A Complete Guide for Properly Maintaining Your Retaining Walls

A retaining wall can fulfill multiple purposes for your home or business—it can be an architectural/engineering necessity, or it can serve as an aesthetic feature that’s essential for the construction of your landscaping. If your lot is terraced or sloped, retaining walls can add a wonderful look to them that’s also functional. As with all masonry, they do require regular upkeep, especially during the winter months—read on for some tips for easy retaining wall maintenance in Crivitz, WI.

Inspect the walls often

This is an easy one to accomplish, within reason, of course—there’s no need to go digging your wall out from under two feet of snow to check and see how it’s doing. When the weather allows for it, though, you should be heading out every now and then to get a look at your retaining wall. What you’re looking for are any imperfections or things that weren’t there the last time you looked—you shouldn’t be seeing any cracks in the stones, and if you have mortar between them, you definitely don’t want to see any gaps. Water can further exploit these types of surface inconsistencies and make them worse, so it’s important to catch them early.

Resist the temptation to weatherproof

One thing that often leads to the need for professional retaining wall maintenance in Crivitz, WI is people using chemicals to treat their walls that really shouldn’t be used for that purpose. Applying solutions that promise to prevent the buildup of ice might seem like a great idea—after all, water can be your wall’s worst enemy, right? In fact, these solutions typically contain chemicals that are strong enough to compromise and erode your stones. They are a stopgap solution that will actually cause more harm than good over the long term, so they should be avoided by conscientious homeowners.

Take spring cleanup seriously

Once the snow and ice melt and spring has sprung, it’s time to do some more work to keep your retaining walls looking great. Erosion from the melting water may have created ruts in the ground. These need to be immediately filled in and leveled, as otherwise they’ll create big problems—water can pool in them, causing even further damage to the walls. You’ll also want to ensure the integrity of the soil—loosening soil can contribute to the retaining walls losing their strength. An easy and pleasurable way to counter this is by gardening—plant roots are one of the best ways to maintain tight and compact soil, which can lead to easier retaining wall maintenance in Crivitz, WI.

Working with retaining walls is one of the core functions of our business here at Kwiatkowski Construction Co., Inc. We’ve been doing this for almost 45 years now, so our team is highly knowledgeable when it comes to identifying maintenance and repair issues with retaining walls or building foundations. Reach out to us today for any of your construction or concrete needs—we look forward to assisting you soon!

Categorised in: Retaining Walls

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