Segmental Block Retaining Walls in Green Bay, WI
Green Bay Retaining Walls builds segmental block retaining walls for sloped lots, walkouts, driveway cuts, patios, and garden terraces in Green Bay, De Pere, Bellevue, Allouez, Howard, and throughout Brown County, Wisconsin. We put up new walls, and we rebuild block runs that somebody stacked without a base or a drain.
Two systems handle most of our work. Allan Block units are hollow, and the cores get packed with the same washed angular stone that fills the space behind the wall, so the drainage column runs through the wall body as well as behind it. Keystone Hardscapes units pin course to course and carry residential and engineered lines, which matters when a wall starts short and the plan later adds a patio above it. StrataGrid sheets go between courses on the taller runs, coated polyester that stays put in wet clay. Both systems dry-stack, so the wall moves with ground that heaves rather than cracking against it. Compare that to units bedded on scraped dirt with the hillside shoveled in behind, which is what four feet of frost is waiting for.
The Base Is Half the Wall
We cut a trench below grade, compact the subgrade, then place and compact angular gravel, roughly half a foot thick and about a foot wider than the block, thicker as the wall grows. Then it gets leveled across the entire run before one unit lands on it. Base laid over soft or saturated subgrade settles later, and a settled base splits everything stacked on top of it.
How the Courses Hold Each Other
Pins, lips, or both tie each course to the one under it, and the same detail sets how far back each course sits. That built-in lean is batter. It swings the wall's own weight toward the hill so the mass fights the push instead of riding on top of it. A wall stacked dead plumb spends its whole life with less margin than a battered one that already gave ground on purpose.
Grid, Stone, and Pipe
Grid lies flat on a finished course, gets trapped by the course above, and runs back into fill we compact in lifts. Wall height and soil set the length, not habit. Stone fills behind the units top to bottom, fabric holds the clay out of it, and a perforated pipe at the bottom takes the water away to daylight.
Caps and Finish
Cap units get cut to the line and bedded in flexible masonry adhesive, and the ground behind the top course gets shaped so surface water runs away from the face instead of over it. We stake the run and walk it with you before anything gets dug. (920) 555-0187 starts a quote.
Why does the bottom course go underground?
That buried course is what keeps the foot of the wall from sliding out. The working figure is about an inch of block below grade for every foot of finished height, and never under half a foot whatever the wall does. Walls that start level with the lawn have nothing locking the toe, and the toe is where failure begins. Around here the buried course also sits in ground that heaves, which is one more reason it goes on a compacted gravel pad instead of on clay.
Does every block wall need geogrid?
No. A low garden wall with open lawn behind it stands on its own mass and its base. Grid earns its place as height climbs, and it arrives much sooner when a driveway, a pool, a shed, or a second slope sits above the wall. Length matters more than presence. Sheets that reach a couple of feet into the hill catch no soil wedge at all and do nothing for the wall.
Can you build curves, corners, and steps in block?
Yes, and the units are made for it. Each block tapers front to back, which is what lets a run bend, and a tight radius gets pieces cut on a saw right at the wall. Outside corners take a manufactured corner unit, or a field cut where the angle is odd. Stairs through a wall get their own base and their own drain line, because a tread pad stands in front of the hill and sheds water off it.
Block or timber for a wall on this ground?
Block, on any wall you expect to keep. Timber costs the least per face foot and lasts the shortest time, because the face rots at the ground line and the deadmen rot buried where nobody looks. A block wall has nothing organic in it. Set it on compacted gravel with a stone column and a working pipe behind it and it runs decades with nothing to do but check the caps.