Retaining Walls - Jefferson County
Arnold sits where the Meramec meets the Mississippi, on the edge of Ozark country. The ground changes fast here: river bottoms that flooded badly in 2015 and 2017, and above them steep, rocky lots with red cherty clay and limestone close to the surface. Walls in Arnold are often holding up a house pad or driveway on a steep lot. Rock that shows up in a trench can be a solid base or a loose layer sitting on clay, and it matters which.
Arnold sits at the north end of Jefferson County, where the Meramec runs into the Mississippi, and the ground changes quickly between the rivers and the hills. The low parts along the Meramec flooded badly in 2015 and again in 2017. The rest of Arnold is steep and rocky, and this is where Ozark country starts: less loess, more red cherty clay, and limestone close to the surface.
Lots here are often cut into slopes steep enough that a house pad or a driveway needs a wall under it just to exist.
Rock changes how you build a wall. Solid limestone in the trench is an excellent foundation. Loose chert and broken rock over clay is not, and the clay underneath holds water. We dig far enough to know which one we have, then set the base to match. Digging is slower than in the loess further north, and sometimes rock has to be broken out for the base and grid zone.
A retaining wall is not flood protection, and we won't present one as that. Floodplain lots may have their own permit rules, which we check before designing anything near the river.
Driveway walls on steep lots often need concrete. Rocky, wooded slopes suit boulder walls, and back-yard terraces use block or front-yard stone. Older walls come up for repair, and every new wall gets drainage sized for heavy clay.
Also working nearby, across the City of St. Louis and St. Louis, St. Charles and Jefferson counties:
Free, No Obligation
Tell us what the wall is doing and where it is. A side-on photo helps us figure out the problem before we arrive.