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Child Item

Besser retaining wall and curved bench seat

Gerber

🖼️

The project:

The plan was to create an outdoor area for hosting friends and family, while maximising the level areas so both kids and adults had plenty of space to mingle and enjoy. To achieve this, I built a retaining wall that created two usable levels and incorporated a curved bench seat into the wall for additional seating and to match the style and character of my house.

I got a quote to have the initial slab laid, but it was nearly my entire budget. At that point, I knew I had to go DIY.

With no experience driving excavators, concreting, laying bricks, or building retaining walls, I was definitely worried I had bitten off more than I could chew. It was a pretty daunting project to take on, but I was determined to give it a crack and learn as I went.

- Materials:

Besser bricks

Concrete

Motar

Reo

Sweat & Elbow Grease

Chemset

Timber for form work

- Tools:

Humans

Excavator

Shovels/spades/picks

Impact drivers

Concrete truck

- Step 1:

Let the digging begin... With the help of my dad, we dug the footings out for the slab and retaining wall.

- Step 2:

Form it up... we then formed up for the slab (didnt take a final pic of all the crusher and reo in place). Had to raise the drain pit and add channel drains in. We set the drains just proud of the concrete as we are tiling this area and want the drains to be just below the level of the tiles.

- Step 3:

Concrete! Wayy too much to hand mix, got a truck and pump truck to get this done.

- Step 4:

Let the bricking begin!

Before we could start laying we had to do the tedious process of adding the reo bars in. To do this we SDS drilled holes and chemset the bars in place.

As we couldnt use a string line on the curve, we welded up a frame that pivoted from the dead centre.

- Step 5:

We then modified the pivot frame to build the course for the bench seat.

- Step 6:

More dirt and form work.

Next we dug the footings for the stairs and rest of the retaining wall.

We plumbed in the drainage pipes that will hook up to the agg pips that will go in behind the wall

We then formed this up with 2x4 and trench mesh.

- Step 7:

More concrete...

Poured the footings and the tops of the bench seat & corefilled the curved retaining section

- Step 8:

Back to the bricking...

- Step 9:

Current Phase.

We have core filled the new section of retaining wall.

Waiting on a renderer

Still need to water proof the back of the wall and install aggs and back fill with gravel

Will post a final pic when finished

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Building and Construction

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Landscaping

Comments

MitchellMc

Congratulations on your project, @Gerber! This is a seriously impressive piece of work, and it's great to see the amount of planning and effort that has gone into it.

The curved retaining wall and integrated bench seat are standout features, and I particularly liked your clever use of a pivot frame to keep the brickwork on radius. It's always interesting to see the techniques people come up with to solve challenges like that.

It looks like it's going to be a fantastic entertaining space once the rendering and landscaping are complete. We can't wait to see the finished result, so please be sure to update us with some final photos.

Mitchell

Gerber

Hopefully render will be done in the next fortnight and then we can get it painted and move onto tiling and backfilling and getting the gardens in.

Gerber

@MitchellMc what would you recommend for waterproofing the back of the wall, i was planning on using builders plastic (suggested by the engineer), but the renderers are telling me that i should consider waterproofing with something i can paint on.

MitchellMc

I'd suggest something like https://www.bunnings.com.au/crommelin-15l-blackseal-heavy-duty-bitumen-waterproofing-membrane_p0356892 , @Gerber. It's designed to seal the rear side of retaining walls. Adding Builder's plastic as well certainly wouldn't hurt.

Mitchell

Gerber

Thanks! Yeah was thinking to add plastic on top as extra protection... Bessers suck the water.

sideshowbob

Wow! Soo cool.... Can i ask what made you come up with that design of a semi circle retained section?

EricL

Hello @sideshowbob

Welcome to the Bunnings Workshop community. It's sensational to have you join us.

Let me tag @Gerber to make them aware of your kind words and question. A retained semi-circular section generally provides more uniform support than flat or rectangular geometries because its curved profile distributes the applied load over a larger contact area while reducing stress concentrations associated with sharp corners. But let's wait for Gerber to confirm.

Eric

Gerber

Thanks @EricL… @sideshowbob as Eric mentioned an arch is a really strong shape however, it was more a decision based on aesthetics and final use of the area.

My block is a really awkward shape, and goes up to a point in the top, so I didnt want to do anything rectangular. As an attempt to try and soften the feel of the hard/landscaping and make it flow better with a large crowd of people.

I found some pics of before any dirt was dug to try and show the awkwardness of the shape.

sideshowbob

Thanks @EricL I didnt know how to tag people in! Still learning...

@Gerber yeah ok... I am wanting to retain and build a similar style entertaining area at my house. Just weighing up options on a rectangular retaining verses rounded, kind of feel like rectangle suits my house and and area better.

EricL

Hello @sideshowbob

Please keep us updated with your progress, we look forward to seeing the start of your own entertaining area.

Eric

Gerber

@sideshowbob there are some awesome projects on here that I got inspiration from… couple of links below for you.

https://www.workshop.bunnings.com.au/discussion/245774/paved-firepit-area-with-built-in-seating

https://www.workshop.bunnings.com.au/discussion/298354/diy-concrete-bench-seat

Gerber

Made a bit more progress over the last couple of weekends while waiting on the renderer... which has now become an August problem.

Got the bitumen on the back of the wall. The render is coming down another brick course, so I stopped just below that level.

After letting it cure for a week, I ran a double layer of builder's plastic behind the wall as an extra moisture barrier, can't be too safe.

Then I put together a nice drainage sausage 🌭. 65mm socked ag pipe surrounded by 10mm drainage aggregate and wrapped up in geotextile fabric. Should give any water a clear path out while keeping the rubbish and fines from clogging things up down the track.

I've since started the slow and painful process of backfilling behind the wall with more 10mm aggregate on top of the sausage, and using the excess dirt from the excavation to fill in the spots where we got a bit enthusiastic with the digging initially.

A few progress pics below. Still plenty to do, but it's getting there!

Gerber

Ohh... and also got around to hacking all the weeds down finally... making it look a lot nicer outside.

I cannot wait to get the gardens in and some nice turf down!

EricL

Hello @Gerber

Thank you so much for that update. It's starting to come together; I see the formwork has come off the sides and the fire pit is in place! I'm sure I'm not the only one looking forward to your next progress report.

Eric

Gerber

@EricL yip, it was a nice evening on Friday night, so thought we should have some mates around and try the area out even in its half building site state!

Those smokeless fire pits are awesome, just really need to load it right up with decent wood to warm the whole area up.

graham_smoothey

@Gerber this is going to be awesome! (following along as well now!)

Did you fill the whole bench seat section area with concrete, or did you create a supported slab with timber?

Gerber

@graham_smoothey Thanks!!

Yeah, for the bench seat we poured a 150mm slab with reo through it and tied it into both walls.

I did think about building some formwork out of ply and 2x4s, but with the seat running between two curved walls made from straight Bessers, it was going to be a proper pain in the bum to make it all work.

Ended up using a waste product from where I work instead. It's closed cell polyurethane high denisty foam, varies about 50–80mm thick.

I cut it into 250mm strips, stood them on their side and jammed them into the gap. Because it has a bit of flex, it followed the curve nicely and filled the entire void underneath.

Being closed cell, it won't soak up water or become a moisture trap, and the only thing that really kills it is UV. Once it's buried in there it'll probably outlive me. 😅

Saved me a heap of mucking around compared to trying to build curved timber formwork.

PS: sorry forgot to take pics, did this after midnight the night before a 6am pour.

Gerber

Update... Render is done! Next up.. paint, pergola, back filling, garden and tiles. The next month is gonna be a busy one for me!

MitchellMc

That's going to look stunning @Gerber! Many thanks for the update.

Mitchell