Hi everyone,
Recently started taking apart an existing retaining wall towards the back of my property. It was leaning pretty badly and with COVID quarantine, figured this is a good opportunity to get at it.
See pictures of my manual excavation work thus far. Wall is about 25 feet long, 1 foot high above grade, with 1 layer of bricks fully buried which I am removing now.
As I started removing the base layer, I notice several sprinkler lines running immediately in front of the wall (so don't see that as an issue as I likely won't move the wall forward but rather dig behind to add drainage). However, in several spots, the sprinkler lines cross underneath the wall, to get to the back landscaping where I have about 4 sprinkler heads.
Question for the group: Is it okay if I have sprinkler lines run under my wall, not parallel, but rather perpendicular just crossing under it? In those areas where I have that crossing of sprinkler lines, I won't be able to dig as deep of a trench as in the rest of the base, so wondering if there will be structural implications from that. The trench would still be level, but where I have sprinkler lines, the "base" of gravel would be slightly more shallow relative to the areas around. The trench will be about 5" of crushed, packed 3/4" washed limestone, but where the crossing of my sprinkler lines is, because they are closer to grade, I may only have a base of about 2" of crushed gravel.
I think this is probably okay, but wanted to check with the group before I do that, because this is back breaking work and want to make sure I do it right. The alternative is relocating sprinkler lines, a massive undertaking in and of itself, but if it is required, I will look into doing it to avoid having a wall that falls apart in 5 years.
As a sidebar, the house is landscaped very nicely, lots of stone work, but unfortunately the contractor who did this work obviously cut corners and did not put any drainage behind the walls, and used a 2" sand base. So pretty bad quality work with the house barely 10 years old and the walls are falling apart. Frothy real estate markets breed poor construction standards, unfortunately.
Thank you all for the opinions, very much appreciated.
John
Recently started taking apart an existing retaining wall towards the back of my property. It was leaning pretty badly and with COVID quarantine, figured this is a good opportunity to get at it.
See pictures of my manual excavation work thus far. Wall is about 25 feet long, 1 foot high above grade, with 1 layer of bricks fully buried which I am removing now.
As I started removing the base layer, I notice several sprinkler lines running immediately in front of the wall (so don't see that as an issue as I likely won't move the wall forward but rather dig behind to add drainage). However, in several spots, the sprinkler lines cross underneath the wall, to get to the back landscaping where I have about 4 sprinkler heads.
Question for the group: Is it okay if I have sprinkler lines run under my wall, not parallel, but rather perpendicular just crossing under it? In those areas where I have that crossing of sprinkler lines, I won't be able to dig as deep of a trench as in the rest of the base, so wondering if there will be structural implications from that. The trench would still be level, but where I have sprinkler lines, the "base" of gravel would be slightly more shallow relative to the areas around. The trench will be about 5" of crushed, packed 3/4" washed limestone, but where the crossing of my sprinkler lines is, because they are closer to grade, I may only have a base of about 2" of crushed gravel.
I think this is probably okay, but wanted to check with the group before I do that, because this is back breaking work and want to make sure I do it right. The alternative is relocating sprinkler lines, a massive undertaking in and of itself, but if it is required, I will look into doing it to avoid having a wall that falls apart in 5 years.
As a sidebar, the house is landscaped very nicely, lots of stone work, but unfortunately the contractor who did this work obviously cut corners and did not put any drainage behind the walls, and used a 2" sand base. So pretty bad quality work with the house barely 10 years old and the walls are falling apart. Frothy real estate markets breed poor construction standards, unfortunately.
Thank you all for the opinions, very much appreciated.
John
