My retaining wall is made of two parallel "walls". One is made of 16x8x12 Concrete Masonry Units and the other will be 8x4x2 bricks. The CMUs are to have mass to hold the hill, while 8x4x2 are to be pretty. There is no nice foundation, so both are sitting on ground and things will eventually move. Here is a visual:
I want to make sure that when 16x8x12 start moving, they will not make 8x4x2 bricks fall off.
The 8x4x2 is not built yet, the foundation is not made because I am doing it myself and it is very rocky. The walls are retaining a hill. The 16x8x12 bricks are not mortared. The same bricks (16x8x12) held up the hill for >= 10 years, but ended up leaning and turning, resulting in non flat wall. The wall itself is 2 walls meeting at a corner, each side being 288" (18 of 16x8x12).
The options thus far are:
- Do nothing, and hope for best
- Cement 8x4x2 bricks together
- Cement 8x4x2 bricks together, and to the 16x8x12 wall
- Put steel rods into 8x4x2 and 16x8x12 walls and bind the rods together
- Other?
References:
- 16x8x12 CMUs – Ugly
- 8x4x2 Bricks – Nicer
Best Answer
To tie two rows of bricks together you normally use to use brick (or cavity) ties, so these might be useful to tie the pretty bricks to the inner wall.
To help prevent the whole wall moving you need to basically "nail" the wall to the ground behind. This site has some examples. They don't look terribly pretty (though they are for large expanses), but if you want to stop the wall moving and collapsing it's what you need to use. You might be able to use something like this on the inner wall and then build the outer wall afterwards. At this point I'd probably consult an expert.