How Thick Should A Poured Concrete Retaining Wall Be

A poured concrete footing for concrete block or brick walls should be at least twice as wide as the planned wall.

How thick should a poured concrete retaining wall be.

Poured concrete walls can be tricky to install but look great with the architectural elements of a modern house. Step 3 take the frostline into account. The footing should be at least as thick vertically as the wall s planned width. These consists of a concrete or masonry wall of uniform thickness vertical wall reinforcing and transverse footing reinforcing are all designed for the lateral shear and cantilever bending movement plus the vertical weights of the wall footing and earth fills.

As laag points out the wall needs a sufficient footer. In general the top of the stem of any cast concrete retaining wall should not be less than 12 inches for the proper placement of concrete. Most landscape contractors in areas of heavy rainfall or weather extremes avoid fine poured concrete work due to its challenges. In general poured concrete basement walls that are 8 feet tall or less and have no more than 7 feet of soil pressing against them from the outside function well at a thickness of 8 inches.

Concrete retaining wall footing size. Walls that have bends greater than 30 degrees at no more than 20ft intervals are stronger than straight walls. When a taller wall or a higher level of soil or both come into play the thickness should increase to 10 inches. Poured concrete foundation walls that are less than 8 feet tall and have soil outside that is 6 or 7 feet deep against the wall can often be 8 inches thick and function quite well.

A poured concrete wall with rebar does not need to be thick to be strong. As soon as you go higher or have greater depths of soil pushing against the wall you need to increase the thickness to 10 inches. For walls up to 3ft 5 5 inches thick works fine.