Soil slumping onto your patio, or a yard too steep to use? We build walls that hold the ground and drain the way they should.
Retaining wall construction in Escondido means building a wall that holds a bank of soil in place, so a sloped yard becomes level ground you can use and the hill stops creeping onto your patio or driveway.
Most people call me when a bank is slumping onto a patio, a garden bed keeps washing into the driveway, or half the backyard is too steep to use. The price mostly moves with the wall's height and length, the kind of wall, how much digging and hauling it takes to get in there, and what you want on the high side, since a driveway or fence up top asks more of a wall than a flower bed does. The schedule turns on whether your wall needs a permit or engineering before we dig, which I sort out with you early, and once I've walked the slope with you I put your own figure in a written estimate.
I come out to look at every job myself, so the person who sizes up your slope and writes your estimate is the same one on site running our crew while the wall goes up. Nothing gets lost between what we talked about and what gets built.
I spent years as another mason's right hand, running their jobs, before starting out on my own in 2020. I'm still on the tools most days, and I'd rather build your wall the careful way than leave you a problem down the road.
We're licensed and insured, so you're not carrying that risk while our crew is digging and setting block in your yard. Ready to talk about your slope? Call (760) 546-4075 or send the form, and tell me what you'd like up top.
Send the form or call (760) 546-4075, and we'll get back to you within one business day. I'll come out for a free on-site estimate with no obligation, walk the slope with you and put the estimate in writing, so it helps to have the wall's rough length and height ready, plus a few photos of the slope and whatever sits above it.
The Escondido Building Division requires a permit for a retaining wall unless it's lower than four feet including the footing and carries no surcharge, which is any load sitting above it. If you're not sure where your wall lands, call the division at (760) 839-4647 and ask about yours. When it needs a permit, we handle the application with the city and meet the inspector, who checks the wall at several stages of the build, so we keep the permit and plans on site for every visit.
Other city rules shape the design and the calendar too. Escondido requires a grading permit when a slope is altered, which plenty of wall jobs do, and the city says a soils report from a licensed engineer may be required, so we bring both up early because either one can add time before we dig. The city also wants the water from behind the wall controlled on your own property, so I plan the drain to empty on your lot and not onto your neighbor's. We're based in Escondido and build walls across the cities around it, from Temecula down to Chula Vista and plenty of places beyond them, and a lot of what we see is sloped backyards that owners finally want to use.
Installing a poured concrete retaining wall in Escondido usually costs about $47 to $51 per square foot, with labor, excavation and site prep included. That figure leaves out tearing out an old wall, stamped or multi-colored concrete, curved walls, walls taller than 3 feet and yards with challenging soil, so any of those add to it. I put your own number in a written estimate after walking the job with you.
Usually, yes. One concrete masonry industry manual says segmental block walls typically carry a 25 to 40 percent cost advantage over conventional cast-in-place concrete walls. That's a national comparison and not an Escondido price, so it's worth having both priced for your slope before you choose.
Decide what goes up top before the wall is designed, because the city's standard wall designs allow no driveway, parking, fence, building foundation or other load on the upper level within a distance equal to the wall's height. If you want any of those closer, the wall falls outside the city's tables and needs a design made for your site, which changes the work and the price.
A block wall can hold up well in an earthquake when it's designed for one. The same industry manual reports that after earthquakes, segmental walls have proved more robust than conventional walls when they were properly designed for seismic loads. So the fair question to ask about any wall's plans is whether they account for earthquake loads.
Building the wall is often the quicker part, and the planning around it takes longer. The industry manual says an experienced crew of three or four typically puts up 300 to 500 square feet of block wall a day. Before that, a permit, a grading permit or a soils report can add time, so I'll tell you what to expect once I've seen your slope.
