Building Your Dream Apartment

Retaining Walls For Roadside Properties: 3 Reasons To Choose Concrete Sleepers

19 July 2022

Julian Caldwell

Constructing residential or commercial property at the side of a busy road or highway brings a number of engineering and land management challenges to the table. If the roadside construction site is situated on a steep slope or is sited on unstable ground, it may be necessary to build retaining walls to prevent dangerous landslips. 

Roadside retaining walls can be constructed using a number of different materials and techniques, but retaining walls made from concrete sleepers are widely considered the gold standard. Here are three reasons to choose concrete sleeper retaining walls to protect and secure roadside properties:

Massive Load-Bearing Strength

Concrete sleeper retaining walls are made from large slabs (or 'sleepers') of precast concrete. These slabs are stacked on top of one another and held in place by steel posts. In many cases, the slabs themselves also contained reinforced steel bars, adding to their load-bearing strength.

This combination of configuration and materials makes concrete sleeper retaining walls incredibly strong.  They have significantly more lateral load-bearing strength than timber or natural stone retaining walls and compare favourably with dry-stacked concrete walls.

A concrete sleeper retaining wall constructed by a high-quality retaining wall contractor has the strength to hold thousands of tons of unstable earth in place. This is especially useful if the earth on your construction site is rich in heavy, clay soils. 

This strength also allows concrete sleeper retaining walls to be built at greater heights than other retaining wall types. This is especially useful for roadside construction projects — higher retaining walls will block out more traffic noise, and provide effective protection against vehicle collisions.

Durable And Low Maintenance

The simple, robust construction of a concrete sleeper retaining wall is very durable and long-lasting, and these walls require minimal maintenance over their long lifespans. The steel posts are usually the weakest link due to corrosion damage, but corrosion can be effectively mitigated by using galvanized steel.

Concrete sleeper retaining walls are also immune to rot and termite damage, which can cause catastrophic damage to poorly maintained timber retaining walls. 

Cost Effective

Concrete sleeper retaining walls are constructed using pre-fabricated sleepers and posts, which are generally cheaper to purchase than custom-cast concrete blocks or natural stone blocks. The addition of reinforcing posts means they don't require expensive concrete footings. 

Installing a concrete sleeper retaining wall also requires less ground preparation and excavation work than most other retaining wall types, and the prefabricated components can be assembled relatively quickly with suitable heavy lifting equipment. This will help to minimise labour costs and site downtime.

Because of these factors, concrete sleeping walls are competitively priced compared to many other wall types. They are especially economical when materials for long retaining walls are purchased in bulk. This is ideal for large roadside construction sites, which often require retaining walls that are several miles long.

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