Building retaining walls on your own property is an intimidating process for most people. There are many options, lots of considerations, and plenty of potential pitfalls. 
Retaining walls hold back the massive weight of earth, rocks and water. Ensuring walls survive a big rainfall or seismic event is the job of a Professional Engineer. These trained professionals insure the safety of you and your neighbour’s property as well as the lives of all those involved. If you don’t use an engineering design you could end up with an expensive failure.
Many municipalities require an engineering design for walls over four or five feet high. This is to protect everyone involved. This includes the people constructing the wall!
If inspectors catch you building higher than the regulations they may ask you to remove the wall!
If you are considering a wall higher than your municipal guidelines please contact a Professional Engineer in your area. We have some links to engineers on our contact us page.
Having a professional involved in the beginning will save you money in the long run, and reduce your risk substantially in the short term.
Our system relies on the massive weight of the block to provide the strength and inertia in the wall. The engineering designer has a great number of options with the LOCK-BLOCK® system.
 The wall can be leaned back into the hill in varying degrees of “ batter “, or go straight up and down with a method called mechanically stabilized earth or MSE for short. They can also combine the methods.
If the total grade change you need to address is under the height listed in the municipal guideline you may not need an engineer, please read on....
For issues of site access we have two sizes of LOCK-BLOCK® units, the full size two metric tonne unit and the 250Kg Mini LOCK-BLOCK® unit. The larger unit can be placed with readily available standard excavators or directly from a crane truck. The smaller unit can be easily placed with a mini-excavator or suitable Bobcat®
You can see the range of sizes, shapes, and textures on the Retaining Wall page
Advantages of the LOCK-BLOCK® system vs other
concrete block
retaining wall systems:
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Speed and effort - Our system goes up very quickly with a machine doing the lifting and stacking |
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Cost - Our system is cheaper to install in many cases because of the labour savings and speed |
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Reduce wear and tear on yourself - It’s far better to direct operations from the porch than sling cinderblocks out in the sun! |
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Appearance - Our walls can be easily stained or painted to match the house colour, your spouse or partner can pick the colour! |
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Appearance - Cinder blocks weep salt and hold dirt and moss on their surface. You get to use your power washer every year instead of watching the Stanley Cup Finals! |
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Maintenance - Graffiti can be sandblasted or simply rollered over with stain or paint. |
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Durability - LOCK-BLOCK® units absorb less water and are more resistant to freeze thaw than big box blocks. Here in BC the Ministry of Transport will not allow cinder type blocks to be used in some climate zones for this reason. |
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Robustness - Cinder-blocks are pretty fragile, even unloading can break them! |
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Advantages of LOCK-BLOCK® construction vs compared to treated lumber or timbers:
Advantages of LOCK-BLOCK® construction vs poured concrete construction:
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Cost - No forms to build, rebar to place, joints to install, concrete to deliver, pump, place or finish |
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Appearance - Pouring presentable concrete walls is an art, look at how rough concrete residential foundation walls are! |
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Stability - Joints are required in poured concrete walls to control cracking when the inevitable settlement and shrinkage occurs. LOCK-BLOCK® units simply re-settle upon themselves. |
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Please email inside sales for further information.
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