Tires..! Yep I said tires and you usually can obtain them free from your local car dealer, trucking company. [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

I had a terrible errosion problem at a wash / dry creek that acted as a drainage during heavy rains and in the winter months. I had 2 creeks/washes joining at my neighors and shooting straight into my places washing bottom land soil like a pressure washer effect. I had lost about 2 feet of embankment in one major flood.

This spring I finally decided to give it a try using semi tires, screwing them together with 2" wood screws. I screwed them end to end and down into the sides of the lower tires. (aprox 6 screws per tire. Filling them in as they were laid down and back filling them. I had floods were they hadn't been filled in, just screwd together and never lost a single tire.

Well I finished the wall last month and with great sucess I have no more problems.

Now you might say... It looks ugly or it will create gaps where rodents and snakes will hide... yep but if that bothers you that much, you can plant vines or sometype of grass that will help hide the tires. Another thing you can do since you have just built this wall for vertually nothing is screw lathing on the face of the tires and stucco the face with a couple of layers of mud making a stucco wall which would create a more pleasent view.

I have a friend that was wanting to build a wall that will be about 8' high to expand or actually create a parking area since he lives on the side of a mountain. He was going to use RR ties, but he had $100 in just 10 ties and that wasn't enough to make a base... He doesn't have the money to do this and after seeing what I have accomplished with very little money, he has decided to do this and has begun to collect car tires from car dealers that are more than happy to give him since they have to pay to haul them away.
He will have to anchor the tires with mobile home auger anchors and cable or rebar in a hook form. With all the rocks he has to back fill along with having a place to dispose of construction debree for fill, I suspect he will be able to build this wall for a couple hundred dollars.

This idea has many benifits....
1, It keeps the tires out of the landfills
2, It recycles the use of these tires
3, Tires aren't going to rot, decay for many many many yrs.
4, Its very cost effective
5, have you ever tried to move a tire that was filled with dirt, gravel or rock ?