While dismantling this failed retaining wall, I found numerous reasons it was in failure. From the original day of construction of this wall, the wall was set to fail. First and most importantly, there was absolutely no drainage behind this wall. Secondly, the wall was built on disturbed soils. Third, the soil that was behind the wall had a very high clay content, which held all the moisture.
To repair this section of the wall, I used a 2001 caterpillar 302.5 mini excavator, a tracked stone buggy, and a 1980 Benford TS-25 concrete buggy. I also used a laser transit, a gas powered vibratory plate compactor, multiple different size levels, and your basic digging tools to include rakes and shovels. You will need a heavy rubber mallets and possibly a chipping hammer depending on your wall block type.
The adhesive used to secure the caps on the top of the retaining wall blocks was made by Techniseal and the adhesive is called “structure bond foam adhesive”.
You will also need a roll of good fabric paper to separate the topsoil from the drainage stone. You will need a length of perforated pipe for behind the wall with “through the wall” drain fittings, colored to match your wall type. This particular wall took approximately 12 tons of clean drainage stone behind it and 3 tons of ‘three-quarter minus road process” for the base material. Then used a small amount of Stonedust to screed the base course on top of the compacted process.
