We've started doing a bit of landscaping to the back garden. There are things that need doing for the extension like drainage, new man holes a new retaining wall and steps for the patio so I've been trying to make a start on them.
Although the original house was built in the 1940's by a top quality building firm, a firm that came later and did some landscaping were not of the same calibre.
All the walls holding up the patio are crumbing away, one manhole was built in the middle of a wall and the garden wall that runs about 8m down out garden was only built the width of one brick on footings that aren't much wider.
Now we've removed a huge invasive shrub we've discovered that this wall is not very stable. It's about 7ft high and you can make it wobble by pushing it with one finger. I doubt it'll be up much longer if there's a storm
I did consider differnt ways of firming it up. We could add concrete pads and then build up buttresses at intervals to support the wall, or maybe drive steels down into the ground and fix the wall to that, we could even replace it with a wooden fence. But that would be half measures really so after a bit of head scratching we've decided to take it down and re build it properly. I like having a wall rather than a fence there as it feel more permanent and provides a lot of privacy for the patio.
The good news is that I spoke to the neighbour and he's agreed to go halves on it if we make his side nice as well - his side currently looks awful, it's not even pointed up and he says it's bothered him for years.
It's a major extra cost, there is over 2000 bricks to purchase let alone the labour to lay them, plus the footings and the time loading the materials out. It's one we hadn't budgeted for and it only really takes us back to where we started with this wall but at least if we do it right it should never need replacing again and provide years of privacy.
What would you do in our situation?
