Concrete Retaining wall spalling - Seeking Solutions

11 years ago

last modified: 11 years ago

I live in a hilly area and behind my backyard is a 20' concrete retaining wall. The top of it is "spalling" where in the rebar inside of it has started to rust and deform and is sticking out in some places, but for two dozen feet along the top of this wall there are cracks due to this spalling/rebar rusting and water is getting in and making it worse. When it rains you can see the top of the wall is retaining water, it's not just wet.

I had a professional concrete guy out a while back (the kind that does overpasses, job was way too small for him) and he said basically there was an area along the back that was separating the gutter from the back of the wall and to seal that up (I did) and I should probably chip off all of the spalling concrete, treat the rebar, then put new concrete on and put a metal cap over that to keep it from getting worse. He also said don't use vapor barrier because concrete needs to breathe.

So basically following concrete guy's plan (remove top concrete, treat rebar, metal cap) is going to be over $1000+, the guy I can get to do it I'm iffy on, and I've got other projects I'm also working on. So what I'm wondering is if there might be a cheaper way to get this done before I go and spend the 1k.

Any suggestions on a cheaper way to handle this? A way to mitigate it (temp or perm)? What if I just put the cap on there, but left the rebar alone?

Featured Answer

tim45z10

11 years ago

Any idea how many yards of concrete? I have to wonder if the part above the crack was poured at the very end.

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Comments (8)

Vith
11 years ago
If you go cheap on this, you may end up having to fix the whole wall instead of just the top. Clean up the broken parts and repair it. Possibly instead of a flat metal cap, have the top be of gable style so water runs off it and maybe leave it as that or put a metal cap on the top of that.
PRO
Windows on Washington Ltd
11 years ago
Where is all the water coming from? Regardless of what you do to the wall, if there is a bunch of hydro-static pressure, it will push anything off and make it fail.
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kudzu9
11 years ago
last modified: 11 years ago
$1000 to get this properly fixed sounds very cheap to me. If you can actually get it done correctly, jump on that deal.
PRO
ACCENT MASONRY LLC
11 years ago
More photos would help, determine cause of damage fix if need be, water proof the top with aquafin waterproofing, then lay a stone capstone on top of the concrete wall
elliots11
Original Author
11 years ago
I think the advice I've received is sound, and I need to act on it. I kind of wonder how much time I have to do that before it begins to damage the rest of the wall.

Here's some better pics - spalling with a little rebar sticking out:

Rebar was sticking out here, but I put spray rubber sealant over it:

Rubber sealant here, too. You can see the long cracking that runs for probably 20 or more feet along that wall. So there's likely more rust action occurring underneath.
kudzu9
11 years ago
Usually rebar starts to rust and expand most when it is exposed. It's interesting that the damage seems to be starting from the inside. When I look at the top of that wall, it appears that there are a lot of air bubbles that got entrained in the pour and possibly no vibrator was used to drive them out. This could be the cause of easy moisture migration and internal rusting. Hopefully this will not be a problem with lower sections of the wall. I don't think you need to get this fixed tomorrow, but you do need to get if fixed soon to stop continuing internal damage, cracking, and spalling.
dirt_farmer
11 years ago
Can you just stucco the entire retaining wall to hide the spalling ?