Concrete retaining walls in Lomita CA - a wall that drains and holds your slope

A poured cantilever wall uses steel-reinforced concrete to hold soil back by bending, with the upright stem, the base and the steel acting as one piece, while a stacked block wall is made of manufactured units, dry stacked without mortar, that hold soil mainly by their own weight. The poured wall uses far less concrete than a wall built on mass alone, because soil resting on the heel, the back part of its base, helps hold it down. There's also a middle road, a concrete block wall with steel set upright in the block cores and a poured footing that keeps it from tipping or sliding.

Usually water, since most retaining wall failures are drainage failures. Water building up behind a wall can double or triple the sideways load on it, so every wall needs a stone drain zone behind it, weep holes or a perforated pipe at the base, and filter fabric, and you can look for all three in each bid you get. Weep holes, small openings through the lower part of the wall, can clog, so they back up the main drain rather than replace it.

A concrete retaining wall in the Los Angeles area usually costs about $12 to $35 per square foot of wall, installed, with materials, labor and site prep. That's the going rate around here, not our price, and since it's figured on the wall's square footage, height counts as much as length. For a figure on your own wall, I'll come out, look at it and give you a written estimate.

Los Angeles County Building and Safety issues the permits that cover retaining walls, and that's where Lomita property owners arrange plan check, permits and inspections. The city's own review list names landscaping and hardscape but not retaining walls, so ask the City of Lomita's Community and Economic Development Department at 310-325-7110, extension 122, what your wall needs. Some applications go to other city or county departments before the city approves them, and only after that approval does the owner go to the county. At the estimate I go over which office your wall involves and who handles each step, and if a step falls to you, I walk you through it.

Yes, if the wall needs a permit of any kind, because California requires a license for that work even when the whole job comes in under $1,000. The same goes when someone without a license hires workers to do it. The state's concrete contractor license covers forming, pouring, placing, finishing and installing concrete, and we're fully licensed and insured.

Call 8-1-1, the Call Before You Dig line, and the underground utilities get marked before the crew starts excavating. A wall footing goes deeper than most yard work, so it's worth the call even if you're sure nothing runs through that part of the yard.