Using stone to build a retaining wall

Stone walls may be the best choice for a natural-looking landscape. Natural stone offers limitless design possibilities, including curves, and stone walls can be built to follow a sloping grade. Steps can be incorporated into stone walls, though stone treads often are too heavy to handle without a machine.

The price, type, and availability of stone vary from one area to the next, but natural stone is almost always one of the more expensive retaining-wall materials.

Along with pricey material costs, stone walls bring high labor costs. It takes practice to learn to build with the irregularities of natural stone, and even for an experienced mason, building a stone wall takes longer than building the same wall with another material.

Still, stone walls can be a rewarding project for patient first-timers. In most areas, you can have pallets of stone delivered. And a few inexpensive tools, such as a mason's hammer, will make the work go more smoothly. Stone walls can be stacked dry using stone and rubble for backfill.

Dry walls are built on a base of compacted gravel. It's important for hidden backfill stones to be stacked just as securely as visible "face" stones. All voids inside the wall should be filled with rubble.

Another option is to stack the face stones dry, then backfill with stone and mortar. This type of construction requires a deeper (24 in.) compacted-gravel base. Finally, you can mortar the joints between stones.

These walls should be built on a poured-concrete footing with rebar placed horizontally in the footing and vertically to extend through the wall as it is built up.

All "wet" walls need a drain in the backfill or weep holes to relieve pressure from water that seeps behind the wall.

Back to main page on building a retaining wall in the back or front yard.