Natural Stone Retaining Walls

Natural stone retaining walls are usually dry stacked and made from natural stones that will enhance any landscaping project. Stone retaining walls work beautifully in Denver landscapes because they compliment Colorado’s natural surroundings and beauty. They are among the most common retaining walls we construct.

Natural stone allows water to flow in around and through the retaining wall. This makes natural stones the perfect choice when landscape designs involve different elevations, which is a common occurrence in Denver. Natural stone retaining walls are also a perfect choice for projects that call for Green construction methods.

 About the Stones Used in Natural Stone Retaining Walls

• The natural stones used in retaining walls are usually quarried stones like granite and different kinds of limestone. These stones offer many color, size and texture choices to meet the needs of any project.
• Granite is the most popular stone we use for large retaining walls; it’s heavier than limestone and this is always important whenever a retaining wall must retain an extremely heavy load which is always the case in Denver and the surrounding areas where the land really starts going up and down.
• Limestone is not as heavy as Granite and it’s lighter in color. Chilton limestone has beautiful blue and red tints, and Fond du lac is almost white in color so as you can see there’s a lot of colors to choose from, and limestone is used quite a bit because it’s less expensive than granite which makes it very popular with our customers.
• Fieldstone is very popular stone to use for retaining walls. It is available in many different sizes and the stone size is determined by the height of the retaining wall.

Poured Concrete Retaining Walls

This type of retaining wall is extremely versatile because they are created using lumber forms that can be bent and built in any height, width and shape imaginable. Poured concrete retaining walls can be covered with any stone veneer you choose after the concrete is formed and poured.

Alpine Companies specialty is formed and poured new footings and concrete retaining walls. These are a few of the walls that have been used in the past, present and future.

Gravity walls

Depend on their mass {Which is the material used to build the wall} to resist pressure from behind and may have a ‘batter’ or stack back design, to improve stability by leaning back toward the retained soil. For smaller landscaping walls, they are often made from stone, flagstone, pavestone, Allen Block, Basalite and many more. Dry-stacked gravity walls handle Colorado’s harsh freeze thaw weather nicely, and do not require a concrete poured footing to build off of. Alpine Companies builds larger gravity walls that do require a poured concrete footing which requires us to mobilize in our bobcats, skid steers and backhoe’s in to complete proper professional excavation to remove the soil as needed and pour the new concrete footing.

Cantilevered retaining walls

Are designed and constructed from an internal stem of steel-reinforced, cast-in-place concrete or mortared masonry. These walls cantilever loads act as a beam to a large, structural footing, converting horizontal pressures from behind the wall to vertical pressures on the ground below. Sometimes cantilevered walls are buttressed on the front, or include a counterfort on the back, to improve their strength resisting high loads. Buttresses or wing walls are designed to set at the right angles to the main trend of the wall. These walls require rigid concrete footings below seasonal frost depth. This type of wall uses much less material than a traditional gravity wall. The best advantage Alpine Companies has on cantilevered walls is, Alpine Companies has their own concrete pumps, does not sub contract out the work to other contractors, everything is done in house with trained employees.

Sheet piling

Sheet pile retaining walls are usually used in soft soils and tight spaces. Sheet pile walls can be made out of steel, vinyl or wood planks which are designed at the proper engineering load calculation to be driven into the ground manually. The material is typically driven around 30-60% depth per engineer design, but this may be altered per soil conditions and landscaping. Another example of these types of retaining walls are, wood style that require us having to use {Dead Men} acting as soil anchors behind the new wood retaining wall.

Anchored retaining wall

Can be constructed in almost any manner properly designed by a structural engineer. These types of walls receive additional strength using cables or other stay in place anchors that will be anchored in the rock or soil behind it. Usually driven into the material with boring, anchors are then expanded at the end of the cable, either by mechanical means or often by injecting concrete grout which expands to form a bulb in the soil. Once the anchors are installed at the proper depth, Alpine then pumps the area where the anchor meet the soil which locks the anchoring system, cable or Williams bar in place.

Concrete Block Retaining Walls

Because concrete block retaining walls are man-made, you’ll have many different patterns, colors and sizes to choose from. Concrete retaining walls are made from concrete so they’re less expensive choices for retaining walls than limestone or granite.

Pavers, Paverstone Retaining Walls

This type of retaining wall is made from interlocking stones and is versatile, durable and beautiful. The stones available come in an endless selection of patterns and colors, as well as custom colors for larger orders.

Mortared Stone Retaining Walls

This is one of the most expensive types of retaining walls. Unlike dry stack natural stone retaining walls, mortar is used for this traditional type of retaining wall, allowing for taller and striking creations. The stone used is typically a quarried natural stone such as granite or limestone.