Retaining Wall Replacement & Rebuilds in Green Bay, WI
Green Bay Retaining Walls tears out and rebuilds failed retaining walls for houses, rentals, and small commercial property in Green Bay, De Pere, Ashwaubenon, Suamico, Hobart, and the rest of Brown County, Wisconsin. Working as a hardscape and masonry contractor, we replace segmental block runs, timber walls past saving, poured concrete walls, and mortared masonry walls.
Most rebuilds here go up in County Materials block, a Wisconsin-made split face wall system, over a compacted granular pad with the cores and the space behind them packed in washed angular stone. Miragrid XT ties the courses into the hill on anything tall enough to need reinforcement, laid as full sheets at a designed length rather than a short tail tucked in near the face. A sleeved perforated pipe leaves the bottom of the stone column and daylights where the water can run away from the property. The wall it replaces normally had none of that. Red clay in this county is five to twenty feet deep and nearly free of stone, so backfilling with what came out of the hole gives water nowhere to go and gives frost everything it needs.
When Repair Stops Paying
Resetting block over a base that already failed buys the same collapse a second time. Three findings end the repair conversation. The base has settled along most of the run. The wall has rotated rather than tipped. There is no drainage stone anywhere behind it. Once any of those is true, the cheapest wall on the property is the one built once and built right.
Tear-Out
Dry-stacked walls come apart by hand, starting at the caps and working down, and the units get sorted as they come off. Timber walls come out with a machine, deadmen dragged from the hill along with the face. Poured and mortared walls get broken up and loaded out by the bucket. Excess clay with no place in the rebuild gets loaded out and taken away.
One Bay or the Whole Run
A long wall does not always have to come down together. Where a single bay moved and the rest stands straight over a sound base, we rebuild that bay and knit the new courses into the standing wall at both ends. Where the base is gone under the full length, phasing costs more than doing it in one go. You hear which situation you have before you sign anything.
Access and Season
Gate width and the drop from the driveway decide the machine, and the machine drives a good share of the price. A wall you can reach from pavement costs less than the same wall behind a fenced back yard on the Ledge. We quote all winter and dig once the frost lets go. (920) 555-0187 gets you on the schedule.
Is it possible to replace a retaining wall?
Yes, and there is nothing unusual about it. The old wall comes down course by course, the slope behind gets cut back to give us room, and a compacted gravel base goes in below finish grade. The new wall rises off that base with a stone column, a pipe run to an open outlet, and grid where the height asks for it. A normal house wall is finished within a week once the machine is on site.
Will I have to buy a whole new pallet of block?
Rarely. Concrete units that are not cracked, split, or spalled go back into the rebuild, and we sort them on pallets as the old wall comes apart. Caps and cut pieces get replaced more often than field units, because they take the weather and the saw. The real cost of a rebuild is the digging, the base, the stone, the pipe, the grid, and the hours.
Do you replace poured concrete and mortared walls?
We do. A cracked poured wall or a mortared block wall gets broken out and hauled off, and the old footing goes with it when it has split or settled. You can then go back in kind, with a new footing, weeps, and a proper drain designed in from the start, or switch the line to segmental block, which flexes with ground that heaves instead of fighting it. Height, whatever sits above the wall, and what the ends tie into decide which way makes sense.
How rough does my yard get?
Rough for several days, and then it goes back together. A machine needs a route to the wall, so one strip of lawn gets driven on and plywood goes down where it protects something. Excavated spoil stacks nearby, and whatever will not return behind the new wall leaves on a trailer. Shrubs worth saving get dug and heeled in before tear-out starts. We finish grade, seed or sod the torn strip, and sweep the drive before the last truck goes.