Retaining Walls With Real Footing

Block, boulder and timber walls built to hold Tullahoma slopes.

A retaining wall in Tullahoma, TN fails when the design ignores the load behind it or the drainage in front of it. Frost depth, the weight of saturated clay backfill, and water pressure are all real forces on a Tullahoma wall, and the difference between a wall that holds for 40 years and one that bulges in 5 is the engineering, not the rock on the face. S & S Excavation & Hauling builds Tullahoma retaining walls as engineered structures.

Segmental block (Allan Block, Versa-Lok, Keystone) is the most common residential system at the lower end. Natural stone runs higher because of the labor. Poured-concrete walls land in the middle for residential heights and higher for structural commercial walls.

Heights below 4 feet are typically a gravity wall, segmental block or boulders bedded on a compacted base, drained behind, no engineered reinforcement required by most Tullahoma jurisdictions. Heights above 4 feet need geogrid reinforcement layers embedded in the backfill, and walls above 6 feet usually need a stamped engineering design. S & S Excavation & Hauling pulls the permit and works with a TN-licensed engineer when the height calls for it.

Tennessee frost depth on the Highland Rim is shallow, typically 6 to 12 inches, but it is real, and a wall whose footing sits in the frost zone heaves and cracks. We bed every Tullahoma segmental block wall on a 6 to 8 inch compacted crushed-stone base set below frost, and a poured-concrete wall on a 12-inch minimum footing below frost. Skipping the depth to save excavation cost is the most common reason a wall fails in winter.

Drainage behind a Tullahoma retaining wall is the part that nobody sees and the part that matters most. Saturated clay backfill weighs over 120 pounds per cubic foot and pushes against the wall at hydrostatic pressure that no segmental system was designed for. We install a perforated drain pipe at the base of the wall in a clean-stone envelope wrapped in geotextile, daylighted or tied to the lot drainage, and use a free-draining gravel zone behind the wall instead of native clay where it matters.

Set-back (batter) on segmental block walls is engineered, not eyeballed. Each block system has a specified per-course set-back that determines the wall geometry and the angle at which the gravity load resists the soil pressure. We follow the manufacturer spec on every Tullahoma install, because a wall built plumb when the spec calls for batter is a wall designed to fail.

Natural stone walls in Tullahoma (limestone, sandstone, fieldstone from local quarries) are the most labor-intensive and the longest-lived when built right. Dry-stacked stone needs the same compacted base, the same drainage system behind the wall, and the same batter as a block wall, plus a stone-laying eye that takes years to develop. The difference shows up in 30 years when the wall still looks new.

Poured-concrete walls are the right call for structural retaining in Tullahoma, including basement walls extending as retaining elements, walls above 6 feet, or commercial scopes. Form work to the engineered design, rebar per spec, vibration during pour, proper curing, and a drainage system at the back are all part of the build. We work from the engineer’s drawings and stamp the closeout package.

It is veteran-owned and owner-operated. S & S Excavation & Hauling has been building Tullahoma retaining walls for over a decade, segmental block, dry-stack stone, mortared stone, poured-concrete, and the owner is on every job. The walkthrough is honest, the scope is written, and the wall is warrantied. Most Tullahoma retaining wall failures we are called to replace skipped a drainage zone, a frost-depth footing, or the geogrid the height required. None of those are optional on a S & S Excavation & Hauling wall.