Retaining Walls in Hendersonville & Middle Tennessee
A retaining wall is a structure holding back a load. That is easy to forget when you are looking at one, because most residential walls are short and look like landscaping. But the soil behind a four-foot wall weighs several tons per running foot, and when that soil is saturated Middle Tennessee clay, it weighs considerably more and pushes considerably harder.
That is why walls in this area fail the way they do. It is almost never the block. It is water behind the wall with nowhere to go, pushing on a structure that was built to hold soil and not built to hold soil plus a column of standing water.
Dunnebacke Constructors builds and repairs retaining walls across Hendersonville, Gallatin, Goodlettsville, and Middle Tennessee. Drainage is our core business, and a retaining wall is fundamentally a drainage problem wearing a masonry costume — which is why we build them with drain stone, fabric, and a drain line that actually discharges somewhere, every time, including on the short ones.
Our Retaining Wall Services
Segmental Block Walls
Engineered modular block walls built on a compacted aggregate base, with the setback, backfill, and drain stone the system actually specifies — not stacked on dirt and hoped for.
Boulder & Stone Walls
Natural stone and boulder walls that suit rural and wooded Middle Tennessee properties. Set on a prepared base with the same drainage detail as any other wall.
Riprap Slope Armoring
Sometimes the right answer is not a wall at all. Armoring a slope with riprap over geotextile fabric handles grade change and erosion at a fraction of wall cost where the site allows it.
Base Prep & Excavation
The part under the ground that decides whether the wall holds. Excavation to depth, a compacted aggregate leveling pad, and a buried first course — all of it invisible, all of it load-bearing.
Wall Drainage
Drain stone behind the wall, geotextile separating it from the soil, and a perforated drain line with somewhere to actually discharge. This is the single most skipped detail in residential wall construction.
Failed Wall Repair
Leaning, bulging, cracked, or separating walls assessed honestly — including telling you when a wall is past repair and rebuilding is the cheaper long-run answer.
Why Retaining Walls Fail in Tennessee
No Drainage Behind the Wall
The overwhelming cause. Soil behind a wall holds water. As that water accumulates with nowhere to escape, it exerts hydrostatic pressure directly on the back of the wall — pressure that can exceed the load of the soil itself. A wall designed for soil load and then subjected to soil load plus water load is overloaded, and it will lean, bulge, or slide. The fix is not a stronger wall. The fix is clean drain stone behind it, geotextile fabric separating that stone from the soil so it does not silt up, and a perforated drain line with a real outlet.
No Compacted Base
A wall built directly on native soil settles, and it settles unevenly. The base has to be excavated below grade, and a compacted aggregate leveling pad installed, with the first course of block buried below finished grade. All of that is invisible in the finished product, which is precisely why it is the part that gets cut when somebody is bidding a wall cheap.
Undersized for the Load
Wall height, the slope above the wall, and any surcharge load behind it — a driveway, a parking area, a structure — all determine what the wall has to be. A wall with a driveway sitting six feet behind it is carrying a very different load than the same wall with lawn behind it, and it is not the same wall. In Tennessee jurisdictions walls above roughly four feet commonly require engineering, and walls with significant surcharge can require it below that height. Confirm with your local codes department; where a wall needs a stamped design, we build to the engineer’s drawings.
Backfilled With the Wrong Material
Backfilling a wall with the clay that came out of the excavation puts the least permeable material available directly behind the structure. Clay holds water against the wall and expands when it is saturated. Drain stone behind the wall, transitioning to native soil further back, is what lets water move down and out instead of accumulating.
Geogrid Omitted Where It Was Required
Taller segmental walls and walls with surcharge use geogrid — layers of reinforcement extending back into the retained soil at specified intervals, turning the soil mass and the wall into a single reinforced block. Where a design calls for geogrid and it is left out, the wall is structurally a different and weaker thing than what was specified, and there is no way to see that once it is backfilled.
Signs Your Wall Is Failing
- Leaning outward at the top — the classic hydrostatic pressure signature
- Bulging in the middle of a run while the ends stay put
- Separation of vertical joints, or blocks sliding out of plane with their neighbors
- Cracking in poured or mortared walls, particularly stepped cracking
- Water seeping through the wall face or standing at the base after rain — water is finding its own way out, which means there is no designed path
- Soil sinking behind the wall, or a gap opening between the wall and the retained material
- The top course moving or courses no longer sitting flat relative to one another
Walls do not stabilize on their own once they begin to move. The load that started the movement is still there and the geometry is now worse. A wall caught early can sometimes be addressed by correcting drainage and rebuilding the affected section; a wall left to keep going usually has to come down entirely.
Our Process
Free On-Site Assessment
We look at the grade change, what is above and behind the wall line, where water currently moves through the area, and where a wall drain could realistically discharge. On repair calls we assess what actually caused the failure — fixing a wall without fixing the cause buys you a few seasons.
Design, Engineering Referral, and Estimate
You get a specific written price covering excavation, base, drainage, backfill, and restoration as separate line items so you can see what is included. Where the height or surcharge calls for a stamped design, we tell you and work from the engineer’s drawings.
Excavate and Build the Base
Excavation below grade, a compacted aggregate leveling pad, and a buried first course. This is the part nobody sees and the part that decides whether the wall is still straight in fifteen years.
Build, Drain, Backfill, Restore
Courses set with proper setback, drain stone and geotextile behind the wall, perforated drain line to a real outlet, geogrid where the design calls for it, then backfill, grade, seed and straw. Owner Austyn Dunnebacke is on every job.
Owner on every job. Austyn Dunnebacke personally assesses and works every project. You are not dealing with a salesperson and a crew you have never met — the same person who looks at the work is the one who does it.
How Much Does a Retaining Wall Cost?
Pricing on this kind of work is job dependent. Every property is different — the price comes down to the wall type, height, access, and the base and drainage work behind and under it — so we don't publish price ranges that may not fit your job.
We're happy to give a free quote to anyone interested. Call (615) 887-1194 or request a free estimate — we'll come look at the property, tell you what's going on, and give you a specific price before any work begins. No obligation.
Do You Actually Need a Wall?
Worth asking before you spend the money. A retaining wall is the right answer when you need to hold a grade change in a short horizontal distance — usable flat ground on both sides, a driveway cut, a foundation you have to build up to.
When the site has room, a graded slope armored with riprap over geotextile fabric, or a properly shaped and seeded slope, handles the same grade change for considerably less money and has no structural failure mode. We build walls when a wall is what the site needs. We will tell you when the slope is the better answer — which is not the answer that makes us the most money on the job, and is usually the right one.
Areas We Serve
We work throughout Middle Tennessee, with quick response times across Sumner, Davidson, Robertson, Wilson, Montgomery, and Williamson counties.