Water coming under garden wall

katie4

We have a retaining wall in our back yard holding back the higher level garden, but have recently noticed with heavy rain a 'river' coming out of one of the bricks at the bottom of the wall (see photo) https://photos.app.goo.gl/ysMpXRzcJ27cKigt8


Does anyone have any advice on whether this needs to be looked at and what needs to be done?


We recently had the trees up there cut down so i don't know if this has possibly affected the drainage

Chanes

Trees drink a lot of water, it's one of the reasons the railways are really wary about removing them because landslips become a problem. I would think you would need an outlet on the wall for the water building up behind to be released so you can channel it away. Is there a place you can channel the water where it won't cause you a problem?

katie4

Chanes wrote: »

Trees drink a lot of water, it's one of the reasons the railways are really wary about removing them because landslips become a problem. I would think you would need an outlet on the wall for the water building up behind to be released so you can channel it away. Is there a place you can channel the water where it won't cause you a problem?

Thanks it currently runs down into a channel and into the drain, maybe it needs a new channel from the wall down then, do you think we should be concerned that the water is coming through a brick?

Chanes

We had weep holes at the base of a retaining wall which was nothing more than gaps in the brick course. I have seen plastic pipe fitted to the base of walls too. You could as a bricklayer for some qualified guidance on dealing with the wall, the water could be channeled to a drain.

Mistral001

These weep holes are part of the wall's design. They are there to stop a head of water building up behind the wall. Retaining walls are not designed to take the pressure from a head of water so it is essential that weep holes are not blocked. and that water can flow out of them.

More modern walls will have drains on the side of the wall that retains earth to ensure that water pressure does not build up and do not have weep holes. Some retaining walls will have both weep wholes and drains.

So water coming out of the weep holes is a sign that they are doing what they have been designed to do.

Apodemus

As Mistral says, it would be much more worrying if the water wasn’t coming out!

Norman_Castle

There's a lot of moss where the water is which takes time to accumulate. Is this water recent or have you only just noticed it?

Davesnave

I can't discern if there are planned weep holes where the water is coming out, nor can the OP presume anything about the wall's construction if there are none and those are just weak points. The hole that I can see is below the level where the water is mainly weeping from, which suggests the source is localised, possibly a spring. Where I live, springs are fickle things and shift about year to year.

Anyway, if it were me, if there are no weep holes there, I'd be getting the big SDS drill (about £70 in Screwfix) and putting some into the mortar spaces between the blocks near the wall's base, then maybe adding an Acco drain to take the water away, if possible. It's not the best water feature I've seen!

markin

The is 1 plastic pipe fitted near the bottom, I can't tell how much water is coming out of it though.

katie4

Norman_Castle wrote: »

There's a lot of moss where the water is which takes time to accumulate. Is this water recent or have you only just noticed it?

Hi no it is recent we have since swept the moss away it doesn't really get any sunlight in that area so it is always damp