Retaining Walls
Retaining Wall Installation in Medford, NY
Enhance your yard with durable retaining walls from Island Driveways & Patios, Inc. Custom designs for erosion control and aesthetics!
Segmental block and natural stone walls: built with the drainage behind them, not just the blocks in front of them.
A retaining wall holds back water, not soil
This is the thing most homeowners have never been told, and it explains almost every failed wall you’ll ever see.
Dry soil is heavy. Saturated soil is much heavier, and it pushes sideways with far more force . That’s hydrostatic pressure, and it’s what actually knocks walls over. A wall that’s perfectly capable of retaining the soil behind it will still fail if the water in that soil has nowhere to go.
So the parts of a retaining wall that matter most are the parts you can’t see once it’s finished:
- Free-draining backfill immediately behind the blocks, rather than the excavated soil shovelled straight back in
- A drain pipe at the base of that zone, with somewhere to actually daylight
- Geotextile separating the drainage stone from the soil, so the soil doesn’t migrate into the stone and clog it
- A buried base course, so the bottom of the wall can’t kick out
- A compacted levelling pad under that
A wall built without those will stand up beautifully for two or three years and then start to lean. By the time it leans, there is no fixing it. It comes down and goes back up.
Medford ground
Medford sits on the outwash plain south of the Ronkonkoma moraine: sand and gravel, and free-draining. That helps: a wall here has an easier hydrostatic problem than the same wall in Huntington or Port Jefferson, where the moraine till holds water.
What Medford’s sandy subgrade doesn’t forgive is a poorly compacted levelling pad. Loose sand consolidates under load, and a wall that settles differentially along its length opens joints and starts shedding caps.
Height, engineering and permits
There is a height above which a retaining wall stops being landscaping and becomes a structure . It needs engineered design, and usually a permit.
What we’ll do at the estimate is measure the retained height, look at what’s above and behind the wall, and tell you whether you’re in engineered territory. If you are, we’ll say so. A contractor who quotes a tall wall without mentioning engineering is either not going to build it properly or is planning for you to find out later.
Terracing is often the better answer on a slope: two shorter walls with a planted bench between them can do the same job as one tall wall, stay under the engineering threshold, and look considerably better.
Materials
Segmental concrete block. The workhorse. Engineered units that lock together, wide range of faces and colours, and the system manufacturers publish design tables that engineers work from. Geogrid reinforcement extends into the backfill on taller walls.
Natural stone. Dry-laid or mortared. More expensive, more labour, and unmatched where it suits the property: particularly on older houses.
Boulder walls. For larger grade changes on bigger lots where the look suits.
We’re Techo-Bloc Pro, which matters for warranty on their wall systems, but we build with what the job and the house call for.
What a wall does for the rest of the yard
Most retaining wall calls start as a slope problem and end up being a usable-space conversation. A bank that’s too steep to mow becomes a level lawn and a planted bed. A garden that drops away from the patio becomes two usable terraces.
If you’re already thinking about a patio or a seating area, it’s worth designing the wall and the flat space together: the wall sets the level everything else works to, and doing it in two phases usually means rebuilding part of the first one.
Why this crew
We build the drainage before the face. The quote states the backfill and the drain detail. And we’ll tell you when your wall needs an engineer rather than quietly building it and hoping.
ICPI certified, Techo-Bloc Pro, A+ with the BBB, trading since 2017.
Frequently asked questions
How long does a retaining wall take?
Depends almost entirely on length and height. A short garden wall is a day or two; a structural wall with geogrid and drainage runs considerably longer. Most of the time is excavation and base, not laying block.
Why is my existing wall leaning?
Almost always drainage. Water building up behind the wall with nowhere to escape pushes it forward. Once it’s leaning it can’t be pushed back. It has to come down and be rebuilt with the drainage it should have had.
Can you build over an existing wall?
No. Facing over a failing wall hides the problem and adds load to a structure that’s already losing. If the existing wall is sound it can stay; if it’s moved, it comes out.
Do I need a permit?
Above a certain height, yes, and Medford is Town of Brookhaven.
Will it need maintenance?
Very little if it’s drained properly. Keep the drain outlet clear and don’t let anyone plant something with an aggressive root system directly behind it.
What does it cost?
It depends on the area of wall face, the material, and the drainage behind it. The estimate is free and on site, which is the only way to give you a figure for your property rather than a range that fits everyone. Book one and we will price it in front of you, or call (631) 245-9273 to talk it through first.