Retaining Walls
Some sites need more than block. A wall that has to be tall, one holding up a driveway, or one squeezed against a house or detached garage with no room for a reinforced zone behind it usually calls for poured concrete. That means forms, rebar, a footing below the frost line and a drainage plan, and on taller walls a stamped engineer's design. Many jurisdictions around St. Louis ask for one above roughly four feet, so we check before anyone orders concrete.
Segmental block needs a reinforced zone behind it, with geogrid reaching back into the slope roughly as far as the wall is tall. Some sites don't have that room. A wall right beside a house, a garage or a property line, one holding up a driveway where cars park above it, or a wall tall enough that the grid would run under the neighbor's yard usually needs to be poured concrete.
A concrete retaining wall is a structure. It gets a footing below the frost line, steel sized to the load, forms and a pour, and on anything tall, a stamped design from an engineer.
The St. Louis area has a lot of permitting authorities. St. Louis County's many municipalities each have their own rules, the county permits unincorporated areas itself, and the City of St. Louis and St. Charles and Jefferson counties each run their own process. Taller walls very often need a permit and sealed drawings wherever you are. We find out what applies to your address before anything is designed, not after the forms go up.
Concrete doesn't let water through, so its drainage has to be designed in: a drain along the footing, clean stone behind the wall and weeps through it. Tight sites often need careful excavation near the house, and a failed concrete wall sometimes becomes a repair question first.
Typical jobs are driveway cuts in Wildwood and Arnold, walls tight against houses in the city and Webster Groves, and tall walk-out and garage walls in Oakville and Chesterfield.
Typical timeline Longer than block. Forming, pouring and curing each take their own time.
Work that usually goes with this one on a St. Louis job:
New walls to flatten a sloped yard, hold a patio or pool deck, or widen a driveway. Drainage and base priced with the wall.
Learn More →Wall drains, buried downspouts, swales and regrading. Often the real fix when a wall is only showing the symptom.
Learn More →Walls that lean, crack, bulge or leak soil. We find the cause first, then price a reset or a rebuild.
Learn More →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.