retaining wall

I need a cheap idea for retaing walls. We have an outdoor wood stove nest to our house and would like to stack wood close by. I was thinking of retaing wall off of the house and filled with gravel. But, I need a cheap idea for material.

The least expensive option I have heard of is used tires. Next to that you might look at railroad ties.

In my experience, everything after that is expensive although much better looking.

Mark

Tires with rammed earth (maybe leaning toward soil cement) are cost effective if legal in your area (we are prohibited by law but in New Mex there are whole communities with houses built out of used tires.) You need to lean the tires back into the hill they are retaining and consider deadman anchors if wall is more than 4 ft or so. Screwing the tires together with galvanized screws or stainless is an added cost to consider but it stabilizes the wall. Google on rammed earth, earth ship (or is that earthship?), and similar topics for ideas and information.
You can use geotextile as an added cost option to make a better wall.

Pat [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img] [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img] [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

The tires could also be bolted togther to form a buttress ?? for more stability.

Perhaps proper application of soil and plants in the tires may hide them.

Around here stone is use for most retaining walls. Large boulders have replaced the flat slate used in the past.

Egon [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

Egon, There was a post a while back about using tires for a retaining wall. I don't recall if it was here or TBN. It was reported as a success. I remain confused as to why Oklahoma prohibits using tires like this but allows ground up tires as a substitute for septic gravel. What is the department of environmental quality thinking (are they thinking?)

Why should I think Government should be logical or consistent? Have I seen any examples of this?

I would love to be able to use tires in earth works. I would like to make an arched dam out of columns of filled tires. Of course I'd have to pile up some dirt "upstream" of the tires to get a good seal but the shape of the dam would put it in compression (just like a Roman arch) and it should be as strong as the support available at the ends of the dam. Tires are cheap, strong, long lasting, and available in most communities. What a pity we can't all be allowed to use them. (SIGH)

BUTRESS, oh that butress... It took a while to register but I think Iknow what you mean. dig back into the bank to be retained at right angles to the retaining wall and install butreses to hold the wall into the hillside. What I have seen design wise didn't use "full on" buttresses but every so many courses of tires a "chain" of tires was buried back into the hill as anchors. If you don't go over 3-4 feet high it wouldn't be required.

Another important issue is relief of hydrostatic pressure. It is absolutely essential to make good provisions for allowing water to escape THROUGH and or UNDER the wall. Otherwise it is most likely to fail, perhaps catastrophically. My concrete contractor says he has never had a retaining wall fail that had an adequate French drain system installed. He offers NO GUARANTEE if you don't have a drain system. He also has horror stories of customers who ignored the drain issue and lost the gamble.

Pat [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

Pat:

Never think of political reason as real or logical. Just think in terms of who gains financially!

In the proper climate ?? which is very diverse, tires would do fine in properly designed buildings.

For dams as you suggest they should excell.

I beleive someone in Australia has used them for a swamp road.

By the way where does all the tire thread that wears off go to??

Egon [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img] [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

I know I am running the risk of hijacking this thread but thats a really good question(By the way where does all the tire thread that wears off go to??)
for a layman and one I actually think about from time to time.

My first thought was that it is carried about by the winds and will, someday, be a determining sedimantary layer. But that seems like a really simple solution. Maybe its broken down by sunlight and simply leaches into the ground. Or do ants carry it away to fortify thier colonies? I sure don't know but there must be tons of the stuff.

Mark

It was me that made a post in the other forum

http://www.countrybynet.com/forums/s.../o/all/fpart/1

I used the tires to stop soil errosion in a wash that was eating away my bottom land soil. With great success I might add [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img]