Toronto retaining wall repair, drained and rebuilt
A wall that leans is telling you water is trapped behind it. Rebuilding the face without fixing what is behind gets you the same lean in three years, so the drainage is the job and the blocks are the easy part.
Soil behind a wall is heavy. Saturated soil behind a wall is much heavier, and in Toronto it also freezes and expands.
If there is no clear stone behind the blocks and no way for water to leave at the base, every wet autumn loads the wall a little more and every winter pushes it forward. That is why a wall built without drainage leans within a decade regardless of how well the blocks were laid.
The rebuild puts clear stone the full height behind the face, wraps it so fines cannot migrate in, and gives water somewhere to go. See how a wall rebuilding is staged, what a leaning wall is measured against, and how pooling water behind a wall is redirected.
Retaining Walls
How It Runs
Four steps to a wall that stays put
Measure the lean
A plumb line on the face tells us how far it has moved and whether the base course has slid or the top has rotated.
Take down and save
Blocks come off in courses and are cleaned, because reusing them is most of the saving on a rebuild.
Drain and backfill
Clear stone behind the full height, separated from the soil, with an outlet at the base so water leaves rather than sits.
Rebuild and cap
Courses rebuilt to line with the correct setback per course, then caps reset and adhered so the top stops shifting.
Water First
Rebuild the face alone and the lean comes back
Every page under this hub comes back to what is behind the wall rather than what is in front of it. Saturated soil pushes, and a face rebuilt against soil that still holds water leans again within a few years.
So drainage stone goes behind the blocks and the base gets a proper footing, which is most of the labour and almost none of what you end up seeing. Above about a metre the work needs a drawing, and we ask for it rather than assume. A wall that moved once and then stopped may need nothing at all.
A small consistent setback is by design. A lean that has changed since last year, or a bulge in the middle, is the wall telling you it is still moving.
No. The soil behind has already moved into the space. It has to come apart, the fill has to be corrected, and it goes back up.
Rules vary by municipality and most set the threshold around a metre. Above that we ask for a drawing rather than guessing, and we will tell you when.
Usually the adhesive was skipped or the top course moved under them. Resetting the caps alone is only worth it if the courses below are still true.
Roughly $60 to $110 per face foot depending on height, access and whether the blocks can be reused. Armour stone needs equipment and prices differently.
Yes where the wall is long and only part has moved, provided we can tie the new section into the old without leaving a vertical joint.
