Terracing a sloped section

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boland

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#250669 21-May-2019 09:21

Part of our garden is on a slope, and I'm planning to make terraces using fence posts and retaining wall timber. Or is that overkill? Retaining wall timber is about $6 LM, so that adds up pretty quicklly.

I see blog posts where people just use random logs as the barriers.

Will add a swale at the top to improve water runoff, like this:

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PolicyGuy

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#2242100 21-May-2019 09:54

A retaining wall over a specified height - depending on where you live, different councils have different rules from 900mm to 1200mm - requires a consent and an engineering plan.
Go to your local council office and ask to talk to the duty planner. It's free and they are usually very helpful.

neb

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#2242477 21-May-2019 17:03

boland:
There are driveways above and next to the section. So I should get advise? What type of person should I consult?

In that case you'll definitely need engineering advice and consent. As my previous post suggests, getting advice from a contractor will be a lot cheaper than an engineer. If it's consented work you'll need an engineering report eventually, but you can get at least the preliminaries done with cheaper input. You can also ask them how to structure the work to minimise the headaches you'll have dealing with the council, as with a good accountant they should be able to save you more money than they charge in fees/time.

Also, download and read through your local council's publications on what needs to be consented and what the requirements are for this type of work before you begin, to get an idea of what's involved.