Corner Wall Story

Repair of dry stone retaining wall in Ashfield, MA

When a waller is not experienced for certain projects this is what can happen. Unfortunately This wall is not very old. Less than 10 years.

The photos below illustrate the collapse and you see how narrow the wall was compared to its height, which is one of the big reasons it failed.

Deconstruction is a tricky thing, and so I called for back up on this one. My friends at Twin Pine Landscaping helped get the wall down safely and kept all the material well organized for reconstruction. Most of the base stone we were able to retrieve from an old stone pile on the property. Most likely from when the pastures on the property were cleared many years ago. The pile of stone on the right is all usable wall stone. I'm estimating there to be 50 to 60 tons of stone.

Then we had to set up our lines to keep things straight, set the base stones and prepare to set the "through stones." These are stones that are long enough to reach from the face of the wall all the way to the back to tie the wall together.

The wall is six feet wide at the base. It will remain a minimum of five feet until it reaches the halfway mark, at that point we will narrow it to four feet.

As you can see the stone is laid very tightly. There will be no loose or crushed stone in the wall itself. It creates a very weak wall.

With careful planning and a good foundation established, the wall can be completed, estimated stone for this wall is 170,000 lbs.