Laguna Beach board-formed wall
An 18-inch board-formed retaining wall bowing an inch and a half. Saturated backfill with no weep path: the wall was holding a pond, not a slope.
Chapter 1
The pathology
A beautiful wall, leaning an inch and a half toward the terrace.
The wall was the centerpiece of the garden: eighteen inches of board-formed concrete, six feet of retained slope behind it. A hairline crack had opened at mid-height and the cap no longer lined up with the paving.
Every wet winter it moved a little more. The soil behind it never dried, because the water that entered had nowhere to go.
- Wall
- 18 in board-formed concrete, 6 ft retained
- Out of plumb
- 1.5 in at the cap
- Weeps
- none
- Backfill
- native clay, saturated to within 1 ft of grade
- Surface
- planting bed draining toward the wall
- Crack
- horizontal hairline at mid-height, damp
Chapter 2
Diagnostic reconstruction
A wall designed for soil was carrying soil and water together. The work was to find out how much water, and whether the stem could stay.
Movement tracked rainfall, with a two-week lag.
Standing water at 14 in. No drain rock, no pipe.
Saturated from 1 ft down through the dry season.
Stem serviceable once the water load is relieved.
Scope of repair
- Backfill excavated in sections; free-draining rock and a perforated drain placed at the heel.
- Weep relief cored through the stem at the base.
- Positive-side waterproofing on the retained face.
- Low-permeability cap and regraded bed to shed runoff away from the wall.
Chapter 3
Restored state
The wall has not moved since. The weeps run after rain and stop a day later, which is what a draining wall does.
Is your house doing this?
Tell us what the water did. One call, one team, from the diagnosis to the repair.