Paver retaining wall construction

A retaining wall holds back sloped or graded soil to create usable flat space, whether that's reclaiming a hillside backyard, terracing a slope for planting beds, or shoring up a grade change next to a driveway.

We build with engineered segmental block or natural stone, depending on the look and the wall height, with geogrid reinforcement and proper drainage behind the wall for anything beyond a small garden wall.

Every wall starts below grade: we excavate a base trench and bury the first course — roughly one-eighth of the total wall height — on a compacted crushed-stone leveling pad, because a wall built directly on undisturbed or loose soil settles unevenly. Behind the wall face, we backfill with clean crushed drainage stone (not the excavated dirt) and run a perforated drain pipe at the base tied to daylight or an existing drain system, so hydrostatic pressure from trapped water — the single biggest cause of wall failure — never has a chance to build up. For walls taller than about 3–4 feet, geogrid fabric gets embedded between courses at engineered intervals, extending back into the compacted soil to anchor the wall against the load behind it; walls above a certain height also cross into engineering and permitting territory, which we handle rather than build around.

Drainage behind a retaining wall is what actually prevents failure — we install proper gravel backfill and drain lines on every wall, not just a wall face with dirt piled behind it.

Taller walls need engineering and, in many cases, permitting — we know when a wall crosses that threshold and handle it correctly instead of building something that looks fine until it doesn't.

We bury the base course below grade and set it on compacted crushed stone on every wall — a wall that's just stacked on top of the existing grade is the most common shortcut we see, and it's exactly why those walls lean or fail within a few years.