Fairfield County & Greater New Haven, Connecticut
Retaining Walls
A retaining wall is a drainage structure that happens to look like a wall. Water pressure behind the face is what bows, tips, and topples walls. So ours are built with crushed stone backfill, perforated drain pipe, and the base course buried below grade on compacted material. Then we make it look good.
Segmental block, fieldstone, or boulder
We build engineered segmental retaining wall systems with geogrid reinforcement where height demands it, dry laid and mortared Connecticut fieldstone for the classic New England look, and machine set boulder walls for slopes and drive edges. The right system depends on height, soil, and what sits above the wall. A wall holding back a driveway is a different job than a garden terrace.
Rebuilds done right
Leaning wall? We see the same story constantly: no drainage stone, no pipe, base course set on topsoil. We tear out, cut the grade back properly, and rebuild with the drainage the first crew skipped. If your existing stone is worth saving, we reuse it.
Permits and engineering
Taller walls, and walls supporting driveways or structures, can require engineering and a permit depending on your town. We tell you up front when that applies and handle the process. It protects you at resale, and it's how the job should be done.
Retaining Walls questions, answered
Why do retaining walls fail?
Water, almost every time. Saturated soil behind a wall weighs far more than dry soil and pushes constantly. Walls built without crushed stone backfill and a drain pipe are carrying a load they were never built for.
Can you repair a leaning wall or does it need a rebuild?
Once a wall is visibly leaning, the base or the backfill has failed, and pushing it back rarely lasts. Usually the honest answer is a rebuild, often reusing your stone. We'll tell you either way after we see it.