We build retaining walls and seat walls across Nashville and the surrounding counties with the drainage layer, buried base course, and reinforcement that keep a wall standing after the ground behind it gets saturated.
Retaining Wall Contractor Nashville
Retaining walls that hold back water, not just dirt
12
WALLS BUILT
12
AVG RATING
25yr
WARRANTY
Why Walls Fail
Walls rarely fail from the weight of the soil. They fail from the water in it.
Dry soil leans on a wall. Saturated soil shoves it, with several times the force, and our clay holds water for days after a storm instead of letting it pass. That is why the wall that looked perfect for four years starts leaning after one wet spring.
So most of the work happens behind the wall, where nobody will ever see it. Clean drainage stone stacked against the back of the block. A perforated pipe at the bottom of that stone, daylighted somewhere water can actually get out. Fabric so clay fines cannot migrate in and clog the stone. Backfill compacted in lifts as the wall goes up, not dumped at the end.
“A retaining wall is a drainage system with blocks on the front of it.”
Then the structure. The base course gets buried below grade on compacted aggregate, each course steps back so the wall leans into the hill, and taller walls get geogrid tied back into the slope. In Davidson County a wall over four feet, measured from the bottom of the footing, needs a permit and usually an engineer’s design. A slope, driveway, or structure sitting above the wall counts as a surcharge and can require engineering on a shorter wall too. We sort that out before we quote, not after.
What We Build
Wall options we design and build
Some walls are there to hold a hillside. Some are there to give a patio an edge you can sit on. They get built differently.
Segmental Block Retaining Walls
Interlocking concrete block in a range of colors and face textures. It is the workhorse for holding a grade change, it handles curves easily, and on a steep lot it can be terraced into two shorter walls instead of one tall one.
Seat Walls
Roughly 18 inches tall with a wide, comfortable cap. A seat wall gives a patio a defined edge and adds permanent seating that never blows over or needs storing for winter. Pairs well with a fire feature at one end.
Natural Stone & Boulder Walls
Dry-stacked stone for a wall that looks like it has been there for decades, or set boulders where the grade change is big and the look should stay rugged. More labor, and the most character of the three.
Often, and it is usually the better answer. Two shorter walls with a planted bench between them cost less than one tall engineered wall, and they break up a bank that would otherwise feel like a fortification. The catch is spacing: set them too close and the upper wall surcharges the lower one, which puts you right back into engineering.
A wall is what makes a sloped yard usable.
Half the back yards in this area include a bank that nobody uses and everybody has to mow sideways. A wall turns that into flat, level ground: room for a patio, a play area, or just grass you can put a chair on without it sliding.
We are a local crew that builds retaining and seat walls matched to Middle Tennessee soil and water, with one point of contact from your first call through the final walkthrough. No subcontractor shuffle, no surprise line items.