How long before I can use a retaining wall?

boo80

My OH and dad have just build a retaining wall to raise the bottom of the garden to create a more usable area, but my dad has just said it will be a few weeks before we can fill the area with earth as the wall needs to dry out and strengthen. Is this right? My dad has only built one other wall so I just wanted to check that he's right!!

wallbash

To give an answer , I would want to know much more details.
Height of wall , thickness of wall , construction of wall , amount of earth retained by wall . Number of weeping points , even weather conditions . How wet is the soil .
How well made is the wall .

How long is a piece of string:rotfl:

Its a difficult question , which I have great difficulty in answering.

Few answers , photo or two , and you might , get a guess.

27col

I thought that I read somewhere that concrete takes about 28 days to reach full strength. I would think that brickwork would take nearly as long.

boo80

Lol, sorry!

We already have a retaining wall (55cm high) across the back of our garden, this new wall is 2.7m then a corner then 3m with a 70cm gap which will be a ramp so our children can get up and down (it's going to be the play area) then a corner and another 2.7m. So it's a rectangle but only 3 sides are new. The new wall is 55cm high, made with class 2 engineering bricks (one brick thick). The foundations are a spade deep apparently!! I've no idea what a weeping point is, the soil doesn't look wet. Sorry, I'm not very good at this!! Thats for your help though, it's appreciated.

wallbash

My advice is more than likely out of date ,
Your wall should have small holes at the bottom to allow water to escape.

So the wall is 55cm high , is there now still a gap between earth and wall
i.e you can still see both sides of wall , the wall is not actually retaining earth .


Sorry but Ashes to Ashes calls on tv , will promise to return

boo80

Haha, thanks Wallbash! We don't have any holes in the wall, but nor does the original rataining wall, or not visable ones anyway.

There is no earth in the hole so far, I'm pretty keen to get going on it though as the whole garden needs doing and we can't really get on with the rest until this bits done.

Plasterer

27col wrote: »

I thought that I read somewhere that concrete takes about 28 days to reach full strength. I would think that brickwork would take nearly as long.

The hoover dam build was finished in 1936 and the concrete is still curing:D

iamcornholio

A 55 cm high wall in engineers and one brick thick will have gone off enough within 24 hours, so you can gently backfill it - but don't ram the ground down untill about five days later.

The main force from the ground against this wall is going to be two courses up from the lower ground level, and the top four courses are not really resisting much

wallbash

so you can gently backfill it -

Yes , would go along with it.
I would have put in some holes , to allow water to escape.

ormus

or line the inner wall with thick plastic sheeting.
visqueen?

DVardysShadow

You can remedy the lack of weeping points by using a masonry drill to take out mortar on vertical joints every 1 m or so, especially as the wall is 1 brick thick.