This is a picture of my garden wall which has a bank of soil up behind it. As you can see, the paint has started to flake off and it has gone green in places. Is there any special paint that would stop this from happening? The wall is a two-brick thickness wall made out of engineering bricks, and is rendered on the outer face but not on the face on the soil side. Does the soil have to be dug away to put a membrane behind it, or is there some other alteration that should be made? The wall does have pipes to allow water to pass through.
I have also had two quotes for the wall to be extended by four metres (it is 1.2 metres high). Both would build it out of 7 newton concrete blocks laid flat. Both quotes have been in the range of £1500 to £1800 - is this excessive? If the wall is to be built out of concrete blocks, how can the same thing be prveented from happening interms of the paint peeling etc. Should a water-proof membrane be used on the inside or something else?
maybe you could use bituthene behind the wall to tank it. you might get away with just blackjack paint. it would mean digging a trench at the back. some primers can be applied to damp walls. there are plenty of products available, try your BM.
Price seems very fair. As for a 'fix', I'm all for Sean's idea of using a tanking paint, but you could also add a vertical waffle board (drainage composite) and a backfill of gravel, both of which would help keep groundwater away from the wall.
When extending the retaining wall using 7 newton concrete blocks laid flat, should the wall incorporate a DPC, or will this create a weak point in the wall (read elsewhere)?
