2 concerns to the fellas.
1. the concrete foundation below the new retaining wall looks awful and I was advised that they would render this up to make it look complete. After they completed the job he told me to buy some paint to cover the newly rendered patch job over the concrete foundation below the new retaining wall.
2. The returns are sitting in mid air on the 2nd and 3rd tier of blocks. He said that the mid air blocks are safe and won't fall over due to the rebar and the concrete inside them.

My problem is that it looks incomplete where the blocks are sitting on the returns. The ag line finish is 3rd rate.
I told him that I am kicking myself for going along with his suggestion of going with the block wall as opposed to the original desire of a sleeper wall.
I told him that I can live with it though except I wanted the returns to be squared off top to bottom with capstones over the exposed block ends and I will deal with the render issue.
Then he said that he would need to put down a foundation in order to finish the returns as I requested. He said that would cost me more money and I agreed to pay this as I just want it to look like a completed job that is far more appealing to the present appearance.
After that all I have had are promises to do this but no action, and now no contact.

If the wall is constructed as described I don’t think you have any structural concerns and the returned ends do the job but it is an unsightly job if the surface levels are remaining as is, they should of excavated a bit further in so that you can’t see the ends of the blocks when backfilled.
It is not a big job to tidy up the ends so would engage a handyman etc to finish it if you cant get the original landscapers back.
Just make sure the ag drain pipe does not get blocked off in the process of any further work

I would suggest to contact the department of fair trading with their licence details and some information on the issue and often a phone call from them to the contractor will hurry things along to rectify the issue
I wouldnt pay them any more money as they didn’t do the job in a tradesman like manner in the first place

I would say that the guy that built your wall wears a big hat and spurs.

I thought the blockwork cores were empty when looking at the return pics.

That front elevation must get some comments from passes by, I would not have agreed to putting dressed walling on top of above ground foundations it just looks very poor and unprofessional, not so much incomplete but badly thought out regarding what it would look like.

If you can I would look at buying some soil and ramping it up to cover those foundations on the front elevation and then turf it, you could also do the same with the return(s).

Here is an update re my retaining wall. I have spoken with the builder and after some back and forth talk I asked him to demolish it as it’s such an eyesore and nothing can be done that will change that. It really is a terrible bit of workmanship.
However, he said he was willing to work with me to get the retaining wall I originally wanted but it’s going to cost me some money. He said he will supply the labour for free if I pay for the materials for the new wall.
It’s a dilemma on a few fronts. Firstly I have to see what the materials will cost and so I went to the supplier and got my own quote which is about $3k. It will be interesting to see what the builder comes back with.
secondly, can I trust this bloke to do the next wall correctly? How can I possibly know?
And thirdly, paying $3k to him is more about expediency for me. If I got another contractor to demolish and build a new wall that will cost me at least $6k.
The only other alternative is to test everything in small claims court and that just fills me with dread and who knows how that would go and I don’t know if that would cost me any money. And I don’t know what a win for me would look like if I actually did convince the court that I have been dudded.
I am interested in everyone’s thoughts on this matter. Thanks in advance.

As I suggested in my last post, regrading the landscaping by importing soil to cover those footings would be your cheapest option, the ground is sloping up anyway so any grading could be feathered in at each end to match existing ground levels, once the grass growths back who would know what it looked like before.Apart from the demolition you need to get those exposed footing reduced in height so they fall below ground level or any new wall will still look bad sitting on those footings. In QLD you would first talk to the QBCC, if a licensed trade had done substandard work, the QBCC collects vast amounts of money each year in both license fees and also fixed fees you pay them for jobs between $3K to $20K and jobs above $20K get charged on a sliding scale, they are a glorified insurance company with powers over the building industry that should insure the trades work to code and do a professional job without defects, I am sure all states have a similar body. If you decide to go with that builder, then this time around no upfront payment and only pay him once you are happy with the completed work.

Thanks Camelot. The concrete foundation is definitely coming out as this was the cause of every problem since. Originally it was intended to come out and posts and sleepers was the job agreed to. It was only after he told me his great plan to build on top of the existing foundation and how much better it would look blah blah blah and I fell for it hook line and sinker. I don’t know what recourse I have in South Australia but if he comes back with ridiculous terms then I will most likely have to make enquiries to this regard.
I think leaving the original foundation in was advantageous to him and not me. I say that because when I told him I wanted it demolished he went into detail about the amount of work required to take the foundation out. I reminded him that was in the original quote for this to be removed.
Sometimes working with some trades people is just plain difficult.

I like the look of the blocks better than posts & sleepers, it's a pity he did one thing right and filled them with concrete, otherwise it would have been an easy take down and you could have reused the blocks after sorting out those foundations.

totally depends on the route you want to take.


you can always go with camelots suggestion of battering some soil up to hide the footing and throw some grass on top. you can also tell old mate to just give you the cash value + a carton of beer of the new wall, pocket the cash and just do the remediation your self if your up for it.