Paver wall

[Gouranga]

I have been a frequent user of the mortarless pavers in my yard. and I have had a lot of success with the stuff I have put out to date. I have a ditch at the bottom of my front yard that is quite steep. I really wanted to sort of terrace it off with some of these pavers however, I am concerned as to whether they can do the job or not. Anyone know what the general rule is> I have seen a local shool have these things 6 or 7 rows high. That seems like it would cause issues, I have seen recommendations that say no higher than 3 tall.

[Gary Swart]

Are you talking about the kind the has a lip on the lower back side so it will hook over the block below? These are not actually called "paver" I don't believe, but they do build a great wall. Problem with going too high is even if you backfill behind them with gravel as you are supposed to do, eventually there will be a great deal for pressure pushing on the wall. I have a free standing wall 8 blocks high made with them, but it is around the edge of my deck so there is nothing behind exerting outward force. I belive this is a limit to the height of a retaining wall with these type, but I don't recall what it is. The store that sells them should have information on this.

[jadnashua]

You can build some of them up quite high. It takes proper engineering and following the instructions explicity. Sometimes it take anchors embedded deep into the soil behind. If the soil is unstable, you'd need significant reinforcements.

[Gouranga]

<Are you talking about the kind the has a lip on the lower back side so it will hook over the block below>
That is them!

Yeah, I have learned not to trust the people at my local depot and lowes. They have repeatedly given me bad advice. I may try the manufacturers for some advice as well. The problem with my front yard that concerns me is before I owned it, someone used timbers to shore up that area. I am not sure how long it took but eventually, those timbers were pushed over from the pressure behind them. So I am leaning towards the unstable soil. I'd rather over stabilize it then under. I have put up a few walls with these but they are mainly boundaries on my flower beds and really have minial force behind them.

[prashster]

Most of the paver or block wall system catalogs have installation instructions in there. For what it's worth, I've read Unilock's, EP Henry's, and Techoblock's instructions, and they all say 3' maximum dry height. Higher than that, you should do mortar (per their recommendations).

I think too if you do mortar the joints and do footings, you have to install drains.