Replacement of 3 rotted railroad ties in wall system

nailermen

Is there a way to replace rotted 6x6 railroad ties throughout a rr tie wall system without taking wall down? My wall system is 6 foot high and about 25 foot long in back yard. One rotted tie is at bottom and two in the middle on opposite ends of system. The tie at bottom is so rotted, you can see spikes......Need suggestions desperately!!!

AllanJ

If you are lucky you can wedge up or jack up the ties above so the rotten one can be slid out or chipped out and a new one inserted, perhaps as two or three pieces.

More likely the entire tie wall has sagged as the tie rotted so there isn't enough space to insert a new one.

__________________
The disadvantages of crab apple trees. In summer, the apples are too sour to pick and eat. In winter the birds come and leave dropping all over the place.

Daniel Holzman

Given that your wall is six feet high, it is likely that there are perpendicular railroad ties (cross ties) in your wall. Since you can see three rotten ties on the face, there may well be rotten cross ties, which would be hidden from view. There is no easy way I can think of to determine how many cross ties are rotten, and there is no easy way to remove cross ties without taking down the wall.

If you end up removing the entire wall, you may want to consider rebuilding using segmental concrete block. I just built a small block wall in my backyard, it goes up very quickly, and the concrete will probably last a hundred years or more.