Drystack Stone Retaining Wall Installation – Lincoln, MA

At this home in Lincoln, MA a new deck addition warranted the need for a new drystack stone retaining wall.   The goals are to retain the hillside and provide more flat space beneath the deck, while creating a nice visual feature and preventing washout.

 

We choose a local fiedstone that will be dry laid to build the retaining wall.  A drystack stone wall is built without mortar.  The weight of the stones hold everything together and the wall remains porous to water and flexible should any movement occur.  Drystack stone walls have a very nice traditional appearance and will last a long time.

The wall stone is sourced in bulk from a local stoneyard.  This particular stone is screened out of dirt fill.  A supply yard will take dirt that customers dump , separate the loam and rocks, and then resell the materials.  This is a lower cost stone that has not been sorted for size or color, however, we spend some time each day at the yard picking out stones that we like.  The result is a nice variety of stone that adds to the traditional appeal.

 

The stone retaining wall is faced on the front with nicer stones we’ve picked out, and then backfilled with more stone and gravel.   A heavy landscape fabric goes behind all of this to keep dirt and plant growth from infiltrating the wall.

The wall grows day by day.  As we get towards the top we stretch a line so that we can aim for a nice level cap.  At the stoneyard we are able to find various corner stones.  Most of the corner stones aren’t fieldstones, but some sort of quarried stones that made it into the bulk pile.  You’ll notice some cobble stones, a bluestone piece, and other cut granite.  These produce a nice clean corner and we think the variety looks nice.

 

The stone wall gets capped and completed.  We’ll be back in the spring to do more stone walls around the property and to further improve the area under the deck.